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A research team found that a subset of artificial heart patients can regenerate heart muscle, which may open the door to new ways to treat and perhaps someday cure heart failure. There is no cure for heart failure, though medications can slow its progression. The only treatment for advanced heart failure, other than a transplant, is pump replacement through an artificial heart, called a left ventricular assist device. Said Hesham Sadek, MD, Ph.D., "When a heart muscle is injured, it doesn't grow back. We have nothing to reverse heart muscle loss." Sadek led a collaboration between international experts to investigate...

I told you here about Pfizer’s abstract of its Interim Report 5, showing at least 23-40% higher risk of some heart-related conditions in the vaccinated, but that the MHRA, the U.K. medicines regulator, was withholding publication of the full report. As I said at the time : “In summary, if, as I suspect, MHRA is worried by the results in Pfizer’s ‘Interim Report 5’ then no wonder it is sitting on it.” Well, MHRA is still sitting on the report but I’ve managed to obtain a copy. It looks like I was right – the detailed results in the full...

All patients who have had a heart attack are typically treated using beta blockers. According to a study conducted earlier in 2024, this drug is unlikely to be needed for those heart patients who have normal pumping ability. Now a sub-study shows that there is also a risk that these patients will become depressed by the treatment. Beta blockers are drugs that block the effects of adrenaline on the heart and have been used for decades as a basic treatment for all heart attack patients. In recent years, their importance has started to be questioned as new, successful treatments have...

Researchers have identified a new target to treat atherosclerosis, a condition where plaque clogs arteries and causes major cardiac issues, including stroke and heart attack. In a study, the team identified an inflammation-reducing molecule—called itaconate (ITA)—that could be the foundation of a new approach to treat such a common and deadly disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women and people of most racial and ethnic groups, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medications help but don't completely protect patients from cardiovascular risk. So, doctors also recommend lifestyle changes, such as a...

Trendy weight-loss drugs making headlines for shrinking waistlines may also be shrinking the human heart and other muscles, according to a new University of Alberta study whose authors say should serve as a “cautionary tale” about possible long-term health effects of these drugs. “If people have been prescribed these drugs, then the benefits should likely far exceed the risks,” says Jason Dyck, lead author on the study, pediatrics professor in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and a member of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute. “However, the growing number of people who may be taking these drugs who...

People infected with the COVID-19 virus in 2020 may have double the risk for future heart attacks, strokes or premature death from any cause up to three years later – even if they never showed signs of severe illness, according to new research. The risk may be considerably higher in people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic. The findings suggest that being hospitalized for COVID-19 in 2020 was a "coronary artery disease risk equivalent," conferring a higher risk for future heart attacks, strokes or death in people without a history of cardiovascular disease than the risk...

Doctors have used a new catheter-based approach to draw out resistant pockets of infection that settle in the heart, known as right-sided infective endocarditis, without surgery. Unless treated quickly, the walled-off infections can grow, severely damaging heart valves and potentially affecting other organs as well. In a recent study, over 90% of the participants had their infection cleared, and they had lower in-hospital mortality compared to those whose infections remained. The research is part of a Mayo Clinic-led study across 19 U.S. sites involving patients who were not good candidates for surgery and whose right-sided heart infections had not responded...

The levels of caffeine in your blood could affect the amount of body fat you carry, a factor that in turn could determine your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Those are the findings of a 2023 study that used genetic markers to establish a more definitive link between caffeine levels, BMI, and type 2 diabetes risk. The research team, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the University of Bristol in the UK, and Imperial College London in the UK, said calorie-free caffeinated drinks could be explored as a potential means of helping reduce body fat levels....

Environmental phenols are found in a wide range of common consumer products. They include preservatives in packaged foods, parabens in shampoos and bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic dishware, so humans have broad exposure to them. Some of these environmental phenols are known to have cardiac toxicities. Now, a study is revealing their adverse impact on the heart's electrical properties. Researchers used data from the Fernald Community Cohort, which includes nearly 10,000 people. One goal of the study was to identify any changes in EKG parameters. The heart is driven by electrical activity, so anything affecting its electrical properties can have...

A new intervention which keeps lungs regularly expanding when using a heart-lung machine during heart valve surgery might protect lung function and exercise capacity in adult patients after the operation, a clinical trial has found. The research could benefit similar patients globally undergoing cardiac surgery. The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to find out if keeping the lungs regularly expanding, known as low frequency ventilation (LFV), during heart-lung machine in patients undergoing heart valve surgery could be linked to better postoperative lung function and exercise ability. The study also wanted to find out the feasibility and safety of...

Story at a Glance: •There is a widespread belief that elevated cholesterol is the “cause” of cardiovascular disease. However, a large body of evidence shows that there is no association between the two and that lower cholesterol significantly increases one’s risk of death. •An alternative model (which the medical industry buried) proposes that the blood clots the body uses to heal arterial damage, once healed, create the characteristic atherosclerotic lesions associated with heart disease. The evidence for this model, in turn, is much stronger than the cholesterol hypothesis and provides many important insights for treating heart disease. •The primary approach...

COVID-19 vaccine-associated myocarditis (C-VAM) has a mild initial clinical course, but myocardial injury is common, according to a study. Supriya S. Jain, M.D. and colleagues examined the clinical characteristics, myocardial injury, and longitudinal outcomes of C-VAM. A total of 333 patients aged 30 years or younger with C-VAM were compared to 100 patients with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). The presence of myocardial injury as evidenced by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) on cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging was the primary outcome. Patients with C-VAM were mainly White (67%), adolescent (age, 15.7 ±2.8 years) males (91%). The researchers found that...

Joshua Lupton, M.D., has no memory of his own cardiac arrest in 2016. He only knows that first responders resuscitated his heart with a shock from a defibrillator, ultimately leading to his complete recovery and putting him among fewer than one in 10 people nationwide who survive cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. He attributes his survival to the rapid defibrillation he received from first responders—but not everybody is so fortunate. Now, he and co-authors say the study suggests the position in which responders initially place the two defibrillator pads on the body may make a significant difference in returning...

A research team from the University of Bonn has succeeded for the first time in using light stimuli to stop life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia in mouse hearts. Furthermore, as shown in computer simulations at Johns Hopkins University, this technique could also be used successfully for human hearts. The study opens up a whole new approach to the development of implantable optical defibrillators, in which the strong electrical impulses of conventional defibrillators are replaced by gentler, pain-free light impulses. The Journal of Clinical Investigation has now published the results. Ventricular fibrillation! When the heart muscle races and no longer contracts in an...

Vutrisiran significantly improved mortality, cardiovascular events and markers of disease progression in patients with transthyretin amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), according to late-breaking research. "ATTR is a progressive, fatal disease in which misfolded transthyretin protein accumulates as amyloid deposits in various parts of the body, often damaging the heart. HELIOS-B was a randomized, double-blind trial in patients with ATTR-CM (hereditary or wild-type) who had evidence of cardiac amyloidosis by echocardiography and confirmed ATTR amyloid deposition. Patients were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to vutrisiran 25 mg or placebo administered subcutaneously once every three months for up to 36 months. If the...

To the known risk factors for cardiovascular disease—high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, overweight and obesity, smoking, and physical inactivity—a new one has to be added, clonal hematopoiesis. This condition is triggered by acquired mutations in blood stem cells and was already known to be associated with an elevated cardiovascular risk. Now, a new study resolves this by establishing clonal hematopoiesis as a new risk factor for atherosclerosis—the formation of lesions in the arterial wall that underlies most cardiovascular disorders. In a second study, the CNIC scientists propose the ancient medication colchicine as the central plank of personalized strategies to...

An international study has found a surprising connection between constipation and an increased risk of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), including heart attacks, strokes and heart failure. The study analyzed data from over 400,000 participants in the UK Biobank. The research team analyzed data from 408,354 individuals, identifying 23,814 cases of constipation. The findings showed that individuals suffering from constipation were more than twice as likely to suffer from a major cardiac event as those without constipation. Moreover, the study highlighted a particularly concerning link between constipation and hypertension. Hypertensive individuals who also suffered from constipation were found to have...

The traditional lipid panel may not give the full picture of cholesterol-related heart disease risk for many Americans, according to a study. There are different types of cholesterol particles that can cause heart disease, including low-density lipoproteins (LDL), very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL), and intermediate-density lipoproteins (IDL). LDL-C is a measure of the weight of cholesterol in LDL particles and is one of the most common tests people use to measure cholesterol risk. Every LDL, VLDL, and IDL particle has a single protein on its surface called apolipoprotein B (apoB). Prior research has shown that the number of "bad" cholesterol particles,...

A person's fitness levels could provide greater insight into the progression of atrial fibrillation, according to a new study by researchers. About 100 patients with atrial fibrillation underwent cycle fitness tests followed by invasive and non-invasive testing to assess cardiac structure and function. "Our findings suggest that people with atrial fibrillation who are less fit demonstrate significant functional and electrical changes in the heart linked to disease," said Dr. Jonathan Ariyaratnam. "This indicates that cardiorespiratory fitness is another important independent risk factor for the development and progression of atrial fibrillation." The study found participants with reduced fitness had increased left...

Researchers found that a targeted gene therapy may make acute myeloid leukemia (AML) more sensitive to chemotherapy, while also protecting the heart against toxicity often caused by cancer treatments. Acute myeloid leukemia is the most common type of leukemia in adults and the resulting chemotherapy treatment can put patients at an increased risk for cardiac damage. Dr. Xunlei Kang led a study looking at similarities between leukemia and cardiovascular disease. They found a shared target—AGTR1, a receptor responsible for cell reproduction, was overabundant in the blood cells of patients with leukemia. The researchers used losartan, a common medicine for treating...