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The study was funded by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. These results highlight how crucial it is to only take aspirin on your doctor’s orders and to hold off starting any over-the-counter medications like aspirin until you have discussed whether the expected benefit outweighs the risk. According to recent research, stopping the use of aspirin while taking a blood thinner reduces the risk of bleeding. Recent research indicates that you might not need to take a second blood thinner if you already take one. In fact, a Michigan Medicine study reveals that patients’ risk of bleeding complications significantly...

A large, population-based study of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and valvular heart disease (VHD) found that use of apixaban was associated with a lower rate of ischemic stroke or systemic embolism and a lower rate of intracranial or gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding compared with rivaroxaban. The authors say clinicians should consider these findings when selecting anticoagulants in this patient population. The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine. VHD is common among patients with AF. The presence of VHD increases the risk for death, major adverse cardiovascular events, and major bleeding. Despite the common use of apixaban and rivaroxaban...

New atrial fibrillation drugs possess significant advantages over warfarin for reducing the risk of embolic events such as a stroke or peripheral embolism. Patients with AFib have an especially high risk of blood clots that can lead to stroke. Warfarin (Coumadin) has been the gold standard for stroke prevention in patients with AFib for the past 50 years. But to be effective, warfarin requires careful monitoring. Within the last several years, the FDA has approved several new anticoagulants as alternatives to warfarin: dabigatran (Pradaxa), a direct thrombin inhibitor; rivaroxaban (Xarelto), a factor Xa inhibitor; and apixaban (Eliquis), also a factor...

'It seems that we may also have to think of atrial fibrillation as an atrial cardiomyopathy -- that is, a challenged heart -- rather than as a purely electrical disorder', she says. Defects in muscle fibres and mitochondria Contrary to expectations, the researchers did not find any disturbances in the ion channels that spread electrical signals between the heart's muscle cells. Instead, they found defects in the structure of the heart muscle itself and in the mitochondria that normally function as the cell's power plant. The defects already occurred in the foetal stage of the fish and deteriorated exponentially with...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite some research linking low vitamin D levels to heart disease, a new study suggests that lacking D does not increase one's risk of an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation. > "I think the study was done well," said Dr. Michal Melamed, who studies vitamin D at the Einstein School of Medicine in New York and was not involved in the research. It shows that this one vitamin doesn't have an effect on all heart diseases, which is a good thing, she said. A 2008 study of the same group of Framingham participants found...