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CHICAGO — Although Hispanics are grossly underrepresented in heart failure trials, emerging evidence suggests they have unique risk factors and heart failure outcomes that must be taken into clinical consideration. The evidence also underscores the importance of recognizing the vast heterogeneity of Hispanics, Dr. Ileana Piña said at a meeting sponsored by the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks. “Hispanics represent a cultural group, not a racially identifiable group,” said the Cuban-born cardiologist. “You can't lump them all together.” But that's exactly what has happened. Until the Medicare enrollment files were changed in 1994, Hispanics or Native Americans were simply...

This is an article about congestive heart failure (CHF). Heart failure, also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), means your heart can't pump enough blood to meet your body's needs, according to the Mayo Clinic. Over time, conditions such as coronary artery disease or high blood pressure gradually leave your heart too weak or stiff to fill and pump efficiently. You can't reverse many conditions that lead to heart failure, but heart failure can often be treated with good results. Medications can improve the signs and symptoms of heart failure and lead to improved survival. Lifestyle changes, such as exercising,...

A molecular pathway could explain how a class of drugs leads to heart failure. Researchers who study how tumours balloon in size have discovered one way that enlargement of the heart can lead to heart failure. The work, although mostly done in mice, could help explain why a class of diabetes drugs called thiazolidinediones (TZDs) increase the risk of heart failure.These drugs have been controversial since a 2007 analysis1 of Avandia (rosiglitazone), a TZD made by GlaxoSmithKline, suggested that patients taking it are at increased risk of heart attack. Less controversial are data linking TZDs with heart failure, a distinct...

N.E. Journal Of Medicine: 1 In 100 African Americans Will Develop The Problem In The Prime Of Life -- Before 50 Heart failure affects about 5 million Americans and is the leading cause of hospitalization in people older than 65, but new research suggests it's not just a disease of the elderly. And for people of color, it's striking remarkably early. One in 100 black men and women will develop heart failure in the prime of life. It's usually the disease of the older set, but according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, surprisingly it's striking...

Clinical trial » Researchers are searching for patients who have few other options for a remedy. University of Utah researchers are going to be the first in the country to inject patients' own stem cells into their hearts to treat two types of heart failure. After drawing about 3 tablespoons of patients' own bone marrow, researchers will grow cardiac-repair cells -- believed to help heart muscles and improve blood flow -- in culture for about 12 days. The cells that survive culture are healthier than the original ones extracted from the patient, said Amit N. Patel, director of cardiovascular regenerative...

Curcumin, an ingredient in the curry spice turmeric, may help prevent heart failure. That's according to two new studies done on rats, not people. In both studies, researchers gave curcumin to rats. The rats then got surgery or drugs designed to put them at risk of heart failure. The rats that got curcumin showed more resistance to heart failure and inflammation than comparison groups of rats that didn't get curcumin. Also, in one of the studies, the researchers saw signs that curcumin treatment reversed heart enlargement. The other study didn't include that experiment. Together, the studies suggest that curcumin short-circuited...

MUNICH, GERMANY (AP) - Fish oil supplements may work slightly better than a popular cholesterol-reducing drug to help patients with chronic heart failure, according to new research released Sunday. Chronic heart failure is a condition that occurs when the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently around the body.

Doctors who treat patients with heart failure have long been puzzled by a peculiar observation. Many black patients seem to do just as well if they take a mainstay of therapy, a class of drugs called beta blockers, as if they do not. It is almost as if they were immune to the drugs. Now researchers at Washington University and the University of Maryland have discovered why: these nonresponsive patients have a slightly altered version of a gene that muscles use to control responses to nerve signals. People with this altered gene are making what amounts to their own version...

Scientists have discovered a genetic mutation that might extend the lives of many African Americans after heart failure by mimicking a common class of drugs called beta blockers. The findings could explain why clinical trials of the drugs have shown little benefit to African-American patients. The heart doesn't stop beating during heart failure. Instead, it stops pumping blood efficiently. The condition can be caused by a number of diseases--including diabetes and hypertension--that keep the heart from filling with blood or decrease blood flow from the heart to the rest of the body. As the heart falters, the body releases adrenaline...

Many African-Americans Have A Gene That Prolongs Life After Heart Failure ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2008) — About 40 percent of African-Americans have a genetic variant that can protect them after heart failure and prolong their lives, according to research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions. The genetic variant has an effect that resembles that of beta blockers, drugs widely prescribed for heart failure. The new study offers a reason why beta blockers don't appear to benefit some African-Americans. "For several years a controversy has existed in the cardiovascular field because of conflicting reports...

Trial involves injecting patients' own (autologous) stem cells into areas of their hearts with poor blood flow CHICAGO - Rush University Medical Center is one of the first medical centers in the country, and currently the only site in Illinois, participating in a novel clinical trial to determine if a subject’s own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease. The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia (ACT34-CMI) Trial is the first human, Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of blood-derived selected CD34+ stem cells...

Advanced Cell Technology Inc.’s Mytogen unit said stem cells taken from the thigh muscles of heart failure patients and injected into their damaged organs improved symptoms and cardiac pumping ability a year later. Twenty-three patients who had heart attacks got either their own stem cells or standard state-of-the-art therapy. After one year, the patients injected with cells were able to walk and exert themselves mildly without shortness of breath. Their swollen hearts had shrunk, the study found. The trial by Los Angeles-based Advanced Cell is one of three reported yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in...

Dr. Henry Gong, a prominent pulmonary physician and a member of the California Air Resources Board, has died. Board chairwoman Mary Nichols said Monday that Gong died from heart failure Aug. 16 at his home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by his family. He was 60. "Dr. Gong brought a unique, invaluable perspective to air issues as a physician specializing in pulmonary health," Nichols said in a statement. "All of us who breathe California's air owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Gong as one of the state's true clean air champions. We will miss him." Gong, one of 11 air...

This week, for the first time in humans, a heart failure patient received adult stem cells – taken from his own adipose (fat) tissue – which were processed and injected directly into the heart muscle with a special catheter. Francisco Fernandez-Avilés, M.D. performed the procedure in Madrid. The Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital is leading the collaborative clinical trial which will involve 30 patients. The trial site for the study is Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Fernandez-Avilés, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Chief of Cardiology Service at Gregorio Marañón and Dr. Perin, Director...

It's not so bad to be fat 10:00 20 January 2007 Obesity is a risk factor for heart disease, but if your heart is already failing, being fat could save your life. Gregg Fonarow of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues looked at the records of more than 100,000 patients hospitalised because their heart failure was worsening. They found that the fatter the person, the less likely they were to die during a week-long hospital stay (American Heart Journal, vol 153, p 74). Fonarow suggests that fat people may cope better with heart failure because they have...

A tiny sliver of RNA can destroy an animal's heart, according to research published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The finding boosts evidence that such fragments--known as microRNAs (miRNAs)--play important roles in health and disease. Hundreds of miRNAs have been identified in plants and animals. Despite their tiny size--less than 0.2% the length of the average gene--miRNAs exert a powerful amount of control on gene expression (ScienceNOW, 19 January 2005). Scientists have found that miRNAs regulate early development, for example, and may play a role in cancer progression. But while more and more researchers...

Using stem cells harvested from patients' own bone marrow, researchers reported Wednesday that they improved cardiac function in heart attack patients months, years -- and even decades -- after the patients suffered their attacks. The infusion of stem cells boosted cardiac pumping efficiency by 7 percent in three months -- a modest gain, but still an improvement for a chronic condition. In one case, a patient who had suffered a heart attack 30 years earlier showed an 11 percent improvement after the treatment, according to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The German researchers also found...

Existing methods of treatment are not quite effective in repairing damaged heart muscle in end-stage cardiovascular diseases. New research suggests that stem cells can regenerate into heart cells. Nandini Patwardhan traces the significance of stem cells in the cardiovascular segment  It is nothing short of a miracle that a cell, a combination of ova and a sperm, duplicates into a human body in nine months. That is the power of stem cells. This hypothesis has inspired stem cell research in cardiology in India.  Simply put, stem cells are the most basic cells in the human body. They are those unspecialised...

Researchers at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation have launched a study to examine whether administration of stem cells to first time heart attack patients can prevent the development of congestive heart failure (CHF). CHF diagnosis is the cause of hospitalization in the United States and is responsible for more than 50,000 deaths a year. Currently, heart transplantation is the only available cure.  Each year more than one million Americans have their first heart attack, putting them at risk of developing CHF as a result of cardiac cell death and scar formation which results in diminished pumping ability of the heart...

For people suffering from heart failure, simply walking to the mailbox can seem like an impossible challenge. But now, an experimental heart surgery may provide dramatic relief. The innovative source of this treatment is a patient's own stem cells. A small scar can be life changing. It means for the first time in six years Richard Howell is enjoying retirement. For six years, heart failure left Richard too weak to leave his living room. And it put him at risk for other serious health problems, including organ failure. Richard Howell: "I'd get up and walk across the kitchen; I would...