United Press International - Health Business - Prostate therapy may up heart disease

United Press International - Health Business - Prostate therapy may up heart disease: "Androgen deprivation therapy, commonly used to treat prostate cancer, may increase mortality from heart disease in men over 65, say Boston researchers."

Newswise | Fruit Flies May Pave Way to New Treatments for Age-related Heart Disease

Newswise Fruit Flies May Pave Way to New Treatments for Age-related Heart Disease: "The tiny Drosophila fruit fly may pave the way to new methods for studying and finding treatments for heart disease, the leading cause of death in industrialized countries, according to a collaborative study by the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, UC San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Michigan.
The study reports that mutations in a molecular channel found in heart muscle cell membranes caused arrhythmias similar to those that are found in humans, suggesting that understanding how this channel’s activity is controlled in the cell could lead to new heart disease treatments. "

The involved methods described in this report are amazing. We can watch a fly's heart functionning. From that, we can see how genetic changes in the human heart can affect heat disease.

icWales - Pills before ills in heart disease fight

icWales - Pills before ills in heart disease fight: "The Welsh Assembly Government is considering advising men and women to take cholesterol-lowering statins in the latest bid to combat Britain's biggest killer, which claims 12,000 lives in Wales every year."

This continues the trend in the British Isles of wide spread statin usage to prevent CHD. It will be interesting to monitor the results in a few years.

Health Care Marketplace | Kaiser Permanente Launches Long-Term Project To Collect Genetic Data on Members - Kaisernetwork.org

Health Care Marketplace Kaiser Permanente Launches Long-Term Project To Collect Genetic Data on Members - Kaisernetwork.org:

"the Research Program on Genes, Environment and Health -- include cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, asthma, diabetes and reproductive problems (Peyton Dahlberg, Sacramento Bee, 2/15). Similar studies are 'planned or are under way in Great Britain, Iceland, Japan and Estonia, but the Kaiser membership study appears to stand out both for its size and ethnic diversity in the United States,' the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Hall, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/15)."

This is a massive study dealing with heart disease.

Heart disease rate in the US on the rise

Heart Disease on the Rise

Heart disease rate in the US on the rise: "Heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the United States for the past 80 years ( 1) and is a major cause of disability. Heart disease also results in substantial health-care expenditures; for example, coronary heart disease is projected to cost an estimated $151.6 billion in direct and indirect costs in 2007 ( 2). Although some self-reported national data are available ( 3), state-specific prevalence data for heart disease have not been reported previously. In addition, although racial/ethnic, geographic, and sex differences in death rates for heart disease have been documented ( 4,5), less information has been available regarding the prevalence of persons living with heart disease. To estimate the prevalence of myocardial infarction (MI) and angina/coronary heart disease (CHD) in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia (DC), Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), CDC analyzed self-reported data from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).* This report summarizes the results of that analysis and provides the first state-based prevalence estimates of these heart diseases."

Researchers discover 'sticky' proteins fuse adult stem cells to cardiac muscle, repairing hearts

Researchers discover 'sticky' proteins fuse adult stem cells to cardiac muscle, repairing hearts
Cardiologists are increasingly using adult stem cells in clinical trials to repair hearts following heart attacks, but no one has understood how the therapy actually works. Now, in animal experiments, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have deconstructed the process, describing how the stem cells fuse with heart muscle cells to create new cells that repopulate the ailing organ. "

This report seems to answer whether stem cells repair the vascular structure or regenerate heart muscle. GOOD NEWS, they do both.

cbs11tv.com - New Tool May Better Predict Women's Heart Disease

Reynolds Risk Score

cbs11tv.com - New Tool May Better Predict Women's Heart Disease: "The new risk model, called Reynolds Risk Score, measures a women's level of risk for a heart attack or stroke in 10 years. The seven questions include age, whether you smoke, blood pressure and cholesterol. The new test also has information about C-reactive protein and family history."

Heart disease symptoms in women are much harder to detect but the results of heart disease are at least as fatal to women as a group. Everyone should pay attention to this new test.

ActivBiotics Announces Initiation of Phase II Study in Carotid Atherosclerosis

ActivBiotics Announces Initiation of Phase II Study in Carotid Atherosclerosis: "ActivBiotics, Inc. announced
today that patient enrollment has begun in a Phase II study examining the
effect of rifalazil, a potent anti-chlamydial antibiotic, on
atherosclerotic changes in the carotid artery. The RESTORE-IT trial
(Randomized Evaluation of Short-Term Rifalazil Treatment on Carotid
Atherosclerosis and Intima Media Thickness)"

If this trial succeeds, it would point to a drug that would reduce plaque build up and help isolate one source of that event.

Pregnancy-related heart failure explained | Huliq: Breaking News

Pregnancy-related heart failure explained Huliq: Breaking News: "The researchers discovered that mice whose hearts lack a gene that enlists the activities of critical antioxidants develop PPCM. Under those stressful conditions, the mice develop increased levels of another enzyme that cleaves the nursing hormone prolactin, forming an aberrant protein that damages heart muscle. As evidence that the findings in animals hold for humans, the researchers found a similar imbalance of proteins in the cardiac tissue of PPCM patients."

One in 1300 to 4000 deliveries are affected by this genetic abnormality. I suppose this makes genetic screening all the more valuable when it is cheap enough to be done.

MiamiHerald.com | 02/07/2007 | Surgery drug , Trasylol, worries doctors

MiamiHerald.com 02/07/2007 Surgery drug worries doctors: "Researchers compared patients who received aprotinin to patients who got other drugs or no anti-bleeding drugs. Over five years, 20.8 percent of the aprotinin patients died, versus 12.7 percent of the patients who received no anti-bleeding drug. When researchers adjusted for other factors, they found that patients who got Trasylol ran a 48 percent higher risk of dying in the five years afterward."

Trasylol is the trade name of aprotinin. Bayer has protested the study methods but more questions remain.

Health Blog Posts Powered by BlogBurst | Health News | Reuters.com

Health Blog Posts Powered by BlogBurst Health News Reuters.com: "Researchers studying the causes of heart disease made a breakthrough when a recent study identified a gene variant as a cause for heart disease in women. Researchers from Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, the University of Iowa and Roche Molecular Systems held a variant of the gene Leukotriene C4 Synthase (LTC4S) responsible on the basis of a study that began in 1971 and involved 11,377 participants. Various risk factors like weight, cholesterol levels and blood pressure were recorded and analyzed. They found that when those with a variant of gene LTC4S suffer an injury in their blood vessel, there is excessive inflammation, which hampers the repair of the blood vessel. This could lead to heart disease. The researchers are optimistic about their findings making personalized treatments possible."

Personalized medicine is on the way. This is one of the steps. Of course, practical treatment may be more than a generation away.

Drug to slow bleeding leads to more deaths: study | Health | Reuters.com

Drug to slow bleeding leads to more deaths: study Health Reuters.com: "Based on five years of data on 3,876 heart bypass patients from around the world, the death rate among the 1,072 patients given Bayer AG's drug aprotinin was nearly 21 percent, two-thirds higher than the mortality rate among surgery patients not given anti-bleeding drugs."

This drug has the ability to start clots. Its use seems to run against common sense in a situation always trying to eliminate them.

National Wear Red Day

Nutrition for a healthy heart goes a long way: www.goredforwomen.org

February came and went and I didn't know that it was National Wear Red Day. In support of American Heart Month, millions of Americans wore red to show their commitment to the fight against heart disease in women. http://www.goredforwomen.org has more information about it.

A Substitute for Transfats?

A Substitute for Transfats?: "the food industry is engaging in a major effort to find a new form of fat that doesn't spoil and that is not a liquid. The latest candidate is interesterified fats. These fats are produced by taking a type of saturated fatty acid that is considered relatively safe (stearic acid, present in chocolate), and combining it with vegetable oils (which contain unsaturated fat). The combination produces a type of fat that has the stability and solidity of saturated fats, but (it is hoped) the health profile of unsaturated fats. Indeed, interesterified fats are showing up in foods already. The Food and Drug Administration recently ruled that food companies can label products containing these new fats as 'high stearate' or 'stearic rich' fats, or as 'interesterified fats,' thus avoiding the politically negative buzz word, 'hydrogenated,' which is associated with transfats. "

The new word is interesterified . That will be showing up on labels. Now you can know what it means

I love blogger so I'm moving

I have been covering heart matters on myspace. After doing other topics on blogger, I just don't want to put up with that anymore. So here goes, CHD will be here and myspace will become a social journal. Welcome to this blog.