People who gain excess weight from their 20s onwards have less healthy hearts by the time they are in their 60s, according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1]. Scientists found links between weight gain in young and middle-aged adults and enlarged hearts that pump blood less well. This is over and above […]
Category: Cardiology
Women who experience depression during pregnancy or after birth have higher risk of cardiovascular disease
Women diagnosed with perinatal depression are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease in the following 20 years compared to women who have given birth without experiencing perinatal depression, according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1]. Perinatal depression, meaning depression during pregnancy or after birth is believed to affect one in five women […]
Socioeconomic status influences genetic risk for many complex diseases
Berlin, Germany: Differences in socioeconomic status (SES) are known to be linked to differences in the risk of developing disease. While people with lower SES are more likely to develop complex diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, those with a higher SES are at increased risk of developing certain types of cancer. Using biobank […]
Google Street View reveals how built environment correlates with risk of cardiovascular disease
Researchers have used Google Street View to study hundreds of elements of the built environment, including buildings, green spaces, pavements and roads, and how these elements relate to each other and influence coronary artery disease in people living in these neighbourhoods. Their findings, published in the European Heart Journal [1], show that these factors can […]
Women with human papillomavirus infection face higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Women have a four times higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease if they have an infection with a high-risk strain of the human papillomavirus (HPV), according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1]. HPV is a very common infection and high-risk strains are known to cause cervical cancer. Previous research has suggested […]
Nationwide study suggests link between medical cannabis for chronic pain and abnormal heart rhythm
People taking medical cannabis for chronic pain have a slightly increased risk of arrhythmia, according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1]. Arrhythmia is when the heart beats too slowly, too quickly or irregularly. It includes conditions like atrial fibrillation. Recreational use of cannabis has been linked to cardiovascular disease but there has […]
Patients who quit smoking after percutaneous coronary intervention do as well as non-smokers – unless they had smoked heavily
Patients who quit smoking after undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for narrowed arteries have similar outcomes as non-smokers during four years of follow-up after the procedure, according to a large study published in the European Heart Journal [1]. However, if they had been heavy, long-term smokers, no improvement was seen. The study of 74,471 patients […]
Treating high risk heart patients with immediate double cholesterol-lowering therapy could save thousands of lives each year
Patients who have suffered a heart attack should immediately be offered a combination of cholesterol lowering drugs with statins and ezetimibe, according to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association [1]. The study showed that people with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), which includes those who have experienced a heart attack or unstable […]
World’s largest study shows the more you walk, the lower your risk of death, even if you walk fewer than 5,000 steps
The number of steps you should walk every day to start seeing benefits to your health is lower than previously thought, according to the largest analysis to investigate this. The study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology [1], found that walking at least 3867 steps a day started to reduce the risk of […]
Blood biomarkers plus genomics predict common disease risk more accurately than genomic information alone
Glasgow, UK: Being to identify people at high risk of chronic disease means that they can be targeted with prevention measures before they become sick. Polygenic risk scores, where genomic information alone is used to assess the risk of developing diseases, have been receiving a lot of attention recently, but research presented at the annual […]