Cardiovascular

A diagnosis of cancer, diabetes — even cirrhosis or Parkinson’s disease — will send shivers down the spines of most people. But flu? We tend to view it as little more than an occasional feverish nuisance that sends us to bed with joint pain, congestion and nausea (or worse). What so many of us fail to appreciate is that flu can kill. Having filed a news story, yesterday, on concerns about the potential for development of resistance to the leading flu-fighting drug (Tamiflu), I was sensitized to influenza incidence data. From the World Health Organization...

For years, pear-shaped people who carry weight in the thighs and backside have been told they are at lower risk for high blood pressure and heart disease than apple-shaped people who carry fat in the abdomen. But new findings from nutrition researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggest body-shape comparisons don't completely...

Which comes first, depression or inflammation? To help solve this long standing chicken and egg conundrum, researchers led by Jesse Stewart, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis asked two critical questions. Does depression lead to elevated inflammatory proteins in the human body? Or does...

Numerous studies have shown that depression is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, but exactly how has never been clear. Now, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have shown that depression is linked with the accumulation of visceral fat, the kind of fat packed between internal organs at the waistline, which has...

How far you can reach beyond your toes from a sitting position – normally used to define the flexibility of a person’s body – may be an indicator of how stiff your arteries are. A study in the American Journal of Physiology has found that, among people 40 years old and older, performance on the sit-and-reach test could be used to assess the...

Former professional football players with large bodies don’t appear to have the same risk factors for heart disease as their non-athletic counterparts, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found in studying a group of National Football League (NFL) alumni. Compared to other men in a similar age range, retired NFL players had a significantly lower...

An international study led by Ohio State University neuroscience researchers describes one of the missing triggers that controls calcium inside cells, a process important for muscle contraction, nerve-cell transmission, insulin release and other essential functions. The research is being posted online April 22 in the journal Nature. The researchers believe the findings will enhance the understanding of how calcium signals are...

A high-fructose diet raises blood pressure in men, while a drug used to treat gout seems to protect against the blood pressure increase, according to research reported at the American Heart Association’s 63rd High Blood Pressure Research Conference. “This is the first evidence of a role of fructose in raising blood pressure and a role for lowering uric acid to protect against that blood pressure increase in people,” said Richard Johnson, M.D., co-author of the study and professor and head of the division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension at the University of...

For scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, Italy, what seemed like a disappointing result turned out to be an important discovery. Their findings, published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide conclusive proof that, when a muscle is injured, white blood cells called macrophages play a crucial role in its regeneration. The scientists also uncovered the genetic switch that...

Moderately reduced lung function as measured by FVC, or forced vital capacity, is related to an increased risk of developing insulin resistance and diabetes. Researchers in this study think that this may be a link between reduced lung function and cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack and heart failure. Since lung function declines rapidly with age, ...

After two decades of improvement, the percentage of Americans without major heart disease risk factors is dropping, according to a report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. “From a preventive health point of view, it’s important that individuals achieve as many of these goals as possible, and it’s disappointing that less than 10 ...

Researchers in Hong Kong are reporting new evidence that green tea — one of the most popular beverages consumed worldwide and now available as a dietary supplement — may help improve bone health. They found that the tea contains a group of chemicals that can stimulate bone formation and help slow its breakdown. The beverage ...