Cardiology

‘No-touch’ vein harvesting significantly reduces the risk of graft failure up to three years after coronary artery bypass surgery compared with conventionally harvested vein grafts, finds a study from China published by The BMJ.

Oxidative stress can occur when our cells are exposed to harmful molecules called “reactive oxygen species” over time. These reactive oxygen species can damage cells and are found in important disease states, such as high blood pressure and aortic aneurysms. Aortic aneurysms are balloon-like swellings of the body’s largest artery and are often fatal when the aneurysm bursts.

Every second counts when it comes to detecting and treating heart attacks. That’s where a new technology from the University of Mississippi comes in to identify heart attacks faster and more accurately than traditional methods.

Persistently high blood sugar and insulin resistance significantly increased the risk of worsening functional and structural heart damage during growth from adolescence to young adulthood, a new study shows.

Moderately elevated ambient temperature is associated with increased mortality in patients undergoing dialysis, according to a study published in the February issue of the Clinical Kidney Journal.

For patients newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) during hospitalization for other causes, most are not dispensed anticoagulants in the year after discharge, although some have a stroke risk approximating the threshold for initiation, according to a study published online April 22 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Deciding whether to start hormone therapy during the menopause transition, the life phase that’s the bookend to puberty and when a woman’s menstrual cycle stops, is a hotly debated topic. While hormone therapy—replacing the hormones that were previously produced by the body with synthetic medication—is recommended to manage bothersome symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, Matthew Nudy, assistant professor of medicine at the Penn State College of Medicine, says there is confusion about the long-term effects of hormone therapy, especially on cardiovascular health.

Adverse pregnancy outcomes (APOs) mediate a small proportion of the association between prepregnancy obesity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in midlife, according to a study published in the April 22 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Reducing high blood pressure substantially lowers the risk of dementia and cognitive impairment without dementia, according to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial involving almost 34,000 patients, published in Nature Medicine. These findings highlight the potential importance of widespread adoption of more intensive blood pressure control among patients with hypertension to reduce the global disease burden of dementia.

Millions of people now start their day with a number—a “readiness” score, a “body battery”” level or a measure of “strain””—delivered by the wearable device on their wrist or finger. But how much trust should we place in these scores?