Health News

Nipping Heart Failure Complications
It's been suggested that blood levels of a protein decline after beginning treatment for heart failure. Using medications to force it to drop if it doesn't happen on its own can reduce hospitalizations and cardiovascular complications.
Hearts Getting Stronger
The number of older patients hospitalized for heart failure or associated complications steadily declined over a decade-long study period that also found that mortality a year after the event has improved.
Discovery Could Lead to "Pacemaker in a Bottle"
Many of the pacemakers implanted in the last decade help heart failure patients by prompting both sides of the heart to beat simultaneously, making it more efficient. Now doctors know why, and it could lead to a "pacemaker in a bottle."
One Step at a Time to a Healthier Heart
Most people know that heart failure risks can be reduced by living healthier lives. Actually trying to change all bad habits at once can be difficult though. Take it one step at a time.
Smoking Ban and Diet Delights
There's no better day than today to change your diet and quit smoking. Benefits from these lifestyle changes appear to take effect within months.
Improving Heart Failure
Patients wind up with heart failure when the heart simply can't pump enough blood to the rest of the body. But since there wasn't a main database of all cases, it wasn't known how many patients were surviving. Until now.
Health Disparities for Disabled Examined
Those who experience the poorest health are also disadvantaged in other ways as well. A recent report is putting a microscope to the general health of the disabled.
Heart Failure's Fuel Gauge
When the left ventricle of a patient's heart struggles, it may stay filled with blood instead of pumping it out to the rest of the body. This may increase the risk of developing heart failure.
New Drug Aids Heart Patients
Standard heart failure drugs are designed to force the heart to beat more often. A new class of medication that prompts longer heart contractions instead may prove to be a novel treatment.
Atrial Fibrillation Rx Alert
Last month the PALLAS trial revealed adverse cardiovascular risks in taking dronedarone (Multaq) for irregular heart beat. Now the European Society of Cardiology is suggesting its use be limited.