(Press-News.org) The studies below will be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session the morning of Saturday, March 14.
1. Depression May Influence Cardiovascular Outcomes
A new study adds to the evidence that depression may influence cardiovascular outcomes, prompting authors to call on cardiologists to pay closer attention to depression when managing patients with heart disease.
Researchers at Care Institute of Medical Sciences in India found depression to be independently associated with a greater chance of cardiovascular death and lower quality of life in areas such as overall well-being, emotional stability and physical activity. In fact, depressed patients had nearly double the risk of dying over the three-year study period compared with those who are not depressed. Being readmitted to the hospital or needing repeated angioplasty to open blocked arteries was unaffected by depression status. All told, 40 percent of 1,648 subjects studied had depression.
Keyur Parikh, M.D., lead study author, and his colleagues say this study, while limited to India, is among the first to examine the relationship between depression and rehospitalization, revascularization and death. Based on the results, clinicians have introduced yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy into ongoing cardiac rehab programs and plan to evaluate whether this might improve outcomes.
Parikh will present the study, "Depression and Outcome of Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome: A 3 Year Follow-up Study," will be presented on Saturday, March 14 at 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. UTC in Poster Hall B1.
2. Heart Attack Survivors at Higher Risk for Certain Cancers
It's well known that cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation therapy, may lead to future heart damage, but the opposite relationship--the risk of cancer among patients with heart disease--has not been considered. A new study out of Denmark suggests patients who survive their first heart attack may be at higher risk for cancer overall, and lung and bladder cancer in particular.
Using the Danish National Patient Registry, researchers identified 125,909 patients out of 3,005,734, who received a diagnosis of a heart attack for the first time and had no prior history of cancer. The cancer incidence was nearly double in survivors of heart attack compared with the background population--169 versus 95 per 10,000 people. Study authors say that the first six months following a heart attack showed a high risk of cancer and that this was most likely explained by increased surveillance during recovery. However, after six months patients remained at a 10 percent increased risk for cancer overall, a 50 percent increased risk for lung cancer and a 30 percent increased risk for bladder cancer when compared with the general population.
These results suggest that more focus on monitoring cancer risk among heart attack survivors may be warranted, said lead study author, Morten Winther Malmborg, research fellow, Gentofte Hospital, Copenhagen. More studies are needed to tease this apart and understand what might be contributing to the greater risk for lung and bladder cancers in particular. For now, researchers speculate it might be due to smoking, as this is a shared risk factor for both heart attack and these types of cancers. Other shared risk factors include alcohol use, obesity, physical inactivity and unhealthy eating.
Malmborg will present the study, "High Risk of Cancer Among Survivors of Myocardial Infarction: A Nationwide Study" on Saturday, March 14 at 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. UTC in Poster Hall B1.
3. Florida Hospital Sees Jump in Admissions for Heart Disease Amid Financial Crisis
There is more evidence that high levels of stress--in addition to well-known risk factors for heart disease--may play a role in the development of heart disease. A new study revealed a possible link between the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and a spike in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndromes at Jackson Memorial Hospital, a large safety-net hospital in South Florida.
Researchers compared the prevalence of acute coronary syndrome admissions before, during and after the financial crisis period, which was defined as the time interval between July 2008 and June 2009. Admissions for these conditions, which restrict blood flow to the heart, were significantly higher during the peak financial crisis compared to the year before or after. Data revealed 14.6 percent of total monthly admissions were due to diagnoses of acute coronary syndromes the year of the financial crisis, compared to 8.75 percent and 11.92 percent of patients before and after the crisis, respectively. Because this study is observational, it does not account for other patient variables.
Based on the data, Daniel Garcia, M.D., fellow and the study's lead author said, "it seems the financial crisis not only directly but also indirectly affected the economy due to increase of hospital admissions, length of hospital stay and more cardiovascular disease diagnosis and treatment, which are all very costly for society."
The findings were somewhat serendipitous as the research team was initially investigating associations between hurricanes and surges in heart-related admissions. But the boost in acute coronary syndrome seemed to align with the economic downfall. More research is needed.
Dr. Mohammad Ansari will present the study, "Time Correlation Between The American Financial Crisis Of 2008-2009 and an Increase In The Prevalence Of ACS Admissions," on Saturday, March 14 at 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. UTC in Poster Hall B1.
INFORMATION:
Patients with symptoms of heart disease have similar outcomes in terms of death and major cardiac conditions regardless of whether they undergo a functional stress test or a computed tomographic scan, but the scan may be better at ruling out the need for subsequent tests and procedures in patients who are free of heart disease, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session in San Diego.
The PROMISE trial is the first-ever randomized controlled trial to compare clinical outcomes in patients receiving functional stress ...
SAN DIEGO (March 14, 2015) -- Adding the antiplatelet drug ticagrelor to aspirin as long-term therapy after a heart attack significantly reduced the rate of subsequent death from cardiovascular causes, heart attack or stroke, with the benefit appearing to accrue for nearly three years, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session.
The double-blind PEGASUS-TIMI 54 trial recruited 21,162 patients who had experienced a heart attack in the previous one to three years. Each had another factor, such as age or diabetes, ...
SAN DIEGO (March 14, 2015) -- A study comparing the overall economics of computed tomographic angiography with functional stress tests for evaluating patients with symptoms suggestive of possible blocked coronary arteries found no significant differences in costs over three years. The study was presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session.
Although the angiography, scans of the heart referred to as CT angiography, initially appeared to provide some cost savings, this didn't hold up once the costs of subsequent testing and procedures ...
The studies below will be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session the afternoon of Saturday, March 14.
1. Energy Drink Shown to Raise Resting Blood Pressure
Medical reports have linked energy drink consumption to adverse cardiac events such as changes in heart rhythm, heart attacks and even deaths in otherwise healthy people. To investigate how energy drinks affect the heart, researchers alternately gave a can of commercially available energy drink or a placebo drink to 25 healthy young adults (age 19-40 years) and assessed changes ...
Scientists of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory have taken to kites that they fly above lava flows blanketing the Hawaiian landscape to unravel the past mysteries that shaped Mars.
A kite, equipped with off-the-shelf instruments such as a camera, a GPS, and orientation sensors, scans the terrain from high above. The team then employs parallel computing and powerful software algorithms to assemble tens of thousands of images into extremely detailed and accurate 3D digital terrain models.
In terms of studying volcanic landscapes, the project is ...
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 16, 2015)-- As the nation's headlines turn more and more to issues of tolerance -- race, religion, free speech, same sex marriage -- research by San Diego State University Psychology Professor Jean M. Twenge shows that Americans are actually more tolerant than ever before.
In a paper released this month by the journal Social Forces, Twenge, along with Nathan T. Carter and Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia, found that Americans are now more likely to believe that people with different views and lifestyles can and should have the same ...
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Some of social media's greatest stars aren't even old enough to tweet: Pictures of kids playing dress up, having meltdowns and even in the bathtub adorn Facebook walls. Diaper-donning toddlers dancing to the likes of Beyonce and Taylor Swift rack up YouTube views. Countless blogs share stories about everything from potty training to preschool struggles.
Today's University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health finds that this so-called "sharenting" isn't going anywhere anytime soon, with more than half of mothers ...
After many years of speculation, it has finally been established that hydrazine is not a prevalent contaminant in contemporary smokeless tobacco products (STPs).
The presence of hydrazine has only been reported once in a limited sample of cigarette tobacco and tobacco smoke some 40 years ago1. But this study has been cited many times as evidence that hydrazine is present in smokeless tobacco products. To date, no one has examined STPs for its presence.
Hydrazine is found in maleic hydrazine, which is used as a sucker growth inhibitor on tobacco crops - suckers are ...
ROCHESTER, Minn. - Increasingly high prices for cancer drugs are affecting patient care in the U.S. and the American health care system overall, say the authors of a special article published online in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
"Americans with cancer pay 50 percent to 100 percent more for the same patented drug than patients in other countries," says S. Vincent Rajkumar, M.D., of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, who is one of the authors. "As oncologists we have a moral obligation to advocate for affordable cancer drugs for our patients."
Dr. Rajkumar and his colleague, ...
In a world first, a research team including James Cook University scientists has discovered how geckos manage to stay clean, even in dusty deserts.
The process, described in Interface, the prestigious journal of the Royal Society, may also turn out to have important human applications.
JCU's Professor Lin Schwarzkopf said the group found that tiny droplets of water on geckos, for instance from condensing dew, come into contact with hundreds of thousands of extremely small hair-like spines that cover the animals' bodies.
"If you have seen how drops of water roll ...
