Teen lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital

news.yahoo.com — D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart." As she was being released Wednesday from a Miami hospital, the shy teen seemed in awe of what she's endured. Since July, she's had two heart transplants and survived with artificial heart pumps — but no heart — for four months between the transplants. Last spring D'Zhana and her parents learned she had an enlarged heart that was too weak to sufficiently pump blood. They traveled from their home in Clinton, S.C. to Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami for a heart transplant. But her new heart didn't work properly and could have ruptured so surgeons removed it two days later. read more...

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Study: Same-sex heart transplants are better

news.yahoo.com — Turns out men and women really are different at heart: New research finds that heart transplant patients have better odds of survival and a lower risk of rejection if they get organs from donors of the same sex. Size may be part of the explanation. Men's hearts are bigger than women's and have greater pumping capacity, and men who get men's hearts fare better. But doctors think differences in hormones or immune systems between the sexes may also play a role. The study was paid for by the federal government and led by Dr. Eric Weiss, a cardiac surgery researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He presented his findings Wednesday at an American Heart Association conference. read more...

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Fat kids found to have arteries of 45-year-olds

news.yahoo.com — Obese children as young as 10 had the arteries of 45-year-olds and other heart abnormalities that greatly raise their risk of heart disease, say doctors who used ultrasound tests to take a peek inside. "As the old saying goes, you're as old as your arteries are," said Dr. Geetha Raghuveer of Children's Hospital in Kansas City, who led one of the studies. "This is a wake-up call." The studies were reported Tuesday at an American Heart Association conference. About a third of American children are overweight and one-fifth are obese. Many parents think that "baby fat" will melt away as kids get older. But research increasingly shows that fat kids become fat adults, with higher risks for many health problems. read more...

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Studies: Vitamin pills don't prevent heart disease

news.yahoo.com — NEW ORLEANS – Vitamins C and E — pills taken by millions of Americans — do nothing to prevent heart disease in men, one of the largest and longest studies of these supplements has found. Vitamin E even appeared to raise the risk of bleeding strokes, a danger seen in at least one earlier study. Besides questioning whether vitamins help, "we have to worry about potential harm," said Barbara Howard, a nutrition scientist at MedStar Research Institute of Hyattsville, Md. She has no role in the research but reviewed and discussed it Sunday at an American Heart Association conference. Results also were published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 12 percent of Americans take supplements of C and E despite growing evidence that these antioxidants do not prevent heart disease and may even be harmful. Male smokers taking vitamin E had a higher rate of bleeding strokes in a previous study, and several others found no benefit for heart health. read more...

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Do Diabetes Drugs Affect Heart Health?

webmd.com — A review of 40 clinical drug trials failed to produce reliable conclusions about the effects of oral diabetes medicines on cardiovascular health, despite controversy over the drug Avandia. However, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health did find that metformin seemed to be associated with a decrease in heart disease and heart-related deaths. The analysis of the trials, 27 ofthem lasting under a year, is reported in today's edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers, led by Elizabeth Selvin, PhD, MPH, set out to evaluate how a group of newer and more expensive drugs that came to market beginning in 1995 compared with older medications used to treat type 2 diabetes. Avandia is one of the newer medications. An earlier study also looked at whether Avandia was riskier than other diabetes drugs. read more...

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New Class of Drugs Might Cause Congenital Heart Defects

news.yahoo.com — An animal study raises a warning sign that a new class of drugs that shows promise against a variety of ailments ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's disease might cause congenital heart defects, researchers report. "We have no idea if there will be any risk, but the study suggests we should be aware of the possibility," said Dr. Thomas Force, a professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and lead author of an online report in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The drugs are aimed at a gene that produces a protein called glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3). The only drug now on the market that targets GSK-3 is lithium, given to treat bipolar disorder. It is a relatively weak GSK-3 inhibitor. Because of the wide range of GSK-3 protein activity, there is active research on molecules that inhibit that activity. read more...

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Timing, Dosage of HRT Affect Chances of Heart Trouble

health.msn.com — The largest observational study of hormone replacement therapy since the landmark Women's Health Initiative finds that how and when women take hormone replacement therapy affects their heart attack risk. Younger women had a higher risk of heart attacks, especially younger women who took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for a long time, Danish researchers found. Certain formulations also lead to different results. "For women with an intact uterus, cyclic combined therapy (causing menstrual bleedings) should be preferred instead of continuous combined therapy (not causing menstrual bleedings)," said Dr. Ellen Lokkegaard, lead author of the study published online Oct. 1 in the European Heart Journal. "And for women without a uterus, dermal application via gel or patch is associated with a lower risk." read more...

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Newer Blood Pressure Drug Better for Some Heart Patients, Diabetics

health.msn.com — A new study offers a possible alternative to heart patients and diabetics who need to keep their blood pressure under control but who cannot tolerate the standard treatment of ACE inhibitors. Reporting at the European Society of Cardiology in Munich on Sunday, Canadian researchers said they found that the angiogenesis-receptor blocker (ARB) known as telmisartan worked well for the 20 percent of patients with vascular disease and high-risk diabetes who can't take ACE inhibitors. The study was released in the Aug. 31 online issue of The Lancet to coincide with the meeting presentation. read more...

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