Free Republic

MUNICH, GERMANY (AP) - Fish oil supplements may work slightly better than a popular cholesterol-reducing drug to help patients with chronic heart failure, according to new research released Sunday. Chronic heart failure is a condition that occurs when the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently around the body.

Eating broccoli could reverse the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels, research suggests.A University of Warwick team believe the key is a compound found in the vegetable, called sulforaphane. It encourages production of enzymes which protect the blood vessels, and a reduction in high levels of molecules which cause significant cell damage. Brassica vegetables such as broccoli have previously been linked to a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes. People with diabetes are up to five times more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes; both are linked to damaged blood vessels. The...

There's been a lot of controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells in recent years, but adult stem cells, which few people oppose using, are already giving some patients a new lease on life. Donald Reid is hoping adult stem cells will give him more time. The 57-year-old has clogged arteries and heart disease so bad he's not a candidate for surgery. Instead, he's joined an experimental study. It involves a machine that takes his blood and pulls out stem cells. But these aren't stem cells from an embryo. These are Donald's own adult stem cells. In the coming...

Study: Stem Cells Used To Fix Your Broken Heart It's Called The Marvel Study The Largest Clinical Trial Investigating Adult Stem Cells To Treat Congestive Heart Failure For More Info, Call Jim Moran Heart & Vascular Center At (954) 229-8400 MIAMI (CBS4) ― Doctors are discovering a new way to fix your broken heart. A study is underway in South Florida that could revolutionize the way heart attack patients help their damaged hearts by using their own stem cells. It's called The Marvel Study and under the direction of Dr. Alan Neiderman with the Jim Moran Heart & Vascular Research...

After 21 years of unsuccessful heart treatments, including several heart procedures, 68-year-old Coenie de Jongh was desperate. So when his cardiologist suggested a last-resort experimental therapy, it represented a literal life line.  Coenie, from Bloubergstrand near Cape Town, had his first heart attack at the young age of 40. A bypass operation followed and his condition improved, but seven years later Coenie’s health started deteriorating again. More operations and more intense treatment followed, but in 2002 his health took a real turn for the worse.  His condition was so bad he struggled to find a cardiologist who was willing to...

New research links drinking lowfat milk to lower risk for heart disease Grabbing as little as one glass of lowfat or fat free milk could help protect your heart, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers found that adults who had at least one serving of lowfat milk or milk products each day had 37 percent lower odds of poor kidney function linked to heart disease compared to those who drank little or no lowfat milk. To determine heart disease risk, researchers from several universities in the United States and Norway measured the...

President Bush returned to the White House last evening from the North American Leaders' Summit in New Orleans. Today, President Bush opened two days of Mideast diplomacy, welcoming Jordan's King Abdullah II to the White House for a brief breakfast meeting. President Bush, accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Michael DeBakey, Wednesday, April 23, 2008, during a ceremony in the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington. U.S. President George W. Bush spoke at an East Room event marking National Small Business Week at...

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (April 6) - A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No foul play was suspected in 69-year-old Sonny Graham's death at his Vidalia, Ga., home, investigators said. He was found Tuesday in a utility building in his backyard with a single shotgun wound to the throat, said Greg Harvey, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Graham, who was director of the Heritage golf tournament at Sea Pines from 1979 to...

Treatment with adult stem cells harvested from blood or bone marrow may benefit some patients with certain kinds of cardiovascular disorders and autoimmune diseases, a new U.S. analysis shows. There are two types of stem cells, according to background information in the study. Embryonic stem cells are harvested from embryos four to five days after fertilization. Adult stem cells are located in tissues throughout the body and provide a reservoir for replacement of damaged or aging cells. While stem cell therapy shows great promise, "clinical application has lagged due to ethical concerns [over embryonic stem cells] or difficulties harvesting or...

In the US, most deaths are attributable to chronic afflictions, such as heart disease and cancer. Typically the medical community has attributed these diseases to accumulated damage, such as plaque formation in arteries or mutations in genes controlling cellular replication. This view is changing. Scientists are now beginning to recognize that many of these chronic illnesses are due to microbial infections. A recent report in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that schizophrenia, a mental illness leading to errors in perception, is associated with the pathogen, Toxoplasma gondii. "Our findings reveal the strongest association we've seen yet between infection with...

Science and Race by: Amanda Busse, January 22, 2008 Identifying race as a source of disease may seem like a practice from the Jim Crow era, resolved after scandals like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study; however, current studies linking genetics with disease could have similar implications for race, according to a report recently published by the Center for American Progress. “The problem with including race in gene-based medical research is that recent scientific developments undermine the notion that race, as a biological fact, is still in question,” said Jamie Brooks, the project director on race, health and justice at the Center...

A new study indicates that ultrafine particles—particles of less than 0.18 micrometers—from vehicle emissions may be the most damaging components of air pollution in triggering plaque buildup in the arteries, which can lead to heart attack and stroke. The findings appear in an open access article in the 17 January online edition of the journal Circulation Research. A team from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); the University of Southern California; the University of California, Irvine; and Michigan State University contributed to the research, which was led by Dr. Andre Nel, UCLA’s chief of nanomedicine. The study was primarily funded...

There's new hope for the five million people in the United States who live with heart failure. Scientists say they have been able to grow a rat heart in a lab. They were also successful at getting it to start beating. About 50,000 people die each year waiting for a heart donor. But that all may change thanks to a rat heart, built by scientists at the University of Minnesota. "Everyone has cells," Dr. Doris Taylor told CBN News. "What's lacking is a way to put that together in a 3-D structure that lets you create an organ," she explained....

Nashville, Tenn. - This week, PETA sent a letter to all the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates--including Sen. Fred Thompson--explaining that a 10-cent-per-pound "sin" tax on meat could go a long way in protecting the environment, reducing health-care costs, and adding dollars to the U.S. Treasury. PETA points out that meat is the leading cause of global warming--according to a 2006 United Nations report, the meat industry emits 40 percent more global-warming gases than all the cars, trucks, SUVs, Hummers, airplanes, and ships in the world combined--and has been conclusively linked to serious illnesses, including heart disease, some types of...

A nonprofit foundation seeks funds to finance the procedure and travel expenses. HERMITAGE, Pa. — A parent's love knows no bounds and, apparently, no international boundaries. Erika Hirschmann's parents are taking her to Thailand for an experimental surgery. In 1996 Erika Hirschmann contracted a virus and went into congestive heart failure. Nine years later she started suffering chest pains, and doctors determined she had pulmonary hypertension — essentially high blood pressure of the lungs that stemmed from her weakened heart. This past April she suffered a stroke and in May more problems with her heart. Now doctors want the 29-year-old...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Women who use oral contraceptives are at increased risk for developing hardened arteries, a condition that can lead to heart attack or stroke, according to a study released Tuesday Belgian researchers found that women who had used the hormones were more likely to have plaques, or a buildup of fatty tissue, on their arteries than women who didn't use this form of birth control. Atherosclerosis, or furring of the arteries, typically occurs with age. Complications include heart attack or stroke, which occur when unstable pieces of plaque break off and block a blood vessel leading to the...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Stockholm, Sweden (LifeNews.com) -- Three researchers who work with controversial embryonic stem cells shared the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their role in looking at mouse genes and using their studies to determine the human genes that cause diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Pro-life advocates oppose embryonic stem cell research on human beings because days-old unborn children must be killed to obtain their cells. They support the use of animal and adult stem cells.Americans Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and British scientist Sir Martin Evans split the prestigious award and its prize of...

As America gets fatter, policymakers are seeking creative approaches to legislating health. They may have entered the school cafeteria -- and now they're eyeing your neighborhood. Amid worries of an obesity epidemic and its related illnesses, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, Los Angeles officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new fast-food restaurants -- a tactic that could be called health zoning. The City Council will be asked this fall to consider an up to two-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South L.A., a part of the city where fast food is at...

Medicine: Cardiac patients in Britain may soon be getting replacement heart valves grown from their own adult stem cells. You may not have heard about this miracle on the evening news. Few people read the British journal Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, but the current issue contains details of the research by a British research team led by Sir Magdi Yacoub that may end the scourge of heart disease as we know it. In April we wrote about research led by Yacoub, who's been called the world's leading heart surgeon. His team had managed in the laboratory to grow...

Cardiac patients will soon be able to 'grow their own' heart valves and have them transplanted within weeks of seeing a doctor. The groundbreaking treatment, developed by British surgeons, will create heart tissue from stem cells from the patient's body. The technique offers hope to millions who suffer heart disease. Scientists said the valves would not be rejected after a transplant because the tissue will have come from the patient and be genetically identical. In April, a team led by heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub of Harefield Hospital, in West London, revealed that they had used bone marrow stem cells...

Senior Citizen Health & Medicine Diabetes Patients Fixate on Blood Sugar and Neglect What May Kill Them Most die from heart disease and should focus on cholesterol, other protection Aug. 20, 2007 – Diabetes is high on the radar for senior citizens, who are well aware of the increase of this chronic and deadly disease, and because few do not have friends whose lives have been forever negatively changed the rituals of diabetes care and management. Although high blood pressure and arthritis are the most prominent chronic conditions for older Americans, type 2 diabetes, apparently fueled by the obesity epidemic,...

GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 30 — A federal drug advisory committee voted overwhelmingly on Monday to recommend that the diabetes drug Avandia remain on the market, even after finding that it raised the risks of heart attacks. Panel members said that studies concerning Avandia were too murky to merit drastic regulatory action and that other diabetes medicines might have similar risks... The votes — 20 to 3 on the heart attack risk and 22 to 1 on the marketing — were cast after an extraordinary meeting in which officials from the Food and Drug Administration, which brought the committee together, openly...

Regular aspirin use may significantly reduce the incidence of both cancer and heart disease, according to a large new study, but other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or Nsaids, have no effect. Researchers studied 22,507 postmenopausal women, following them for 10 years. All reported their aspirin and Nsaid use as part of a detailed physical and behavioral health questionnaire. None of the women had cancer or heart disease at the start of the study. After controlling for age, exercise, diet and other factors, those who used aspirin had a 16 percent reduced risk of getting cancer, and a 13 percent reduced risk...

TONY EASTLEY: If you're over 65, chances are you or your spouse has coronary artery disease. One in two older Australians have the condition and heart disease is still the number one cause of premature death and disability in this country. Scientists have already managed to create heart tissue that beats, and they believe stem cells could be the missing piece of a puzzle that will finally allow them to make a new heart muscle from a person's own tissue. Jane Cowan reports. JANE COWAN: One of the things that makes heart disease so difficult to treat is that heart...

Source: Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions Date: May 13, 2007 Clues To 'Broken Heart Syndrome' Science Daily — The causes of "broken heart syndrome" remain a mystery, but doctors will soon have an easier time recognizing and treating this rare, life-threatening condition, thanks to new data. Researchers from Brown University in Providence, RI, have developed the largest registry of patients in the United States with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, informally known as broken heart syndrome because it is often preceded by an emotional or physical shock of some kind and almost always strikes women. One thing is certain: Patients are usually...

Source: American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Date: May 7, 2007 Fish, Seafood Better Than Olive Oil, Nuts Against Heart Disease Science Daily — Researchers have found that a diet rich in fish, seafood, and grains -- also called polyunsaturated fats -- is better at preventing heart disease than a diet containing olive oil, nuts, and avocados -- called monounsaturated fats. Although both types of fats are healthy, people should probably include more of the first than the second in their diet to keep a healthy heart, the scientists say. Too much cholesterol has long been linked to increasing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A treasure hunt for genes has found that up to three-quarters of people of European descent have DNA that raises their risk for heart disease -- and these genes are close to a stretch of DNA linked to diabetes. The findings, made by two independent groups of researchers, may help explain why so many people have heart disease even if they do not have clear risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And they could lead to a test to predict the risk of heart disease, the biggest cause of death across the...

Dr. Russel Blaylock explains how to reduce inflamation. Get the full story about cholesterol.

U-M team reports success of rapid 3-D cell-growth technique that produces pulsing, organized tissue A length of bioengineered heart muscle, or BEHM, grown at the University of Michigan using rat cardiac muscle cells and a fibrin gel base. Click here for more information. ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It looks, contracts and responds almost like natural heart muscle – even though it was grown in the lab. And it brings scientists another step closer to the goal of creating replacement parts for damaged human hearts, or eventually growing an entirely new heart from just a spoonful of loose heart cells.  This...

Trial involves injecting patients' own (autologous) stem cells into areas of their hearts with poor blood flow CHICAGO - Rush University Medical Center is one of the first medical centers in the country, and currently the only site in Illinois, participating in a novel clinical trial to determine if a subject’s own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease. The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia (ACT34-CMI) Trial is the first human, Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of blood-derived selected CD34+ stem cells...

Why can some people eat whatever they want and never have heart problems and others just look at French fries and their cholesterol and risk jumps?Major research done in Southern California might produce the answer and a new way to prevent heart disease.NBC's Dr. Bruce Hensel said the answer may be a gene that protects the heart no matter how high your cholesterol. That finding was detailed in a documentary called "The Cure." The new work; using that gene to reverse heart problems is now being done at the Cleveland Clinic and in Los Angeles. It all started while studying...

Science Daily — Rush University Medical Center is one of the first medical centers in the country, and currently the only site in Illinois, participating in a novel clinical trial to determine if a subject’s own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease. The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia (ACT34-CMI) Trial is the first human, Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of blood-derived selected CD34+ stem cells to improve symptoms and clinical outcomes in subjects with chronic myocardial ischemia (CMI), a severe form...

A groundbreaking study of 1,946 male veterans of World War II and Korea suggests that vets with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are at greater risk of heart attacks as they age. The new study is the first to document a link between PTSD symptoms and future heart disease, and joins existing evidence that vets with PTSD also have more autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and psoriasis. A second study, funded by the Army, found that soldiers returning from combat in Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder reported worse physical health, more doctor visits and more missed workdays. The Army study...

Pfizer announced last night that it had discontinued research on its most important experimental drug, a treatment for heart disease. The decision is a stunning development that is likely to seriously damage the company’s prospects through the next decades. Preliminary research found that the drug, torcetrapib, appeared to be linked with deaths and heart problems in the patients who were taking it. For people with heart disease, Pfizer’s decision to stop the trial represents the failure of a drug that many cardiologists had viewed as a potentially major advance in efforts to reduce heart attacks and strokes. Torcetrapib is designed...

Scientists have shown that cells in the heart's outer layer can migrate deeper into a failing organ to carry out essential repairs.   The migration of progenitor cells is controlled by a protein called thymosin beta 4, already known to help reduce muscle cell loss after a heart attack.   The discovery opens up the possibility of using the protein to develop more effective treatments for heart disease.   The University College London (UCL) study appears in the journal Nature. Finding out how this protein helps to heal the heart offers enormous potential in fighting heart disease Professor Colin Blakemore Medical Research Council...

More Benefits of Dark Chocolate Discovered Date Published: Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that eating even small quantities of high-quality dark chocolate every day can greatly lower your risk of stroke and heart attack. According to the report, the chemicals in dark chocolate help to reduce the speed of blood clotting by limiting the clumping of blood platelets. Dr. Diane Becker reported the findings this week in Chicago at the annual American Heart Association meeting.The study was initially designed to test the effects of aspirin on blood clotting, but too many of BeckerÂ’s subjects had...

Nov 8, 11:19 PM EST Low-Carb Diet Doesn't Raise Heart Risk By LINDA A. JOHNSON Associated Press Writer Eating a low-carb, high-fat diet for years doesn't raise the risk of heart disease, a long-term study suggests, easing fears that the popular Atkins diet and similar regimens might set people up for eventual heart attacks. The study of thousands of women over two decades found that those who got lots of their carbohydrates from refined sugars and highly processed foods nearly doubled their risk of heart disease.At the same time, those who ate a low-carb diet but got more of...

/begin my translationNew Drugs Tested In Russia On Those With Kim Jong-il's Health Profile A lawmaker at Intelligence Committee, "told by the intelligence chief" (Seoul = Yonhap News) Kim Nam-kwon = It is claimed that new drugs are being tested in Russia on those who are of the same age, physique, and physiology as Kim Jong-il, whose health is allegedly in trouble recently. A lawmaker at Intelligence Committee of National Assembly (S. Korea) claimed during a telephone conversation with Yonhap News on Sept. 10, "National Intelligence Service Chief Kim Seung-kyu said so recently at the full meeting of Intelligence Committee." The lawmaker explained, "NIS Chief Kim told us that...

(BETHESDA, MD) – Left ventricular function and exercise capacity increased, while the area of heart muscle damage shrank, in 18 patients given infusions of their own bone marrow stem cells up to eight years after a heart attack, according to a new study in the Nov. 1, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "This new therapy is able to treat until now irreversible heart complaints and function disturbances in patients with chronic coronary artery disease after myocardial infarction, even many years after heart attack. Therefore there is hope for this large amount of patients with...

Stem cells derived from human heart tissue develop into multicellular, spherical structures called cardiospheres that express the normal properties of primitive heart tissue, smooth muscle and blood vessel cells, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers. In a related study, cells grown in the laboratory from these cardiospheres and injected into the hearts of mice following a lab-induced heart attack migrated straight to damaged tissue and regenerated, improving the organ's ability to pump blood throughout the animal's body. Results from both studies are to be presented Nov. 14 at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Dallas. "The...

When Dr. Christian Barnard performed the world's first successful heart transplant back in 1967, he reached a new peak of human scientific achievement. However, almost 40 years later, the criteria for receiving a new heart is quite stringent, and heart transplants are granted to those patients who have the highest chance for recovery. For thousands of elderly or gravely ill patients with damaged hearts, a transplant is not an option. Now Israeli researchers are at the forefront of research which could one day make heart transplants obsolete - using stem cell technology, they're developing a way to use the blood...

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel DALLAS - Heart attack patients who were treated with their own stem cells a few days after being hospitalized had significantly improved heart pumping ability, according to the largest, most rigorous clinical trial to date of the controversial therapy. The improvement seen with stem cells was better than with the best drugs now available and it appears the therapy actually repaired damage done during heart attacks, said lead author Volker Schachinger, a cardiologist at J.W. Goethe University and the Third Medical Clinic of Cardiology in Frankfurt, Germany. "It opens up a completely new way of treating heart...

Adult stem-cell research may lead one day to cures for terminal and debilitating diseases "I hope we will always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience." -President George W. Bush1 Few areas of scientific study hold as much potential as adult stem-cell research. This research is already generating medical breakthroughs and treatments for debilitating diseases and disabilities, such as spinal cord injuries, sickle cell anemia and Parkinson's. Indeed, scientists laud stem-cell treatments as the "miracle cure" of the 21st century. Unlike so many areas of biotechnology, adult stem cells do not spark a...

HONOLULU - Legendary Hawaiian crooner Don Ho says he could barely walk, let alone sing, and would have been a "goner" without an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart earlier this month in Thailand. Ho, known for his signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," said he hopes to return to the stage soon. "I'm feeling terrific, 100 percent better," Ho told The Associated Press in one of his first interviews since surgery Dec. 6. "I'm ready to go, but I've got to listen to the doctors. "When they say my heart is strong enough to get excited, I'm on." The...

Getting rid of that spare tire around your middle could help your heart in more ways than you might expect, according to a San Diego biotechnology company.   Cytori Therapeutics has developed a machine that pulls stem cells and other regenerative cells out of fat so they can be re-injected into the body to repair tissue damaged by heart attack or disease.  Several studies, including some in which Cytori scientists have participated, have shown that stem cells and other regenerative material from fat can help build blood supply and restore blood flow to cardiac muscle that has been damaged by a...

by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor July 12, 2004 Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Two new studies are providing further argument that embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary because adult stem cells are not only more ethical, but more effective as well. Researchers at the Tufts-New England Medical Center reported last week that that unborn children may be giving their mothers the gift of life. As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers have uncovered evidence that fetal stem cells may be migrating from the developing unborn child to diseased tissue and organs in the mother's body. Evidence...

ERUSALEM - After 61 years of pumping blood, Marie Carty's heart was failing her. Months earlier she had given up her two-mile walk on the boardwalk of her New Jersey hometown along the Atlantic Ocean. She could barely make it from the parking lot to the view of the water. Although Carty knew she needed a new heart, she was afraid hers wouldn't last during the long wait for a transplant. Desperate for an alternative, Carty found the Israeli-Thai company Theravitae, which has begun performing an experimental procedure that multiplies stem cells taken from a patient's own blood and injects...

Adult Stem Cells Improve Cardiac Function and Blood Flow in Patients With Heart Disease, New Study Finds NOGA(R) Cardiac Navigation System from Biologics Delivery Systems Group, Cordis Corporation, Helped Researchers Deliver Stem Cells to the Heart ATLANTA, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Bone marrow-derived adult stem cells administered within the heart (intramyocardial) and coronary artery (intracoronary) tissues of heart disease patients improved patients' heart function and blood flow, according to a pilot study presented during a poster session at the 2006 American College of Cardiology Scientific Session. The study also found that patients who received more stem cells experienced a higher...

Experimental treatment makes 70-year-old a poster boy for science Mike Swendseid seemingly had run out of options in battling heart disease. The Grand Forks man had angioplasty. He underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery. Inside him were four wires, two stents, a pacemaker and a defibrillator. "After the last stent, doctors told me there was nothing more they could do for Mike," said his wife, Marion. But, as science progressed, there was something. In January, the 70-year-old Swendseid became a recipient of experimental stem cell treatment at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, which is part of Abbott Northwestern Hospital. The treatment uses Swendseid's...

A neurologist from Washington, D.C., an autonomic nervous system specialist from Philadelphia and a neuron-psychologist and psycho-pharmacologist -- both from Manhattan -- have spent a lot of time with Steven Domalewski lately.  They, and others, have been at his bedside in a Paterson hospital, using cutting-edge treatments while trying to bring the 12-year-old pitcher out of a coma."He's progressing at a really good rate," Dr. Philip De Fina said Friday. "He has definitely improved. His alertness has improved. His dad has been feeding him little bits of Italian ice, and he's breathing very well on his own."  De Fina...