Aging, Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JACC / 17.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Janice Atkins Research Fellow Epidemiology and Public Health University of Exeter Medical School RD&E Hospital Wonford Barrack Road, Exeter MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have previously shown that having longer-lived parents increases your likelihood of living longer, and family history of heart attacks is already used by physicians to identify patients at increased risk of disease. However, it has been unclear how the health advantages of having longer lived parents is transferred to their middle-aged offspring. Our study of nearly 200,000 UK volunteers aged 55-73 at baseline, and followed for 8 years using health records data, found that having longer-lived parents reduced the risk of morbidity and mortality in the participants. We found that for each parent that lived beyond 70 years of age the participants had 20% less chance of dying from heart disease. To illustrate this, in a group of 1,000 people whose father’s died at 70 and followed for 10 years, on average 50 would die from heart disease. When compared to a group whose father’s died at 80, on average only 40 would die from heart disease over the same 10-year period. Similar trends were seen in the mother’s. The relationship between parental age at death and survival and health in their offspring is complex, with many factors playing a role. Shared environment and lifestyle choices play a large role, including smoking habits, high alcohol consumption, low physical activity and obesity; but even accounting for these factors parents lifespan was still predictive in their offspring. The biggest genetics effects on lifespan in our studies affected the participant’s blood pressure, their cholesterol levels, their Body Mass Index, and their likelihood to be addicted to tobacco. These are all factors that affect risk of heart disease, so is consistent with the lower rates of heart disease in the offspring. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JACC / 16.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Timothy C. Y. Chan, PhD Canada Research Chair in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health Associate Professor, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Director, Centre for Healthcare Engineering Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering | University of Toronto Toronto Ontario MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The immediate access to and use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) can increase the likelihood of survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Currently, guidelines for AED deployment focus only on spatial factors, such as where to place AEDs with respect to cardiac arrest risk, and assume that the buildings housing the AEDs are open and accessible 24 hours a day. However, this is not the case in reality. AED accessibility by time of day has largely been overlooked despite the fact that cardiac arrest incidence and survival vary by time of day and day of week. In this study we performed two main analyses, using data from Toronto, Canada. First, we determined the impact of accessibility on cardiac arrest coverage. That is, we determined what fraction of OHCAs occurred near a registered AED, but when that AED was unavailable based on the hours of operation of the building. Second, we developed a novel optimization model that identifies locations to place AEDs that maximize the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrestswith an accessible AED nearby. We compared this approach to one where AEDs were placed guided by only spatial information. We found that of the OHCAs occurring within 100 m of an AED, approximately 21% occur when the AED is inaccessible. Nearby AEDs were inaccessible for 8.6% of OHCAs during the day (8 a.m. – 3:59 p.m.), 28.6% in the evening (4 – 11:59 p.m.) and 48.4% at night (midnight –7:59 a.m.). When applying our optimization model to determine new AED locations, we achieved a 25.3% relative increase in the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occur near an accessible AED over the spatial-only approach. The relative increase was 10.9% during the day, 38.0% in the evening, and 122.5% at night. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, Education, Heart Disease, JAMA / 16.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rory Brett Weiner, MD Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The increased use of noninvasive cardiac imaging and Medicare spending in the late 1990s and early 2000s has led to several measures to help optimize the use of cardiac imaging. One such effort has been the Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) put forth by the American College of Cardiology Foundation. The AUC for echocardiography have been useful to characterize practice patterns and more recently been used as a tool to try to improve ordering of echocardiograms. Our research group previously conducted a randomized study of physicians-in-training (cardiovascular medicine fellows) and showed that an AUC based educational and feedback intervention reduced the rate of rarely appropriate transthoracic echocardiograms (TTEs). The current study represents the first randomized controlled trial of an AUC education and feedback intervention attending level cardiologists. In this study, the intervention group (which in addition to education received monthly feedback emails regarding their individual TTE ordering) ordered fewer rarely appropriate TTEs than the control group. The most common reasons for rarely appropriate TTEs in this study were ‘surveillance’ echocardiograms, referring to those in patients with known cardiac disease but no change in their clinical status. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Technology / 16.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Theodore L. Schreiber MD President of the Detroit Medical Center Heart Hospital and DMC Cardiovascular Institute. Doctor Schreiber is involved in ongoing research in carotid artery stenting, has been the principal or co-principal investigator on numerous cardiovascular research studies and has written dozens of book chapters, articles and abstracts on interventional cardiology. Abbott announced July 5, 2016 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the company's Absorb bioresorbable heart stent, MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this stent? What are the main advantages? Response: The Absorb™ bioresorbable vascular scaffold is an advance in the treatment of coronary artery disease, which affects 15 million people in the United States and remains a leading cause of death worldwide despite decades of therapeutic advances. For this reason, DMC Heart Hospital, which serves a population at high risk of cardiovascular disease, was among the first in the state of Michigan to adopt this new stent. While stents are traditionally made of metal, the Absorb™ stent is made of a naturally dissolving material, similar to dissolving sutures. Absorb™ disappears (except for two pairs of tiny metallic markers that remain in the artery to enable a physician to see where the device was placed) in about three years, after it has done its job of keeping a clogged artery open and promoting healing of the treated artery segment. By contrast, metal stents are permanent implants. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Lipids / 14.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, FASN Assistant Professor of Medicine Washington University School of Medicine Co-Director, Clinical Epidemiology Center Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Education Veterans Affairs Saint Louis Health Care System MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: I think the most important, and novel finding is that elevated levels of HDL-cholesterol (which is thought of as the good cholesterol) are associated with increased risk of death. Previously it was thought that high HDL (increased good cholesterol) is a good thing. We used Big Data approach (over 16 million person-years; 1.7 million people followed for over 9 years) to evaluate the relationship between HDL-Cholesterol (the good cholesterol) and risk of death. We found that low HDL is associated with increased risk of death (which is expected and consistent with prior knowledge). The novel and unexpected finding is the observation that high HDL-Cholesterol is also associated with increased risk of death. The relationship between HDL-Cholesterol levels and risk of death is a U-shaped curve where risk is increased at both ends of the HDL-C values spectrum (at both low and high end); Too low and too high is associated with higher risk of death. The findings may explain why clinical trials aimed at increasing HDL-Cholesterol levels failed to show improvement of clinical outcomes. This finding was not expected, and has not been reported previously in large epidemiologic studies such as Framingham Heart Study and others. The Framingham Heart study and others significantly advanced our understanding of the relationship between cholesterol parameters (including HDL-Cholesterol) and clinical outcomes. However, these studies are limited in that the number of patients in these cohorts was several thousands which is relatively small compared to what a Big Data approach (millions of patients) enables us to see. Big Data approach allows a more nuanced (a more detailed) examination of the relationship between HDL and risk of death across the full spectrum of HDL levels. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cleveland Clinic, Genetic Research, Heart Disease, PLoS / 14.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Qing Kenneth Wang PhD, MBA Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan, P. R. China and Department of Molecular Cardiology The Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, Ohio MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) and its complication myocardial infarction (MI or so called heart attacks) are the most common causes of deaths in the US and other parts of the world. Based on the American Heart Association statistics, 620,000 Americans have a new MI each year in the United States alone, 295 000 have a recurrent MI, and nearly 400,000 of them will die from it suddenly. Moreover, an estimated 150,000 silent first MI occur each year. CAD and MI are caused by an occlusion or blockage of a coronary artery, which disrupts blood flow to the heart region, leading to damage or death of cardiac cells, impairment of cardiac function and sudden death. Current treatment of CAD and MI relies on reperfusion therapy with reopening of the occluded coronary artery with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCA) and coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). However, 12% of patients are not candidates for PCA or CABG due to an unfavorable occlusive pattern, diffuse coronary atherosclerosis, small distant vessels and co-morbidities. An alternative revascularization strategy has to be developed to benefit these patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Clots - Coagulation, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JACC / 12.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Raffaele Piccolo, MD Department of Cardiology Bern University Hospital University of Bern Bern, Switzerland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the past two decades, the prevalence of diabetes mellitus has doubled in Western countries and future projections are even worse by showing a 55% increase by 2035 when approximately 592 million of people are expected to live with diabetes all over the world. Acute myocardial infarction still represents the most common diabetes-related complication and its occurrence is associated with a higher risk of mortality. Timely recanalization of the occluded coronary vessel with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) represents the therapy of choice for acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Our study investigated whether the direct application of an intracoronary bolus of abciximab, which is an antiplatelet drug blocking the glycoprotein IIb/III a receptor, at the time of primary PCI improves the outcomes at 1-year follow-up compared with the standard intravenous route. The study was in individual patient-level pooled analysis of 3 randomized trials including 2,470 patients, of whom 473 (19%) had diabetes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 12.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Michelle R. Lent, PhD Geisinger Obesity Institute Geisinger Clinic Danville, Pennsylvania MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: More than one-third of adults in the United States live with obesity. Currently, the most effective treatment for obesity is bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery patients are expected to lose 30 to 40 percent of their body weight, but not all patients are able to lose this amount of weight and others experience weight regain. Why some patients succeed in weight loss over time, while others are less successful, remains unclear. In this study, we evaluated over 200 patient characteristics in relation to long-term weight loss after bariatric surgery (7 years or longer), including gender, age and weight at the time of surgery, lab tests, medical conditions and medications, among others. We found that patients who used insulin, had a history of smoking, or used 12 or more medications before surgery lost the most weight, while patients with high cholesterol, older patients and patients with higher body mass indexes at the time of surgery lost the least amount of weight after surgery. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JACC, Stroke, Surgical Research / 12.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Josep Rodés-Cabau, MD Director, Catheterization and Interventional Laboratories Quebec Heart and Lung Institute Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Laval University Quebec City, Quebec, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is increasingly used in patients with severe aortic stenosis deemed at prohibitive or high surgical risk. Recently, a randomized trial demonstrated the non-inferiority of TAVR compared to surgical aortic valve replacement in intermediate risk patients for the outcome of death and disabling stroke at 2 years. Therefore, TAVR indications are likely to expand to younger and lower risk patients in the near future. While the short-term (30-day) cerebrovascular event (CVE) rate post-TAVR has decreased over time, it remains the most dreadful complication of TAVR, and still occurs in 2% to 3% of patients. A few dedicated studies identified numerous predictors of CVE which mainly differ from one study to another. However, identifying the risk factors of CVE is of paramount relevance in clinical practice to implement preventive strategies, either instrumental (embolic protection devices) or pharmacological in high-risk patients. Thus, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis using random-effect models to provide pooled estimates of sixteen (8 patient-related and 8 procedural-related) clinically-relevant predictors of CVE within 30 days post TAVR. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Heart Disease / 10.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Liljestrand, DDS Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases University of Helsinki MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There is an increased amount of evidence supporting the hypothesis that oral inflammations increase the risk for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The association between marginal periodontitis, a common inflammatory disease in the tooth supporting tissues, and CVDs is well established. The link is thought to depend on transient but repeated bacteremia, endotoxemia and an increased systemic inflammatory burden. Apical periodontitis is a common manifestation of an endodontic infection, most often caused by dental caries. It is an inflammatory reaction surrounding the root tip of a tooth and it restrains the dental infection from spreading into the bone. Apical periodontitis is similar to marginal periodontitis regarding its microbial profile and ability to increase systemic inflammatory markers. Therefore, it is justified to suggest that apical periodontitis might also increase the risk for CVDs. There is only a minor amount of publications on this topic and further research is still needed.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Kidney Disease, Pharmacology, UCLA / 09.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jenny Shen, MD, MS Assistant Professor of Medicine David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Los Angeles Biomedical Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: With cardiovascular disease being the No. 1 cause of death in end-stage kidney disease patients on peritoneal dialysis, we examined two classes of medications commonly prescribed to prevent cardiovascular events in these patients and found no significant difference in outcomes. The two classes of medications, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) and angiotensin-II receptor blockers (ARB), have slightly different mechanisms and could theoretically have differing outcomes. Previous studies had suggested that ACEI may lead to a kinin-mediated increase in insulin sensitivity not seen with ARB. This could potentially lower the cardiovascular risk in patients on peritoneal dialysis because they are exposed to high glucose loads in their dialysate that may lead to insulin resistance and its associated cardiovascular risk. Using a national database, the U.S. Renal Data System, we surveyed records for all patients enrolled in Medicare Part D who initiated maintenance peritoneal dialysis from 2007 to 2011. Of those, we found 1,892 patients using either drug class. Surveying their medical records, we found no difference in cardiovascular events or deaths between the users for each class of medication. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JACC / 08.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ruben Casado-Arroyo, MD, PhD Heart Rhythm Management Center Cardiovascular Division, UZ Brussel–Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Cardiology Department, Arrhythmia Section Erasmus Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles Brussels, Belgium MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The objective of this study is to evaluate the evolution of the presentation of Brugada Syndrome (BrS) during the last 30 years. Only the first diagnosed patient of each family was included. The database was divided in two periods (early and latter group) in relation to the consensus conference of 2002. Aborted sudden death as the first manifestation of the disease occurred most frequently in the earlier period 12.1% versus 4.6% of the latter group. Inducibility (induction of ventricular fibrillation) during programmed electrical stimulation was achieved in 34.4% (earlier) and 19.2% (latter) of patients, respectively. A spontaneous type 1 electrocardiogram pattern that is a coved type ST elevation with at least 2 mm (0.2 mV) J-point elevation a gradually descending ST segment followed by a negative T-wave was presented at diagnosis 50.3% (earlier) versus 26.2% (latter patients). Early group patients had a higher probability of a recurrent arrhythmia (sudden cardiac death or ventricular arrhythmias) during follow-up (19%) than those of the latter group (5%). All these difference were significative. Overall, the predictors of recurrent arrhythmias were previous sudden cardiac death and inducibility. In the latter period, only previous sudden cardiac death was a predictor of arrhythmic events. (more…)
Author Interviews, Emory, Heart Disease, JAMA / 06.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Amit J. Shah MD MSCR Research Assistant Professor Assistant Professor of Epidemiology Rollins School of Public Health Emory University Adjunct appointment in Medicine (Cardiology) Atlanta VA Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Nearly ½ of sudden cardiac deaths occur in individuals who were not aware that they had heart disease; this increases the need for primary prevention. We studied whether the electrocardiogram could be a useful tool in helping to measure risk of cardiovascular disease in approximately 10,000 community-based adults aged 40-74 with a simple risk equation that is based on age, sex, and 3 numbers from the ECG: heart rate, T-axis, and QT interval. We found that such an equation estimates risk as well as the Framingham risk equation, which is the standard of care (based on traditional risk factors like smoking and diabetes). When combining both the Framingham and ECG risk assessments together, the accuracy improved significantly, with a net 25% improvement in the risk classification of cardiovascular death compared to using the Framingham equation alone. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JAMA, Weight Research / 04.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Peter Nordström PhD Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation Geriatrics, Umeå University Umeå, Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Numerous studies has shown an association between BMI, CVD and death. However, it is not known to what extent genetic factors influence this relationship. We used over 4000 monozygous twin pairs that had different BMI. This mean that the difference in BMI must be due to environmental factors since the genetic setup is similar in monozygous twins. Since the fatter twin did not have a higher risk of myocardial infarction (MI) or death, environmental factors that increase BMI is very unlikely to increase the risk of myocardial infarction or death. By inference the strong association between BMI, MI and death must be explained by the fact that the same genes control both obesity, MI and death. By contrast, the fatter twin had a higher risk of diabetes. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, Omega-3 Fatty Acids / 02.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Raymond Y. Kwong, MD MPH Director of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Associate Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In the past several decades, Omega-3 fatty acids (O3FA) primarily from fish oil have been reported to have many beneficial effects, either directly on the heart or through other effects that indirectly help the heart. However, when it was tested on patients who suffered an acute heart attack by looking at whether patients can live longer by taking omega-3 fatty acids early after the heart attack, there has been some conflicting data in some of the large clinical trials. There are several major factors that inspired the designs of the current OMEGA-REMODEL study: a) Over recent years, many highly effective treatments to improve the survival of heart attack victims have become routine. b) The studies in the past used a relatively lower dose of  Omega-3 fatty acids (1g per day). c) Some have also raised the question whether just patient mortality should be the only/best way we should considered in assessing new treatments for heart attack patients. d) Cardiac remodeling: after a heart attack, heart muscle not damaged by the initial heart attack insult has to overwork to compensate for the damage from the heart attack. Over time scarring may form in the overworked heart muscle, in addition to weakened heart function, may lead to the heart to fail. e)New imaging method: a MRI of the heart, can precisely determine the heart function and the amount of scarring of the overworked heart muscle not damaged from the heart attack. (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease / 29.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Per Ladenvall Department of Molecular and Clinical Medicine Sahlgrenska Academy University of Gothenburg Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Aerobic capacity has been shown in other studies with shorter duration to be of importance for mortality. In the 1963 a population based study including every third man living in Gothenburg started. These men have since been followed up repeatedly until 100 years. For the present analysis men were invited to do a bicycle exercise test in 1967 and were followed up to 99 years. (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, Heart Disease, JACC / 27.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ajay J. Kirtane, MD, SM, FACC, FSCAI Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center Chief Academic Officer, Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy Director, NYP/Columbia Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories New York, NY  10032 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Patients with inpatient heart failure are a higher-risk patient population who can benefit from the identification and treatment of coronary artery disease. We sought to identify how frequently these patients in fact underwent testing for coronary artery disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Stroke / 27.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mary Vaughan Sarrazin PhD Associate Professor Department of Internal Medicine University of Iowa Roy and Lucille Carver College of Medicine, and Iowa City VA Medical Center, Center for Comprehensive Access & Delivery Research and Evaluation (CADRE) Iowa City MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Atrial fibrillation is associated with a higher risk of stroke. The CHA2DS2VASc score (congestive heart failure, hypertension, age 75 or older, diabetes, previous stroke, vascular disease, age 65-74, female sex) reflects stroke risk and is used to guide decisions regarding anticoagulation. Our prior work suggests that African Americans have a higher risk of stroke compared to other patients with atrial fibrillation, even after risk factor adjustments. In the current study, we used Medicare data to test whether addition of black race to CHA2DS2VASc score improves stroke prediction in patients with atrial fibrillation. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Gender Differences, Heart Disease / 27.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrea K. Chomistek, MPH, ScD Assistant Professor Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Public Health Indiana University-Bloomington MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: Previous studies of exercise and  coronary heart disease have been primarily conducted in middle-aged and older adults, so we thought it was important to examine this association in younger women as mortality rates in young women have not declined in recent years like they have in other age groups. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease / 22.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jari Laukkanen MD, PhD Cardiologist Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition University of Eastern Finland Kuopio Finland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In this population-based study we found a strong inverse association between long-term change in directly measured cardio-respiratory fitness (CRF), using maximal oxygen uptake (VO2peak) and all-cause mortality. A small decrease in CRF over 11-years was associated with a lower risk of all-cause death in a graded fashion. The observed association was independent of risk factors. This population-based study with repeated and direct assessment of CRF using a very similar time-interval for all participants, whereas some previous studies showing the value of CRF were constructed on participants referred to exercise testing at varying time-intervals between two repeated tests using only indirect cardio-respiratory fitness assessment or other exercise scores. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed at baseline and follow-up using respiratory gas analyzer which is a golden standard for assessing aerobic fitness level. A single assessment of CRF predicts outcomes, however, no previous studies using directly measured VO2max have shown the association between long term changes in VO2max (i.e. 10 years) and its association with mortality. In the recent study VO2max defined from respirator gases with similar time-interval between two separate assessments of VO2max (=directly measured). This is a very novel finding in the field of exercise sciences, as well as in cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation. Although cardio-respiratory fitness is recognized as an important marker of functional ability and cardiovascular health, it is currently the major risk factor that is not routinely and regularly assessed in either the general or specialized clinical setting, although it is suggested that an individual’s CRF level has been even a stronger or similar predictor of mortality than the traditional risk factors, including smoking, hypertension, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JAMA / 21.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Fiona Bragg Clinical Research Fellow Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit Nuffield Department of Population Health University of Oxford MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Diabetes is known to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It is less clear, however, whether higher blood glucose levels in individuals without diabetes are also associated with higher risk for cardiovascular diseases. It is important to examine this association because it may help us to understand the mechanisms underlying these diseases as well as appropriate approaches to preventing them. We therefore looked at this association in the China Kadoorie Biobank study of 0.5 million Chinese adults, examining the relationship between blood glucose levels and the subsequent risk for cardiovascular diseases among participants with no history of diabetes at the time of recruitment to the study. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JAMA, Pharmacology / 19.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Principal investigator A/Prof Suetonia Palmer PhD University of Otago, New Zealand Senior investigator Prof. Giovanni Strippoli MD, PhD, MPH, MM University of Sydney, Australia and Diaverum, Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Network meta-analysis is a new technique that allows us to evaluate ALL medical therapies for a specific clinical problem. We wondered whether any of the usual drugs used to treat glucose levels in people with diabetes were safest or most effective. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 18.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Evan L. Thacker, PhD. Assistant Professor College of Life Sciences Brigham Young University Provo, UT MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is diagnosed more commonly in whites than blacks in the United States. This seems paradoxical because blacks have higher prevalence of many risk factors for AF. Various explanations for this paradox have been proposed, including biological explanations as well as potential biases in research studies. We investigated one such bias – selection bias – as a potential explanation for the paradox. We did this by comparing the racial difference in atrial fibrillation prevalence among people who enrolled in an epidemiologic study versus people who were eligible to enroll in the study but did not enroll. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Heart Disease / 18.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Seamus Kent, MSc, Research Fellow and Borislava Mihaylova, MSc DPhil, Associate Professor Health Economics Research Centre, Nuffield Department of Population Health University of Oxford, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Niacin lowers the LDL cholesterol and increases the HDL cholesterol and it was hoped this would translate into reduced risks of vascular events. This hypothesis was assessed in the Heart Protection Study 2 – Treatment of HDL to Reduce the Incidence of Vascular Events (HPS2-THRIVE) trial in which over 25,000 adults aged 50 to 80 years with prior cardiovascular disease were randomised to either niacin-laropiprant or placebo, in addition to effective LDL-cholesterol lowering therapy, and followed for about 4 years. Previously published results from the study demonstrated that niacin-laropiprant did not significantly reduce the risk of major vascular events but did significantly increase the risk of various adverse events including infections, bleeding, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, skin, and diabetes-related events. (more…)
Author Interviews, CT Scanning, Heart Disease / 13.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Maksymilian P. Opolski Department of Interventional Cardiology and Angiology Institute of Cardiology Warsaw, Poland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Valvular heart disease (VHD) that requires surgery is increasingly encountered in industrialized countries. Of particular interest, the presence of concomitant coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients with VHD is related to worse clinical outcomes, and various clinical studies suggested that combined valve and bypass surgery reduces early and late mortality. Consequently, in the majority of such patients, pre-operative evaluation for coronary artery disease (CAD) with invasive coronary angiography is recommended. However, provided that most patients with valvular heart disease are found to have no significant coronary stenoses, coronary computed tomography angiography (coronary CTA) appears as an extremely appealing noninvasive alternative to invasive coronary angiography for exclusion of significant CAD. This is further justified when the risks of angiography outweigh its benefits (e.g. in cases of aortic dissection or aortic vegetation). (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Hospital Readmissions, JACC, NYU, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 12.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Matthew Durstenfeld MD Department of Medicine Saul Blecker, MD, MHS Department of Population Health and Department of Medicine New York University School of Medicine NYU Langone Medical Center New York, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Racial and ethnic disparities continue to be a problem in cardiovascular disease outcomes. In heart failure, minority patients have more readmissions despite lower mortality after hospitalization for heart failure. Some authors have attributed these racial differences to differences in access to care, although this has never been proven. Our study examined patients hospitalized within the municipal hospital system in New York City to see whether racial and ethnic disparities in readmissions and mortality were present among a diverse population with similar access to care. We found that black and Asian patients had lower one-year mortality than white patients; concurrently black and Hispanic patients had higher rates of readmission. These disparities persisted even after accounting for demographic and clinical differences among racial and ethnic groups. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Nutrition / 12.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hsin-Jen Chen, PhD MS Assistant Professor Institute of Public Health National Yang-Ming University Taipei City MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The number of eating occasions may affect health. Laboratory experiments have been showing that splitting daily food consumption into more eating occasions could improve metabolic profiles, such as healthier blood glucose and lipids levels. However, such kinds of experiments usually design a highly controlled diet for the participants in the lab. It is questionable whether such metabolic benefits remain in our daily life (namely, no controlled diets) where we can eat at anytime when we want to eat. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Lipids / 11.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joost Besseling, PhD-student Academic Medical Center Dept. of Vascular Medicine Amsterdam MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: It was unkown to what extent statin therapy reduces the risk for coronary artery disease and mortality in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). One previous study found that the relative risk reduction was 76%, but the study population in this study consisted of with a very severe FH phenotype. This result is therefore an overestimation of the risk reduction in the general heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia population. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, CDC, Heart Disease / 11.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Suzanne Meredith Gilboa, PhD Epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Because of advancements in care, there has been a decline in mortality from congenital heart defects (CHD) over the last several decades. However, there are no current empirical data documenting the number of people living with CHD in the United States (US). The purpose of this study was to estimate the  congenital heart defects prevalence across all age groups in the US for the year 2010. Using prevalence data from Québec, Canada in the year 2010 as a foundation for a mathematical model, we estimated that approximately 2.4 million people (1.4 million adults, 1 million children) were living with CHD in the US in the year 2010. Nearly 300,000 subjects had severe CHD. Overall, there was a slight predominance of females compared to males. (more…)