UTHSCSA.edu - Patients in severe heart failure who are too sick for transplantation have another lifesaving option these days — surgery to implant a new compact, lightweight ventricular assist device (VAD) - the FDA-approved second generation VAD called HeartMate II. The procedure is available in San Antonio from Jay D. Pal, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiothoracic [...]

AHA - Three different weight-loss diets - a low-carbohydrate diet, a low-fat diet and the Mediterranean diet - were equally effective in helping overweight people to reverse atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries after losing moderate amounts of weight and improving their blood pressure, in a study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers [...]

AHA - More Americans now drink sugar-sweetened sodas, sport drinks and fruit drinks daily, and this increase in consumption has led to more diabetes and heart disease over the past decade, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention (Abstract P365).
Using the Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Policy [...]

Pycnogenol®, an antioxidant plant extract from the bark of the French maritime pine tree, counteracts kidney damage caused by hypertension, lowering urinary proteins and improving blood flow to the kidneys, according to a study published in the March 2010 issue of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics. The findings were also relevant to complementary [...]

USDA.gov - Scientists have now reported new reasons for choosing “heart-healthy” oats at the grocery store.
Nutritionist Mohsen Meydani, director of the Vascular Biology Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, MA, led the research on the natural oat compounds, called avenanthramides. Meydani previously has shown [...]

Exposure to air pollution accelerates the thickening of artery walls in humans that leads to cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis, according to researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC).
The study, funded across six components of the National Institutes of Health, was published recently in the journal PloS ONE. It [...]