Tag: Vioxx

Vitamin E found to prevent muscle damage after heart attack

Heart attack is a leading cause of death worldwide and new treatment strategies are highly sought-after. Unfortunately lasting damage to the heart muscle is not uncommon following such an event. Published in Redox Biology, the pre-clinical study sheds new light on the potential of the acute therapy with ?-TOH (vitamin E) in patients presenting with

New cardiac fibrosis study identifies key proteins that translate into heart disease

Using cutting-edge technologies, researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, have developed the first genome-wide dataset on protein translation during fibroblast activation, revealing a network of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) that play a key role in the formation of disease-causing fibrous tissue in the heart. Their findings, published in the journal Circulation, could help in the search

Healthy hearts need two proteins working together: Research could be a step toward a treatment to prevent heart attacks

Two proteins that bind to stress hormones work together to maintain a healthy heart in mice, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and their collaborators. These proteins, stress hormone receptors known as the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), act in concert to help support heart health. When the signaling between

Normal variations in thyroid function may be linked to atrial fibrillation risk

A study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has strengthened the link between thyroid function and atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heart rhythm that increases the risk of stroke and other heart-related complications. The phenome-wide association study scanned the medical records of more than 37,000 people for an association between genetically determined variation in

Failing heart cells trigger self-protection mechanism: Stress transforms an important structural protein into a gene regulator that protects against heart failure

An unexpected finding that links a structural heart protein to gene regulation following heart stress suggests potential new avenues for developing heart failure therapies. The work led by University of Iowa heart researcher Long-Sheng Song, MD, focuses on a protein called junctophilin-2 (JP2). Previous work from Song’s lab has shown that JP2 is a structural

Chest pain drug falls short in preventing first episode of ventricular arrhythmia or death: But, drug found to reduce recurrent ventricular tachycardia in major multi-center trial

A clinical trial of more than 1,000 patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) found that the drug ranolazine (commonly used to treat chest pain; brand name Ranexa®) was safe but didn’t significantly decrease the likelihood of the first occurrence of ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation or death in this high-risk population. The study was published recently

Neonatal pig hearts can heal from heart attack: This remarkable ability has clinical implications for humans

While pigs still cannot fly, researchers have discovered that the hearts of newborn piglets do have one remarkable ability. They can almost completely heal themselves after experimental heart attacks. This regenerative capacity is short-lived — disappearing by day three after birth, say teams of researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and at several

Genetic basis of heart rhythms explored in large population study: Better treatments for atrial fibrillation and heart block could emerge from greater understanding of the heart’s electrical activity

New knowledge about biological processes related to the heart’s electrical activity has been gained through a major genome science study. The research had the largest sample size ever of a project of this type. The molecular mechanisms explored in this study offer insights into cardiac electrical diseases and could suggest avenues of drug research for

New hope for rare disorder

Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by recurrent painful swellings of the skin and mucous membranes. Without treatment, patients’ quality of life is noticeably compromised: Angioedema may not only be disfiguring; in the gastrointestinal tract it may lead to severe abdominal colic ad in the upper airways it can even be fatal

Polarized cells give the heart its fully developed form

When it first starts to develop, the heart is a simple tube. Reporting in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at MDC have now described how it forms itself into a its characteristic S-shape and how the ventricles and atria finally develop. Their findings will help scientists to better understand the development of congenital heart diseases.

Genetic variant might be a better marker for heart disease

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine have found that a newly identified subset of a known genetic variant found primarily in individuals of South Asian descent may be a better marker for carriers of heart dysfunction in this population and that individuals with this genetic variant are more likely to develop