Tag: Vioxx

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

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

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

About six million people come into an emergency department every year with chest pain, but not all of them are having a heart attack — and many are not even at risk or are at very low risk for having one. Now, a new research study presented at the American College Cardiology Scientific Sessions from

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

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

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

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

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

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

After a patient has a heart attack, a cascade of events leading to heart failure begins. Damage to the area in the heart where a blood vessel was blocked leads to scar tissue. In response to scarring, the heart will remodel to compensate. This process often ends in ventricular or valve failure. A team of

Scientists have zeroed in on a culprit that spurs damaging inflammation in the heart following a heart attack. The guilty party is a type of immune cell that tries to heal the injured heart but instead triggers inflammation that leads to even more damage. Further, the researchers have found that an already approved drug effectively

A collaborative research team is on a quest to collapse a tiny pocket between cardiac cells that can cause big problems. Called the perinexus, the structure spans only tenths of a millimeter — all the space it needs to disrupt a person’s heartbeat. The researchers were the first to identify the perinexus in humans. They

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.

Scientists have shown for the first time that the blueprint for the four chambers of the human heart exists in the humble zebrafish, a study in eLife reports. The discovery provides key insights into processes that go wrong in congenital heart defects and means that researchers now have a simple model for further research that

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