Even mild depression increases long-term mortality in heart failure
...tients' psycho-social status, since these patients may be helped by aggressive heart failure and/or antid...y care physicians who treat heart failure patients may be unfamiliar with, or too busy to include, a psychological assessment into their practice. However,...Laughter helps blood vessels function better
...ults of our study, it is conceivable that laughing may be important to maintain a healthy endothelium, an...r, reported in 2000, which suggested that laughter may be good for the heart. In that study, answers to questionnaires helped determine whether people wer...Stroke warning signs often occur hours or days before attack
.... PAUL, Minn. Warning signs of an ischemic stroke may be evident as early as seven days before an attack and require urgent treatment to prevent serious damage to the brain, according to a study of stroke patients published in the March 8, 2005 issue of Neurology , the scientific journal of the America...News briefs from the journal CHEST, March 2005
...Sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as baking soda, may help treat children with life-threatening asthma (LTA), according to a new study. Researchers at Erasmus MC-Sophia Children's Hospital, Rottendam, the Netherlands, assessed the PICU medical records of all children with LTA who received IV sodium bio...Implanted devices detect high-risk heart failure patients
...tion and mortality one year later. "This approach may play a significant role in targeting a subset of heart failure patients for whom we need to be more aggressive if we don't see early improvement in heart rate variability," Gilliam said. "We would expect that as their heart function improves after im...Current daily smoking may be associated with increased risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts
...ect to controversy. It is believed that depression may result in part from smoking and should not be controlled in analysis of this relationship. However, it's also been reported that symptoms of depression in adolescents predicts their starting smoking and that major depression leads to an increased ris...Cognitive behavioral therapy and medication is effective in the treatment of panic disorder
...cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with medication may be more effective than the usual care offered to these patients in a primary care setting, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Panic disorder is one of the most disabling an...Study: Two brain systems regulate how we call for help
... an individual is willing to be in asking for help may depend more than we thought on how secure that ind... signals vulnerability - and, in the animal world, may attract the attention of predators - safety may depend on being careful about when to call out for h...Statement on the findings of the Women's Health Study
...is that many women, especially those 65 and older, may benefit from taking low-dose aspirin every other day to prevent stroke. But it is important for women to weigh the risk and benefits of taking aspirin and to consult with their doctor. Above all, women, like men, should adopt the well-proven approac...Beta-blockers may help broader group of patients with heart problems
...w to the rest of the body decreases, and the heart may have to work extra hard to compensate. Doctors can...ion fractions can mean heart disease. But patients may have normal ejection fractions and still have serious heart problems such as severe mitral regurgita...Serum sodium level is a major predictor of a poor prognosis for heart failure patients
...a is especially dangerous. Levels of serum sodium may prove a useful and easily accessible risk assessment tool in the clinical management of patients hospitalized for heart failure," says Dr. Gheorghiade. The good news is that a separate study presented Monday by Dr. Gheorghiade showed that improvement...Study says rare allergic reactions to drug-eluting stents may raise risk for heart attack
...archers postulate that a hypersensitivity reaction may reflect a heightened inflammatory state, creating a predisposition for heart attack. "Another possible, but less likely, explanation for the increase in MI is that hypersensitivity might cause plaque in other coronary beds to become more vulnerable t...New data on Orqis Medical's Cancion CRS to be reported at ACC
...s with acutely decompensated chronic heart failure may benefit from the first-of-its-kind Cancion therapy. Based on Orqis Medical's proprietary discoveries in hemodynamic principles, the therapy is designed to create a unique "rest to recovery" environment that enables the failing heart to rest as it con...Non-invasive and invasive breast cancers share the same genetic mutations
...es as women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, may benefit from high risk treatment, Yale researchers report in the February 23 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association. The inherited breast/ovarian cancer genes are BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are associated with an increased risk of breast an...Curious female rats survive tumors longer
...ngs and support the notion that personality traits may have a significant impact on health and resilience...r progression is a lengthy process and, therefore, may be particularly prone to subtle effects of personality on disease resilience." The rats were tested ...Studies underscore genetic involvement in nicotine addiction & aggressive hostility
...ral Neuroscience present new evidence of how genes may foster two potentially harmful proclivities: one,.... The authors think that this threonine variation may allow these mice to tolerate higher nicotine levels before experiencing negative nervous-system side...Study: Eye contact triggers threat signals in autistic children's brains
... understanding of an autistic brain's function and may one day inform new treatment approaches and augmen...gion in a more strategic way, like when the person may not be looking directly at them," says Davidson. Researchers eventually could assess whether such ap...Three anti-platelet drugs used in combination are safe
...in somewhat different ways and in combination they may prove to have more efficacy." In addition to Dr. Weintraub, the Emory research team included Jovonne K. Foster MS, Paul Kolm PhD, Grant T. Anderson, Karen M. Parker BS, John S. Douglas Jr. MD and Nancy VC Murrah RN,BSN. Drs. Douglas and Weintraub d...Depression predicts heart rhythm abnormalities in heart attack patients
... times in a minute. In some cases, the tachycardia may only last for a few beats; however sustained periods of tachycardia can cause ventricular damage needing immediate attention. Duke research assistant Patrick Smith presented the results of the Duke analysis March 5, 2005, at the annual meeting of the...Mood elevating hormone may trigger depression and heart problems
...s release of a mood elevating hormone in the brain may be responsible for causing depression, anxiety and cardiovascular disorders, according to a Yale study in Pharmacogenetics and Genomics. The genetic variant that causes this malfunction is nearly 15 times as prevalent in African-Americans as Caucasia...