Heart Failure

 Decrease in temperature may cause heart failure ?

An increase in hospitalization and death in elderly patients with heart failure could be associated with changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, according to a new study in Environment International. The authors of the study say elderly with heart failure should avoid fog and low cloud in the winter as a preventive measure.                            

In other words, a drop of 10°C in the average temperature over seven days, which is common in several countries because of seasonal variations, is associated with an increased risk in being hospitalized or dying of heart failure of about 7 percent in people aged over 65 diagnosed with the disease..

During the follow-up period, 21,157 heart failure events occurred, representing 18.7 percent of the people studied. In total, 18,309 people were hospitalized and 4,297 died. In some cases, hospitalization and death occurred the same day. The researchers calculated this to 0.03 percent of patients experiencing an incident per day, which extends to about 1500 hospitalizations or deaths over a 10-year period, or 150 events per year.

Prof. Gosselin and the team suggest that elderly with heart failure should be given support and access to preventive measures, especially since managing heart failure is expensive for society. He commented: "Our study suggests that exposure to cold or high-pressure weather could trigger events leading to hospitalization or death in heart failure patients. This means that they should avoid exposure to fog and low cloud weather in winter as they often accompany high pressure systems."

 So,   Be Safe................

Teens Also at risk for Organ Damage from High Blood Pressure

Organ damage from high blood pressure doesn't only occur in adults; it can also happen in teenagers, according to research presented today at the American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Hypertension, AHA Council on Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease, American Society of Hypertension Joint Scientific Sessions 2017 in San Francisco.

And the damage to the heart and blood vessels can occur in youth at blood pressure levels that are below the clinical definition of hypertension in youth.

High blood pressure in youth is defined differently than it is in adults. In childhood, high blood pressure is based on percentiles, rather than blood pressure level. Researchers looked at whether organ damage in teens develops below the 95th percentile, which is the clinical definition of high blood pressure in youth.

Researchers studied blood pressure and measured organ damage in 180 teenagers (14-17 years old, 64 percent white, 57 percent males). They found evidence of organ damage even among the youth categorized as "normal" with blood pressure less than in the 80th percentile. They also found heart and vessel damage in the mid-risk group, which had blood pressures in the 80th to 90th percentiles and the high-risk group, with blood pressures above the 90th percentile.

"Some adolescents may have organ damage related to blood pressure and are not targeted for therapy," said Elaine M. Urbina, M.D., M.S., study author and director of preventive cardiology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio. "Imaging of the heart may be useful in youth in the high-normal range of blood pressure to determine how aggressive therapy should be."

Revealed By American Heart Association....................

Study of Transplanted Hearts Reveals Risk Gene for Cardiovascular Disease

We know of many genes with variants that make us particularly prone to cardiovascular disease. But there are gaps in our knowledge. It is not just the genes themselves but also the way they are expressed that influences the risk of disease.

In some cases, DNA regions that control how genetic information is copied onto RNA molecules are changed. The amount of RNA and whether this temporary information carrier is subsequently modified influence the development of disease.

To investigate these processes at RNA-level, however, there is a serious lack of research material. "It is extremely hard to get human heart tissue for genetic studies," says Professor Norbert Hübner, one of the leading researchers involved in the study. "That's why we still don't know all the variants of risk genes by a long chalk."

Together with a team from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and researchers from the Netherlands and Singapore, the group leader at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), the Charité -- Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Deutsches Zentrum für Herz-Kreislauf-Erkrankungen (DZHK) has just published a paper in the journal Genome Biology. It is the largest genetic study yet undertaken comparing the entire transcriptome of heart tissue in healthy and diseased individuals.

Early detection of individuals at risk

According to Dr Matthias Heinig, lead author and group leader at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, "Our data are a valuable resource for cardiovascular research as a whole." They make it easier to evaluate potential risk genes and offer researchers new indications for developing drugs and diagnostic tests.