The heart is a hollow, muscular organ in vertebrates, responsible for pumping blood through the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions. The term cardiac, as in cardiology, means – related to the heart – and comes from the Greek word, kardia, for heart.
Pale people may need vitamin D supplements — Fair-skinned people may need extra vitamin D in their diet – Researchers at the University of Leeds, funded by Cancer Research UK, suggest that people with very pale skin may be unable to spend enough time in the sun to make the amount of vitamin D the body needs – while also avoiding sunburn.
Smoking causes stroke to occur — Smokers May Get Strokes 10 Years Before Nonsmokers — Does a stroke study change your attitudes about smoking? – Not only are smokers twice as likely to have strokes, they are almost a decade younger than non-smokers when they have them, according to a study presented today at the Canadian Stroke Congress.
Blood Tests May Hold Clues to Pace of Alzheimer?s Disease Progression – Researchers found a way to predict how quickly patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) will lose cognitive function by looking at ratios of two fatty compounds in their blood.
‘Alarm clock’ gene explains wake-up function of biological clock — Finding promising insight into sleeplessness, aging and chronic illness, such as diabetes and cancer – Ever wondered why you wake up in the morning – even when the alarm clock isn’t making jarring noises? Wonder no more. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a new component of the biological clock, a gene responsible for starting the clock from its restful state every morning.
University Hospitals Case Medical Center physician-scientists participate in new multidisciplinary program and clinical trial – Among individuals 65 years and older, as many as 30 percent have aortic valve sclerosis or stenosis and as a result of their deteriorating health, they cannot enjoy a normal lifestyle.
CONJOINED TWINS SEPARATED — UK Children?s Charity Facing the World Announces Successful Separation of Sudanese Twins – Twin girls joined at the head, such that their major brain blood vessels were interconnected, have been safely separated. UK charity Facing the World played the central role in funding treatment, evaluating the children abroad, supporting the family and handling the logistics to bring Rital and Ritag Gaboura and their parents to London.
Le Bonheur Surgeons Successfully Separate Rare Conjoined Twins — Most complex surgery in hospital history – Doctors at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital successfully separated conjoined twins, Joshua and Jacob Spates, on Monday, Aug_29. The Spates family is from Memphis. Conjoined twins are identical twins whose bodies do not fully separate in utero. A rare phenomenon, conjoined twins occurs in approximately one in 100,000 births.
Healthy lifestyle habits lower heart failure risk – If you don’t smoke, aren’t overweight, get regular physical activity and eat vegetables, you can significantly reduce your risk for heart failure, according to research reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.
Study reveals critical similarity between two types of do-it-all stem cells – Researchers saw substantial similarity between the two stem-cell types – pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells, reported in a new study.
Even mild cognitive impairment appears to substantially increase risk for death – Cognitive impairment, especially at the moderate to severe stages has an impact on life expectancy similar to chronic conditions such as diabetes or chronic heart failure, revealed by Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University researchers in a study “Cognitive Impairment: An Independent Predictor of Excess Mortality. A Cohort Study” published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Poor sleep quality increases risk of high blood pressure – People with the lowest level of slow wave sleep (SWS) had an 80 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure. Sleep disorders and poor quality sleep are more common in older adults than in younger ones.
65 million more obese adults in the US and 11 million more in the UK expected by 2030 — Resulting rise in US medical costs estimated to reach up to $66 billion a year – The rising prevalence of obesity around the globe places an increasing burden on the health of populations, on healthcare systems and on overall economies. A major challenge for researchers is to quantify the effect of these burdens to inform public policies.
