Secondary prevention programs for coronary heart disease that contain less than 10 hours contact with health professionals and those provided by family doctors are just as effective in saving lives as more expensive, longer and more specialized hospital-based alternatives, according to cardiovascular researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Only one in seven UK doctors’ surgeries provide well-developed support programmes for obese patients, according to a survey of primary care nurses published in the latest Journal of Advanced Nursing.

Varying advice means patients at high-risk of having a heart attack are unclear about when symptoms are potentially life threatening and when they should call an ambulance, argue a group of heart specialists in this week’s BMJ.

Can older patients with stable cardiovascular disease benefit from the same cholesterol lowering drugs used by younger patients? The answer is yes, according to a study report in the July 3, 2007 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Epidemiologists at the University of Liverpool and the Heart of Mersey have found that approximately half the recent fall in coronary heart disease deaths in the US is due to positive life style changes and a further half to medical therapies.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have identified evidence of several new genes behind the chronic inflammatory disease rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which affects 387,000 people in the UK.

Dr Rachel Huxley, lead author of the paper and Acting Director of Nutrition and Lifestyle at The George Institute said, "Although there was support for a small association between birth weight and an individual's future risk of heart disease, the relationship is not as strong as earlier studies have suggested. Any effects that birth weight may have on heart disease are dwarfed by other risk factors operating in adult life, such as smoking and obesity."

The past decade has seen marked fluctuations in opinions concerning the merits and risks of postmenopausal hormone therapy. In July 2002, menopause management faced a major turning point when the first data from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial were released.

Trials lasting 4 to 8 weeks indicate that including wholegrain oats in your diet may lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major cause of death and ill health. One of the risk factors for CHD is elevated blood levels of total cholesterol and of low density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have found an unsuspected link between the immune system and high plasma lipid levels (cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood) in mice. The finding could lead to new ways to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering elevated lipid levels.

Women who initiate hormone therapy closer to menopause tend to have a reduced risk of coronary heart disease compared to women who begin treatment further from menopause, but researchers did not find this reduced risk was statistically significant, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA.

Secondary analyses of findings from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) suggest that women who begin hormone therapy within 10 years of menopause may have less risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) due to hormone therapy than women farther from menopause. Overall, hormone therapy did not reduce the risk of CHD.