Researchers led by Jesse Stewart, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, report that hostility and depression appear to act together in a complex way to elevate inflammatory proteins in the human body, possibly putting hostility plus depression on the list of risk factors for heart disease along with high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and smoking.

Using new techniques for rapidly scanning the human genome, researchers have associated levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, two fats in the blood, to 18 genetic variants, six of which represent new DNA regions never before associated with the traits.

Before you plop in front of the television for a day of football, pizza and beer, you might consider this: New research shows that in young adults, decades of hard-won progress in reducing the risk of heart disease appears to be stalling, as recent death rates from coronary disease remain almost unchanged in young men and may even be increasing in women.

Individuals whose close relationships have negative aspects, such as conflict and adverse exchanges, appear to have an increased risk of heart disease than those with more positive close relationships, according to a report in the Oct. 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

People who are confident, comfortable and flexible with their eating habits may be at a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease than people who are not. Researchers at Penn State suggest that a curriculum that helps people understand their eating habits could prove to be an important medical nutrition therapy.

Air pollution could be putting patients with heart disease at risk by affecting blood vessels and clotting, researchers warn.

A new study in a mid-August edition of Circulation: Journal of the America Heart Association confirms that when young children learn about heart healthy eating habits, it can strongly influence their heart disease risk later in life.

Being moderately overweight or obese appears to increase the risk for developing coronary heart disease events independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies in the September 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Smoking, eating fattening foods and not getting enough exercise are all lifestyle habits that can lead to poor health and cardiovascular disease – more so if you have a family history. But researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that women don’t change these habits as often as men, even when they have relatives with heart disease.

Nitric oxide (NO) acts as a biological mediator throughout the body; for example, if the pressure in a blood vessel increases, the cells that line the blood vessel produce NO, which causes the surrounding smooth muscle cells to relax so that the blood vessels dilate and the pressure in the vessel drops.

As U.S. policy experts continue to search for ways to re-engineer the country's health-care system, a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine shows that a case-management approach helped a diverse group of patients reduce their overall risk of heart disease by roughly 10 percent, and did so in a cost-effective way.

With 40 percent of all heart attacks and related cardiovascular problems occurring in people who have low levels of so-called “good” cholesterol, researchers have long sought medications to increase the amount of this type of cholesterol in the body’s circulation.