Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center had a mystery on their hands. A 51-year-old physician colleague who looked the picture of health-no cardiovascular risks, a marathon runner who had exercised vigorously each day for 30 years-had just flunked a calcium screening scan of his heart.

A small but telling study from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center reveals an ominous trend: more than expected, obesity shadows Baltimore's homeless children and their caregivers, putting them at high risk for heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, among other conditions.

As scientists learn more about the key role of inflammation in diabetes, heart disease and other disorders, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that fat in the belly may be an important promoter of that inflammation.

Having both depression and type 2 diabetes increases the risk of death for heart patients. Each factor had been known to increase the risk of heart disease deaths by itself, but together they're even more deadly.

An estimated 75% of Americans seek medical advice from their doctors each year, confirming that health care workers wield significant influence over their patients' lifestyle choices. Unfortunately, physicians tend to underestimate their role as health counselors and don't always suggest controlling heart disease risk factors, such as smoking, high cholesterol and blood pressure, obesity, and inactivity.

Body mass index, or BMI, long considered the standard for measuring the amount of fat in a person's body, may not be as accurate as originally thought, according to new research.

Flavonoids, a group of compounds found in fruits and vegetables that had been thought to be nutritionally important for their antioxidant activity, actually have little or no value in that role, according to an analysis by scientists in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.

Yale School of Medicine researchers have identified a rare defect in a single gene that poses a substantial risk for metabolic syndrome and early heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.

Contrary to popular wisdom, heart disease is not primarily a male disease, and is in fact statistically far more deadly when it occurs in women. Most women are not aware that heart disease is the number one killer of women, far greater than any other disease.