Many patients with heart failure – especially younger ones and those with more severe disease – significantly overestimate how long they going to live, say Duke University Medical Center researchers.

Chest pain still tops symptom list for both sexes, but women more likely to have atypical symptoms and 'invisible' blockages -- which may explain treatment lag

Scientists at the Center for Translational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have found that a protein that appears to have protective and perhaps healing effects for failing hearts also plays a similar role in high blood pressure. They found lower-than-normal levels of the protein S100A1 in cells that line blood vessel walls in animals with high blood pressure.

A person with dilated cardiomyopathy has an enlarged and stretched heart cavity, usually too weak to pump normally; most people will go on to develop heart failure. While clinicians know that up to 36 percent of all cases of dilated cardiomyopathy may be due to excessive drinking, it has been difficult to differentiate between alcohol-induced heart failure and heart failure due to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy.

Heart specialists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere report what is believed to be the first wide-scale evidence linking severe overweight to prolonged inflammation of heart tissue and the subsequent damage leading to failure of the body’s blood-pumping organ.

Despite the general success of left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) used in critically ill heart failure patients, implantation of these devices often leads to increased bleeding and a need for high-volume blood transfusions during and immediately after surgery.

A gene that can cause the heart to become enlarged, greatly increasing the risk of heart attacks and heart failure, is identified today in a new study.

A genetic variation, found predominantly in African Americans, protects some people with heart failure, enabling them to live longer than expected. That’s the conclusion of a research team led by investigators at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore and the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

About 40 percent of African-Americans have a genetic variant that can protect them after heart failure and prolong their lives, according to research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions.

Older men who take loop diuretics, commonly prescribed drugs for heart failure and hypertension, appear to have increased rates of hip bone loss than men who are not taking this medication, according to a report in the April 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The largest-ever randomized study to evaluate the effectiveness of catheter-based interventions in patients with narrowing of the renal artery has shown that angioplasty and stenting offer no benefit over medical therapy.

According to a new study, ACE inhibitor ramipril (Altace) proved to be as effective as its more expensive competitor ARB telmisartan (Micardis).