Cardiology

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is now the most common hepatic pathology in developed nations. Public health officials are worried, as NAFLD increases the likelihood of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease.

The contrast media injected into patients' vascular systems in a heart procedure can cause injuries to the kidneys. That is particularly true for patients with chronic kidney disease. Diluting the effect by hydrating a patient helps, but can risk overloading the heart. Chinese doctors offer a solution.

Part of an ongoing series that takes a high-level look at the positions of the leading nominees for President when it comes to political issues potentially impacting physicians, this installment focuses on Donald Trump.

A new treatment option for deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) was recently introduced, but it looks like old habits die hard when it comes to prescriptions.

Ventricular assist devices (VADs) are literally life savers for some patients with heart failure, however, the technology can be accompanied by serious risks.

There are pros and cons to giving patients once-weekly injections of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), a new group of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes.

Older patients with heart and kidney failure can be helped with cardiac resynchronization therapy, a new study finds. But implanting devices to treat them is expensive, invasive, and not a full cure for many patients. Maybe it's better to ask these patients if they wouldn't rather die, two physicians argue.

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is poorly understood. In research presented at the American Epilepsy Society 69th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, there is new evidence that mutations in genes that control heart rhythm may explain some cases.

When a medical condition is paired with another, it could make for a trickier situation. New research found that some diseases can significantly impact platelet function while others appear to have no effect.

A recent study suggests that high salt intake is closely associated with elevated risks of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

With the amount of information we are hit with day in and day out, our minds need a way of quickly triaging it. This is what stereotyping does. But let's not confuse stereotyping with prejudice. The latter is negative and the former doesn't have to be.

Depression affects 20-40 percent of heart failure patients and is often linked to loss of motivation/ interest/confidence, lower quality of life, sleep disturbances, and changes in appetite with related weight changes.

In cardioverting a patient with atrial fibrillation, physicians accidentally overstimulated an implanted vagal nerve stimulator, harming the patient.

Even in hospital settings patients can suffer fatal cardiac events if they are not properly monitored. This is especially true at night when staffing numbers drop and families are not with their loved ones until morning.

A new prospective study supports retrospective analyses that link central sleep apnea and Cheyne Stokes respiration with the onset of atrial fibrillation in older men, particularly those age 75 years and older.

Patients suffering from the most common hereditary bleeding disorder von Willebrand disease (VWD) also undergoing surgical procedures are recommended specific treatment methods to manage perioperative anticoagulation.

There may be a link between the inflammatory proteins that cause rheumatoid arthritis and the development of heart valve disease.

Moderate consumption of alcohol can lower the risk of ischemic stroke, Korean researchers report.

Conditions like asthma and seasonal allergies can start when a patient is very young and stay with them throughout the course of their lives. As a result careful monitoring and treatment can greatly help improve the quality of life for those patients.

Retrospective analysis of real-world outcomes supports the use of the Amplatzer cardiac plug for left atrial appendage closure in atrial fibrillation patients with a very high risk of stroke or serious bleeds and who cannot tolerate oral anticoagulation.

Always a brewing topic, coffee drinking has been linked to a lower risk of dying from heart disease.

Study results suggest that gout itself and not hyperuricemia alone is associated with left ventricular diastolic dysfunction and left atrial volume enlargement.

For children born with single ventricle defects every day matters in getting the treatment and operations they need to survive. A new study looked at a commonly known medication which could help get them extra time for their treatment.

As more is learned about the affect of newly developed PCSK9 medications cardiologists are looking at new patient populations and how to provide them the highest quality care.

The long-awaited SPRINT trial not only included patients that are often left out of clinical studies, it also provided physicians with much-needed guidance on more effective blood pressure management strategies.

I'm always fascinated by the Medscape physician reports every year and seeing how unhappy physicians are. How burnt out they are. How dissatisfied with their careers they are.

In non-diabetic patients, researchers have shown sirolimus-eluting stents to be more effective than paclitaxel-eluting stents, leading to better clinical outcomes. Some researchers believe that T2DM attenuates the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway. This could influence the choice of stents, and has created a controversy.

Severe hypoglycemia is a complication of insulin use that occurs in 20% of insulin-treated patients on a monthly basis. A small number of these patients become unconscious or seize as a result of severe hypoglycemia. Hospitals are prepared to intervene, but often in the community, a Good Samaritan needs to reconstitute and injection dry powder formulations of subcutaneous and intramuscular glucagon for unconscious or seizing patients.

Despite the many glucose monitoring and insulin delivery devices that are available, many diabetics who use them remain uncontrolled and experience hypoglycemia. Researchers dream of the day that drug-device combinations will track diabetics' glucose levels and deliver appropriate insulin dose.

Leptin (an adipocyte-secreted hormone) has been an object of observation since 1994. Its levels in the body are roughly proportional to an individual's amount of adipose tissue. It seems to regulate energy homeostasis, decrease energy intake, and increase energy expenditure. From its discovery, researchers hoped that its manipulation could be useful clinically.