heart attack tagged posts

New Cleveland Clinic research showed that erythritol, a popular artificial sweetener, is associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Findings were published today in Nature Medicine.

Researchers studied more than 4,000 people in the U.S. and Europe and found those with higher blood erythritol levels were at elevated risk of experiencing a major adverse cardiac event such as heart attack, stroke or death. They also examined the effects of adding erythritol to either whole blood or isolated platelets. Results revealed that erythritol made platelets easier to activate and form a clot. Pre-clinical studies confirmed ingestion of erythritol heightened clot formation.

“Sweeteners like erythritol, have rapidly increased in popularity in recent years but there needs to...

The material can be injected intravenously and has potential application in heart attacks, traumatic brain injury and more. A new biomaterial that can be injected intravenously, reduces inflammation in tissue and promotes cell and tissue repair. The biomaterial was tested and proven effective in treating tissue damage caused by heart attacks in both rodent and large animal models. Researchers also provided proof of concept in a rodent model that the biomaterial could be beneficial to patients with traumatic brain injury and pulmonary arterial hypertension.

“This biomaterial allows for treating damaged tissue from the inside out,” said Karen Christman, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California...

Researchers at CÚRAM, the SFI Research Centre for Medical Devices based at National University of Ireland Galway, and BIOFORGE Lab, at the University of Valladolid in Spain, have developed an injectable hydrogel that could help repair and prevent further damage to the heart muscle after a heart attack.

The results of their research have just been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Myocardial infarction or heart disease is a leading cause of death due to the irreversible damage caused to the heart muscle (cardiac tissue) during a heart attack. The regeneration of cardiac tissue is minimal so that the damage caused cannot be repaired by itself...

New research advances the possibility of regenerating cardiac tissue after a heart attack. Once the heart is fully formed, the cells that make up heart muscle, known as cardiomyocytes, have very limited ability to reproduce themselves. After a heart attack, cardiomyocytes die off; unable to make new ones, the heart instead forms scar tissue. Over time, this can set people up for heart failure.

New work published April 17th in Nature Communications advances the possibility of reviving the heart’s regenerative capacities using microRNAs – small molecules that regulate gene function and are abundant in developing hearts.

In 2013, Da-Zhi Wang, PhD, a cardiology researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital an...