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NEWS:
The Shape of Your Heart Matters
Curious to know if you’re at risk for two common heart conditions? Your doctor may want to check the shape of your heart.
Investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai have discovered that patients who have round hearts shaped like baseballs are more likely to develop future heart failure and atrial fibrillation than patients who have longer hearts shaped like the traditional Valentine heart.
Their findings, published in Med-Cell Press’ new peer-reviewed medical journal-used deep learning and advanced imaging analysis to study the genetics of heart structure. Their results were telling.
"We found that individuals with spherical hearts were 31% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation and 24% more likely to develop cardiomyopathy, a type of heart muscle disease," said David Ouyang, MD, a cardiologist in the Smidt Heart Institute and a researcher in the Division of
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Why Climate Change Might Be Affecting Your Headaches
Recurring headaches are one of the most common nervous system disorders, with an estimated 45 million, or one in six, Americans complaining of headaches each year. People who experience headaches or migraines regularly are probably familiar with different triggers for their headaches—such as consuming alcohol, increased stress, or changes in sleep quality. But what people suffering from headaches might not realize is that climate change can have effects on headaches.
How Can Climate Change Cause Headaches?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, rising global average temperature continue to impact widespread changes in weather patterns, and extreme weather events—such as heat waves and hurricanes—are likely to become more frequent or more intense. Experts suggest that the stress of these events can trigger headaches.
“Not only can experiencing an extreme storm itself be stres
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NIH-Funded Study Explains Link To Increased Cardiovascular Risks For People With Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Researchers have found that people with obstructive sleep apnea have an increased cardiovascular risk due to reduced blood oxygen levels, largely explained by interrupted breathing. Obstructive sleep apnea has long been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular issues, including heart attack, stroke, and death, but the findings from this study, partially supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, show the mechanism mostly responsible for the link.
“These findings will help better characterize high-risk versions of obstructive sleep apnea,” said Ali Azarbarzin, Ph.D., a study author and director of the Sleep Apnea Health Outcomes Research Group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. “We think that including a higher-risk version of obstructive sleep apnea in a randomiz
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Updated ISMP List of Often Confused Drug Names Now Available
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has revised its list of drug names that are often confused, including look-alike and sound-alike name pairs. More than 80 name pairs have been added since the last version. The refreshed list now incorporates the drug names that use U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved and ISMP-recommended tall man (mixed-case) letters.
“To update the list, we drew from what has been published in ISMP’s medication safety newsletters, following our analysis of the reports submitted to ISMP, as well as the current FDA list,” says Michael J. Gaunt, PharmD, senior manager, error reporting programs for ISMP. “Our goal was to give healthcare practitioners all the information that they need in one reference.”
ISMP hopes that healthcare organizations will use the current list to determine which medications require special safeguards to reduce the r
