The heart is vital (literally), so it’s important to keep it in tip-top shape! The rest of the body depends on the heart to deliver blood and oxygen to all its cells and organs. If the heart becomes damaged, it can lead to what is known as heart failure. Keeping your heart healthy not only involves proper diet and exercise, but also involves making sure conditions that can cause heart damage are properly managed.

Some conditions that can damage the heart are:

• cardiomyopathy
• coronary artery disease
• diabetes
• heart attacks
• high blood pressure

During heart failure the heart is unable to pump blood effectively enough to meet the body’s demands. Because the heart cannot fulfill its primary duty, it will try to compensate by enlarging itself, increasing muscle mass or pumping faster. The body can also react by narrowing blood vessels and diverting blood away from less important tissues and organs. As heart failure worsens the compensations and symptoms begin to show.

Common symptoms of heart failure include: shortness of breath, fatigue, coughing, racing heart, excessive tiredness, loss of appetite, and chest pain. Risk factors for developing heart failure include diabetes, poorly controlled high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or family history of heart failure. If you think you might have symptoms of heart failure, it’s important to speak with your doctor as soon as possible.

There are about 5.7 million adults in the United States who have heart failure and it’s the leading cause of death in diabetics. In most cases, heart failure cannot be reversed once diagnosed. However, researchers are continuing to study ways to reverse heart failure as well as new and better ways to treat it. Currently, many of our ENCORE research sites have new heart failure research studies enrolling. If you or someone you know has heart failure, and are interested in participating, call our office to find out more!

Three New Breakthroughs in Heart Disease

Heart Disease is a general term for heart conditions that negatively impact the heart’s ability to perform its vital functions. On average 1 in 4 American deaths each year are due to heart disease.  Fortunately, each year new discoveries are made that allow us to treat heart disease more successfully.  Here are three of the latest discoveries.

1. Dialysis for Heart Failure?

One of the symptoms of heart failure is fluid retention, which can lead to kidney

problems. Diuretics are currently the standard treatment for fluid retention, however there is a new treatment where a catheter in inserted through the neck so that it surrounds a major lymphatic vessel. The excess fluid is removed from the lymphatic system and then pumped back into the circulatory system where it is removed by the kidneys. This new treatment avoids some of the negative side effects of oral diuretics such as low blood pressure and decreased kidney function.

2. Beta Blockers: Old dog, new tricks?

A new study at York University in Toronto has analyzed the effect of beta blockers on

coronary gene expression in patients with heart failure. Researchers found that beta blockers “largely reverse the pathological pattern of gene expression observed in heart failure.” More research is needed to determine whether beta blockers can be used to protect against heart failure.

3. Tick saliva saving lives?

While ticks are often the subject of nightmares researchers now believe they can lead to a dream solution for myocarditis, heart attack and stroke. Ticks use proteins called ‘evasins’ to escape their host’s detection by blocking the host’s inflammatory response.  Researchers are now isolating these evasins in a ‘bug to drug’ formula.  Hopefully these drugs will be able treat a variety of inflammatory diseases.

At ENCORE Research Group we conduct cutting edge research similar to those seen above.  While we do not have any ‘bug to drug’ studies at this time, we do have a heart failure study involving a new use for an already FDA approved medication.  If you are interested in learning more about our current studies visit our “Enrolling Studies” tab at the top of the page.