Men with both low testosterone and heart disease have been linked to higher risk of heart death.

A study in the UK has found low testosterone is a red flag for heart disease in men. However, researchers still have not concluded whether or not low testosterone causes or worsens heart disease or whether testosterone replacement therapy would work to fight heart disease.

Low testosterone levels are now a good indicator of heart disease, but simply raising your testosterone levels will not help combat heart disease. So instead of testosterone replacement therapy to cut down heart disease risk, just use the normal methods to fight heart disease like weight loss, exercise, and a healthy diet.

This link only applies to men, not women. For women, high levels of testosterone are a sign of heart disease. Either way, testosterone levels are only an indicator of heart disease, not the cause.

A new protein injection has been found to break down triglycerides. Triglyceride is a type of fat in the blood and in high levels is quite bad for the heart. Elevated levels of triglycerides in the blood have been connected to coronary artery disease.

In a study, researcher tested the protein on mice that were genetically altered to have high levels of triglycerides. The medical reason why the mice had elevated levels of triglycerides was because they were missing a protein called, apolipoprotein (apo)A-V.  ApoA-V increases the efficiency of lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme needed to break down triglycerides. Basically, doctors wondered if the mice’s high triglycerides levels could be reduced by physically injecting apoA-V into them.

The results were over an 8-hour period, the mice had their triglycerides levels dropped 87%. Doctors hope the same could be done for humans with elevated levels of triglycerides caused by genetic diseases.

Sometimes to reopen a blocked heart artery, doctors thread instruments through an opening in the thigh artery and into a heart artery. This process is called arteriotomy. However, closing up the thigh artery is just as tricky as reopening a heart artery.

Arteriotomy closures (closing up the thigh artery) are usually done manually, but more and more arteriotomy closure devices are entering the market. These devices offer possible improvement over manual closures.  However, the American Heart Association says there is a lot of evidence to consider before using these devices.

Arteriotomy closure devices are useful, but the doctor should consider the patient’s overall health and risk factors before using the device over the manual way. Until further studies are done, doctors should be careful when using these devices.

Patients under the age of 45 had fewer complications and better improvement after a catheter ablation than older patients reported in a new study.  A catheter ablation is a procedure where tiny tubes send out a heat pulse into the heart to destroy abnormal tissues that cause irregular heartbeat. For this study, catheter ablation was used to treat atrial fibrillation (AF), a form of arrhythmia.

A year after the catheter ablation, the percentages of patients, old and young, with infrequent or no AF was basically the same.

• 87 percent of patients younger than 45 years old
• 88 percent of patients 45-54 years old and 55-64 years old
• 82 percent of patients 65 years or older.

However, younger patients suffered fewer side-effects. These young patients were less likely to need medication a year after the procedure and have major complications. Older patients had 2%-3% of the older patients had a major complication like stroke during or after catheter ablation.

About 2.2 million people in the United States have AF, but it is more common among the elderly. Around 6% of elderly (people older than 65 years old) are afflicted with AF, so not much research has been done about catheter ablation on younger people until now.

You might want to get over that fear of needles because flu shots not only protect you from influenza, but also heart attack according to a study in the Canadian Medical Association.

Heart attack risk rises in the winter just like the flu which suggests a connection. If a person suffers from a heart attack when infected with the flu, it can trigger a plaque rupture in the arteries. 16,012 people who had a heart between November, 2001 to May, 2007 and 62,694 people who did not have heart attacks were included in the study. People who had a flu shot during the past year had a 19% reduced risk for a heart attack compared to people who did not receive a shot during the same year.

Researchers also concluded the earlier in the flu season a person receives their shot, the lower the chances of a first heart attack. However, other vaccinations did not have the same effect on heart attacks like the pneumonia vaccine.

The Center of Disease Control (CDC) recommends flu shots for all, regardless of the benefits it has towards heart disease.

Doctors have always warned against ill effects of stress on the heart. New research has new direct evidence that pushes the point even further. Cortisol is a stress hormone secreted by the adrenal glands in response to stressful situations. A new study found high levels of cortisol in the urine was associated with a significant increase in death from cardiovascular disease, years later.

Compared to study participants with low cortisol levels, researchers found high level cortisol people were 5 times more likely die from a heart attack, stroke, or other heart diseases over six years of follow up. One clinic wanted to test the usefulness of the stress hormone test in response to this study and tested the cortisol levels of hair to determine any relation between cortisol and heart disease.

The results led researchers to believe cortisol levels were an important factor of heart risk, even more than high blood pressure and cholesterol. However, cortisol testing is still an inaccurate way because of many reasons. First, it is impossible to measure heart risk because there are no set cortisol levels to determine if a person’s heart is at risk for cardiovascular disease or not. Also, testing cortisol levels is an expensive and labor-intensive task. Lastly, there is no real medical proof if decreasing cortisol will improve heart health. Further research needs to be done, but the link between stress and heart disease remain stronger than ever.

People who tend to stress out easily are very vulnerable to heart disease. However within this subgroup of people, there exist even more subgroups. There are two types of stressed out people, Type A and Type D. A new study shows Type D personalities have are three times more likely to suffer from more heart-related problems than Type A.

Both types are easily stressed, but suffer from different kinds of stress. Type A personalities are more competitive, quick to anger, and have a sense of urgency where as Type D personalities are more anxious, irritable, and easily depressed. Type D hides these emotions because they fear the disapproval of others. New research has found Type D personalities more accurate in predicting cardiac events than any other traditional medical risk factors.

A study analyzed 49 studies about 6,121 people with heart disease. They found people with Type D personalities had 3 times the risk of heart events like bypass procedures and heart attack than any other personality types. Not to mention, people with Type D personalities were also 3 times more likely to develop psychological problems like clinical depression or anxiety. With this new information, doctors can screen patients by personality in order to set up behavioral therapy to help people most at risk for heart disease and mental health issues.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients have similar short-term survival rates after heart transplant surgeries compared to other diseases, but may have possibly long-term survival rate. HCI is the second most common form of heart muscle disease. What the disorder does is cause an inflammation of the heart muscle which can prevent the heart from pumping blood well. The left ventricle, the pumping chamber of the heart, thickens or “hypertrophies”. This makes the left ventricle stiff and unable to relax enough for blood to fill the heart chambers.

The first year after a heart transplant, HCM patients had an 85% survival rate while other heart transplant people had 82%. At the five-year mark is where the similarities diverge, HCM have a 75% survival rate and other patients have 70%. After 10 years, the survival rates for both groups dropped, but HCM had a much higher survival rate of 61% than the other transplant patients’ survival rate of 49%.

In the US, about half a million people are afflicted with HCM. The symptoms vary from person to person. Sometimes they are so mild that it goes unnoticed, but other times can be severe enough to cause heart failure. So much so, that only 1% of HCM patients makes up the total amount of people that receive a heart transplant.



In high income countries like the US, a higher education helps in predicting cardiovascular events. However the same cannot be said in low income nations. This is one of the first international studies done about the link between formal education and heart disease. As one of the first studies, many unexpected observations were found.

Smoking rates surprisingly increased with greater educated level among women from higher income countries to middle income countries to lower income countries. These higher educated women also had tiny increase incident rate of fatal and nonfatal heart attack and stroke.

Low and middle income countries have not achieved a balanced level of industrialization relative to their population which means a low to medium standard of living in these nations. This means studies done high income nations cannot be applied to low and middle income nations as the socioeconomic situations vastly differ. However, smoking continues to be one of the main factors of heart disease.

Smoking is one of the major causes of heart disease and stroke. Usually, the rate of smoking decreases as formal education increases. However, researchers found educated women from low and middle income nations smoked more than the less educated women from the same nations. The cause is a mystery as more and more developing nations are suffering from a seemingly cardiovascular disease outbreak. What researchers are calling for is more thorough studies to be done within these nations to help figure out the cause. Only then can they get to the source of this plague.

Do not let age stop you from running a marathon. A new study shows older amateur runners from age 50 to 72 can run marathons without adverse effects to their hearts. Researchers have found older runners experienced some temporary heart changes after a 26.2 mile run, but no permanent damage.

For the study, 167 runners with an average age of 50 from the 2006 and 2007 Berlin Marathon races were observed. All of the runners have completed at least one 26 mile marathon. Doctors examined the runners 10 days prior to the race, right after they completed the race, and two weeks after the race.

Doctors found their normal heart rate per minute jumped from 62 to 88 at the end of the race. The runners also displayed increased levels of troponin T and/or N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide, markers of heart damage, right when they finished the race. However, after two weeks their hearts returned to normal. What could be attributed to heart changes for older marathon runners could be dehydration according to researchers.

Dehydration is always the biggest problem for a marathon runner. Dehydration can lead to dangerous high heartbeats. Marathon runners tend not to drink water during runs because it slows them down, but ultimately may be their downfall in the long run.