Leukocyte telomeres are longer in African Americans than in whites: the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Family Heart Study and the Bogalusa Heart Study

Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is ostensibly a bio-indicator of human aging. Here we report that African Americans have longer LTL than whites. We studied cross-sectionally 2453 individuals from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Family Heart Study (age = 30–93 years) and the Bogalusa Heart Study (age = 19–37 years), comprising 1742 whites and 711 African Americans. We measured LTL by Southern blots of the terminal restriction fragments length. In 234 participants, telomere repeats were also measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Adjusted for age and body mass index (BMI), the respective leukocyte telomere lengths (mean ± SEM) were considerably longer in African Americans than in whites both in the Family Heart Study (7.004 ± 0.033 kb vs. 6.735 ± 0.024 kb, p  < 0.0001) and the Bogalusa Heart Study (7.923 ± 0.063 kb vs. 7.296 ± 0.039 kb, p  < 0.0001). We confirmed the racial effect on LTL by qPCR (3.038 ± 0.565 T/S units for African Americans vs. 2.714 ± 0.487 T/S units for whites, p  < 0.001). Cross-sectionally, sex- and BMI-adjusted LTL became shorter with age (range 19–93 years) at a steeper slope in African Americans than in whites (0.029 kb year⁻¹ vs. 0.020 kb year⁻¹, respectively, p  = 0.0001). We suggest that racial difference in LTL arises from a host of interacting biological factors, including replication rates of hematopoietic stem cells.     

耗竭性游泳对大鼠心肌线粒体膜功能的影响

耗竭性游泳对大鼠心肌线粒体膜功能的影响王文信,丁树哲,许豪文（华东师范大学体育系运动生化实验室,上海２０００６２）关键词心肌线粒体,内膜表面电位,游离钙,总钙,合成活力长时间耗竭性游泳或跑步引起心肌、骨骼肌、肝脏等线粒体结构和功能变化,这些变化可能与...     

心力衰竭动物模型研究进展

心力衰竭是一种复杂的临床症候群,它是各种心脏病的终末阶段,发病率及病死率均较高,严重危害着人类健康,为了广泛深入地研究和治疗心力衰竭,迫切需要建立该病的动物模型。本综述复习了近年来文献,介绍目前较为成熟的心力衰竭动物模型的应用,同时比较之间的优缺点。     

Heart of the Country

Heart of the Country, written and directed by Leonard Kamerling; education adviser, William Parrett; presented by the Alaska Center for Documentary Film, University of Alaska Museum, in collaboration with the community of Kanayama, Hokkaido, Japan; 1997. Color videotape, 92 mins. Distributed by First Run/Icarus Films, 21st floor, 32 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA; tel. (718) 488-8900; e-mail: mailroom@frif.com.; video sale, $440.00, rental $100.00.     

Use of a Heart Team in Decision-Making for Patients with Complex Coronary Disease at Hospitals in Michigan Prior to Guideline Endorsement

Background

Revascularization decisions can profoundly impact patient survival, quality of life, and procedural risk. Although use of Heart Teams to make revascularization decisions is growing, data on their implementation in the real-world are limited. Our objective was to assess the prevalence of Heart Teams and their association with collaboration in routine practice.

Methods

A survey of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons at 31 hospitals in Michigan was performed in May, 2011 – prior to the recommendation for using Heart Teams in national guidelines. This survey included all percutaneous coronary intervention-performing hospitals in Michigan participating in the Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium and Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons Quality Collaborative. It targeted both the use of Heart Teams and multidisciplinary Case Conferences.

Results

There were 53 physician survey respondents from 27 hospitals with 4 hospitals not responding. Among respondents, 11 (40.7%) hospitals reported no Heart Teams or Case Conferences while 7 (25.9%) hospitals reported either a Heart Team or Case Conference. However, there was disagreement about the presence of a Heart Team at seven hospitals, and about Case Conferences at nine hospitals. Hospitals with definite Heart Teams reported significantly greater levels of collaboration between cardiologists and cardiac surgeons.

Conclusion

The overall presence of Heart Teams prior to their recommendation in national guidelines was limited. Even among hospitals with a potential Heart Team, there was substantial disagreement between respondents about their presence. Further refinement of the definition of a Heart Team and measures of successful implementation are needed.     

The Netherlands Heart Journal: special issue on COVID-19

Netherlands Heart Journal -     

The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart

The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Ruth Behar. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996. 196 pp.     

Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America

Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America. Richard Nelson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. 389 pp.     

Carved from the Heart.

Carved from the Heart. 1997. 30 minutes, color. VHS. film by Ellen Frankenstein and Louise Brady. For more information, contact New Day Films, 22D Hollywood Avenue, Hohokus, NJ 07423. 201/652-6590 or 888/367-9154. Fax 201/652-/973. Email: orders@newday.com, website: http://www.newday.com     

Rationale and design of the SMART Heart study

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is an independent risk factor for the development of heart failure, coronary heart disease and stroke. LVH develops in response to haemodynamic overload, e.g. hypertension. LVH was originally thought to start as an adaptive and beneficial response required to normalise wall stress. However, this concept has been challenged by recent animal experiments suggesting that any degree of LVH is detrimental for the preservation of cardiac function and survival. If confirmed in humans, these findings imply that an increase in LV mass should be prevented, e.g. by lifestyle or pharmacological interventions. To facilitate and optimise interventions, the SMART Heart study was recently set up to develop a prediction model, also involving single nucleotide polymorphism data, for the identification of subjects at high risk of developing LVH in hypertension. For this purpose 1000 subjects with chronic hypertension will undergo cardiac MR imaging. In addition, this study allows the extrapolation of animal experimental genetic research into the human situation. (Neth Heart J 2007;15:295-8).     

心音信号噪声消除的小波变换方法

心音信号幅值小,干扰多,采用常规的时、频域滤波方法往往不能收到良好的效果,本文根据信号和干扰在小波变换下的不同变化特性,利用二进小波变换的模极大值识别出心音信号中的干扰噪声的位置,剔除其相应的小波变换系数后,再通过小波逆变换重构出心音信号,并根据心音信号的特点选取了适当的母小波和分解尺度,给出了利用小波方法去噪前后的实际结果,结果表明,小波变换方法可有效地消除心音信号中的噪声干扰。     

Impact factor 2013 of the Netherlands Heart Journal surpasses 2.0

The impact factor of the Netherlands Heart Journal was stable at about 1.4 between 2009 and 2012. In 2013 it will break through the 2.0 barrier for the first time.     

Heart failure: advances through genomics

Heart failure is an increasingly prevalent and highly lethal disease that is most often caused by underlying pathologies, such as myocardial infarction or hypertension, but it can also be the result of a single gene mutation. Comprehensive genetic and genomic approaches are starting to disentangle the diverse molecular underpinnings of both forms of the disease and promise to yield much-needed novel diagnostic and therapeutic options for specific subtypes of heart failure.     

Using real-world data to monitor and improve quality of care in coronary artery disease: results from the Netherlands Heart Registration

Netherlands Heart Journal - Worldwide, quality registries for cardiovascular diseases enable the use of real-world data to monitor and improve the quality of cardiac care. In the Netherlands Heart...     

Automatic Prediction of Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Events Using Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Background

There is consensus that Heart Rate Variability is associated with the risk of vascular events. However, Heart Rate Variability predictive value for vascular events is not completely clear. The aim of this study is to develop novel predictive models based on data-mining algorithms to provide an automatic risk stratification tool for hypertensive patients.

Methods

A database of 139 Holter recordings with clinical data of hypertensive patients followed up for at least 12 months were collected ad hoc. Subjects who experienced a vascular event (i.e., myocardial infarction, stroke, syncopal event) were considered as high-risk subjects. Several data-mining algorithms (such as support vector machine, tree-based classifier, artificial neural network) were used to develop automatic classifiers and their accuracy was tested by assessing the receiver-operator characteristics curve. Moreover, we tested the echographic parameters, which have been showed as powerful predictors of future vascular events.

Results

The best predictive model was based on random forest and enabled to identify high-risk hypertensive patients with sensitivity and specificity rates of 71.4% and 87.8%, respectively. The Heart Rate Variability based classifier showed higher predictive values than the conventional echographic parameters, which are considered as significant cardiovascular risk factors.

Conclusions

Combination of Heart Rate Variability measures, analyzed with data-mining algorithm, could be a reliable tool for identifying hypertensive patients at high risk to develop future vascular events.     

The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Maya Town

The War for the Heart and Soul of. Highland Maya Town. Robert S. Carlsen. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1997. 206 pp.     

Unity of Heart: Culture and Change in a Polynesian Atoll Society

Unity of Heart: Culture and Change in. Polynesian Atoll Society. Keith Chambers and Anne Chambers. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001. xx. 283 pp.     

Common Variants for Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) is a common disease with high morbidity and mortality; however, none of the drugs available are now entirely optimal for the treatment of HF. In addition to various clinical diseases and environment influences, genetic factors also contribute to the development and progression of HF. Identifying the common variants for HF by genome-wide association studies will facilitate the understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms underlying HF. This review summarizes the recently identified common variants for HF risk and outcome and discusses their implications for the clinic therapy.     

Heart mitochondrial nitric oxide synthase. Effects of hypoxia and aging

The production of NO by heart mitochondria was 0.7-1.1 nmol NO/min.mg protein, an activity similar to the ones observed in mitochondrial membranes from other organs. Heart mtNOS seems to contribute with about 56% of the total cellular NO production. The immunological nature of the mtNOS isoform of cardiac tissue remains unclear; in our laboratory, heart mtNOS reacted with an anti-iNOS anti-body. Heart mtNOS expression and activity are regulated by physiological and pharmacological effectors. The state 4/state 3 transition regulates heart mtNOS activity and NO release in intact respiring mitochondria: NO production rates in state 3 were 40% lower than in state 4. Heart mtNOS expression was selectively regulated by O(2) availability in hypobaric conditions and the activity was 20-60% higher in hypoxic rats than in control animals, depending on age. In contrast, NADH-cytochrome c reductase and cytochrome oxidase activities were not affected by hypoxia. The activity of rat heart mtNOS decreased 20% on aging from 12 to 72 weeks of age. On the pharmacological side, mitochondrial NO production was increased after enalapril treatment (the inhibitor of the angiotensin converting enzyme) with modification of heart mtNOS functional activity in the regulation of mitochondrial O(2) uptake and H(2)O(2) production. Thus, heart mtNOS is a highly regulated mitochondrial enzyme, which in turn, plays a regulatory role through mitochondrial NO steady state levels that modulate O(2) uptake and O(2)(-) and H(2)O(2) production rates. Nitric oxide and H(2)O(2) constitute signals for metabolic control that are involved in the regulation of cellular processes, such as proliferation and apoptosis.     

Heart Ratios at Different Stages in the Life Cycle of Lampreys

Heart ratios (heart weight/body weight. ×100) have been obtained for freshly killed and preserved (10% formalin) specimens of the lampreys Petromyzon marinus, Lampetra fluviatilis and L. planeri. Values for comparable stages were significantly higher in the preserved material, probably as a result of retention and fixation of blood in the heart chambers. The regression slope for the logarithmic relationship between heart and body weights was close to one in all stages of the three species investigated. A marked increase was observed in the heart ratio during metamorphosis, apparently attributable to an increase in the number and density of myocardial fibres. Heart ratios in the lamprey were generally higher than for most other fishes, with values of 0.1 and 0.3 being obtained for example in the case of freshly killed ammocoete and sexually mature adult stages of L. fluviatilis.