Heart podcast

Heart podcast

By BMJ GroupScience
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Heart podcast episodes

  • Physical activity level and prognosis in patients with coronary heart disease
    Extensive research has established that physical activity is inversely associated with the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in healthy adults. In patients with manifest cardiovascular disease, current clinical practice guidelines recommend encouraging patients to undertake daily moderate intensity physical exercise for secondary prevention.
    While such recommendations are based on numerous clinical trials clearly showing that exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation improves prognosis in heart disease patients, only a few prospective studies have examined the potential benefit of physical activity in clinical practice under real-life conditions.
    A recent Heart paper investigates the association of leisure time physical activity level with prognosis in a cohort of patients with coronary heart disease. Lead author Ute Mons, Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research, German Cancer Research Center, discusses what they found.
    Read the full paper:
    http://goo.gl/gDHlH2
    12 min
  • Short-term effects of air pollution on a range of cardiovascular events in England and Wales
    Experimental and epidemiological studies have provided evidence of associations between air pollution and cardiovascular health. More pollution-related deaths occur from heart disease than from any other cause.
    A recent study in Heart aimed to further current understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms by examining the strength and specificity of acute relationships between ambient air pollution and a range of CVD events. The key mechanistic question addressed is whether events of clear thrombotic origin, namely, acute MI, stroke and related outcomes, have a stronger association with air pollution than non-thrombotic outcomes.
    Lead author Ai Milojevic, Department of Social and Environmental Health Research, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, describes what they found.
    10 min
  • Patient prosthesis mismatch: Does it matter?
    In this podcast Heart editor in chief Catherine Otto, discusses patient prothesis mismatch with Professor Philippe Pibarot, Directeur, Chaire de Recherche du Canada sur les Maladies Valvulaires Cardiaques, after he presented a commentary on the issue at the Transcatheter Valve Therapies meeting in Vancouver, Canada on June 5, 2014.
    Aortic valve stenosis is prevalent in the elderly and valve replacement for severe symptomatic obstruction improves symptoms and prolongs life. However, some patients have persistent symptoms after intervention because the functional valve area of the prosthetic valve is too small for the patient’s body size, a situation termed patient-prosthesis mismatch (PPM).
    The hemodynamics of PPM have been well described but the actual clinical impact of PPM is controversial. In the June issue of Heart, Dr Price and colleagues (heartjnl-2013-305118) report that PPM was associated with decreased survival and persistent symptoms only in patients with a low left ventricular ejection fraction who were under age 70 years at the time of valve surgery. In older adults, although PPM was associated with impaired regression of LV hypertrophy, PPM was not associated with increased mortality or heart failure symptoms.
    This data has important implications for clinical management suggesting that additional procedures to allow implantation of a larger prosthesis may not be necessary in older adults or in younger patients with normal left ventricular function.
    See also:
    The impact of prosthesis–patient mismatch after aortic valve replacement varies according to age at operation http://goo.gl/JNX42v
    10 min
  • Determinants of effective heart failure self-care
    Heart failure (HF) self-care matters, but what matters most in HF self-care?
    To inform the design of future interventions and promote effective HF self-care, a systematic review of qualitative studies has recently been published in Heart. This examines patients’ and caregivers’ needs, experiences and preferences regarding the nature and determinants of HF self-care.
    Alistair Lindsay talks to co-author Alexander Clark, professor in the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, about the findings.
    Read the full review here:
    Determinants of effective heart failure self-care: a systematic review of patients’ and caregivers’ perceptions http://goo.gl/Lb3adm
    16 min
  • Joint British Societies’ consensus recommendations for the prevention of cardiovascular disease
    This podcast discusses the 3rd Joint British Societies’ (JBS) consensus recommendations, released on 26th March 2014.
    These eagerly anticipated guidelines incorporate much of the recent research in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, and include a new risk calculator for physicians.
    Heart’s social media editor, Dr Alistair Lindsay, discusses the most important points of the recommendations with Dr Iain Simpson, President of the British Cardiovascular Society and a member of the JBS 3 editorial group.
    13 min
  • Long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and coronary artery calcification in Japanese men
    Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major public health problem not only in developed but also in developing countries.1 CHD rates in Japan are uniquely low compared to the USA and other developed countries.
    In a paper in April's Heart, Akira Sekikawa and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh looked at whether serum concentrations of long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCn3PUFAs) contribute to the difference in the incidence rate of coronary artery calcification (CAC) between Japanese men in Japan and white men in the USA.
    Alistair Lindsay asks him what they found.
    Read the full paper:
    Long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and incidence rate of coronary artery calcification in Japanese men in Japan and white men in the USA: population based prospective cohort study http://goo.gl/rwKUCW
    13 min
  • Aortic dilatation patterns and rates in adults with bicuspid aortic valves
    Bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is related to aortic dilatation, but patterns/rates are conflicting with no comparison among aneurysms of different aetiology.
    In this podcast Alistair Lindsey talks to Hector Michelena from the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases at the Mayo Clinic about his research published in heart.bmj.com
    Read the full research: http://heart.bmj.com/content/100/2/126.full
    25 min

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