Hormone Reduces Mortality in Heart Patients With High BP

(HealthDay News) -- The hormone relaxin reduces shortness of breath and cardiovascular death in people with heart failure who also have high blood pressure, according to a phase 2 trial conducted in eight countries.

The study included 234 people who, within a few hours of arriving at a hospital, were randomly assigned to receive an intravenous infusion of a placebo or varying doses of relaxin -- 10, 30 100 or 250 micrograms/kilogram (µ/kg) -- a day.

Shortness of breath improved in 40 percent of those who were given 30 µ/kg, compared with 23 percent of those who received the placebo.

After 60 days, fewer people given 30 µ/kg of relaxin had died from a cardiovascular cause or had to be readmitted to the hospital because of heart or kidney failure than in the placebo group: 2.6 percent compared with 17.2 percent. After 180 days, there were no cardiovascular deaths in the relaxin group at this dosage, but 14.3 percent of the placebo group had died from cardiovascular causes, the study found.

The study also found that people in the relaxin 30 µ/kg group spent less time in the hospital than did those in the placebo group (10.2 days vs. 12 days) and lived longer after discharge (47.9 days vs. 44.2 days). No safety concerns were noted in the relaxin 30 µ/kg group.

The study was funded by Corthera, and several of the researchers worked for the biopharmaceutical company, which has the rights to develop and market relaxin. The findings were to be presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Orlando, Fla., and appear online and in an upcoming print issue of The Lancet.

Over time, standard therapy can resolve shortness of breath and high blood pressure caused by heart failure, but evidence from this study "suggests that early administration of this drug in addition to standard therapy might be associated with more rapid, sustained and complete resolution of acute heart failure, as well as with more favorable long-term outcomes," wrote Dr. John R. Teerlink, of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and his colleagues.

On the basis of the study's results, the researchers said they plan to conduct a phase 3 clinical trial of relaxin, at 30 µ/kg, in people with heart failure.

More information
The American Heart Association has more about heart failure.

Healthy Heart Tips for a Bad Economy

(HealthDay News) -- The economic news is enough to weaken anyone's heart, and it sometimes does with people feeling stressed, eating poorly and cutting out workouts while trying to make ends meet.

"We've seen an increase in patients complaining about heart palpitations, anxiety and stress over the past months," Karol Watson, an associate professor of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, said in a news release issued by the school. "Much of heart disease can be prevented. That's why it is so important to follow a healthy lifestyle and to control your cardiovascular risk factors."

UCLA cardiologists offer these tips for adults and children in these tough economic times:

• Eat better; exercise more. Eat a healthy diet, including five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. By cooking simple fresh foods at home, rather than indulging in restaurant fare or fast foods, you can save money and your health. Maintaining a good diet and exercise program -- even if it's just 30 minutes of walking around the neighborhood -- helps you prevent obesity, which adds to the risk of heart attacks, heart failure and diabetes.
• Don't skimp on health care. Putting off doctor visits, especially when you have symptoms, hurts your health more in the long run, as does skipping medications or splitting pills to cut costs. Maintain regular checkups. Look at pharmaceutical company prescription programs if medication costs are a concern for you.
• Stop smoking and avoid secondhand smoke. Smoking is an expensive habit that greatly increases your risk of cardiovascular problems. Quitting smoking quickly reduces the risk to your heart.
• Reduce stress. Find a positive outlet -- such as exercise, meditation or the company of others -- to ease stress and improve your health.
• Maintain healthy cholesterol levels. Get your levels checked and talk to your physician about the best plan of action to keep your LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels low and your HDL ("good") cholesterol levels high.
• Check your blood pressure. Hypertension is called the "silent killer," because it exhibits few warning signs. Today, several effective treatments are available for high blood pressure. If your blood pressure is normal, maintain it with a healthy lifestyle.

More information
The American Heart Association has more about maintaining a heart healthy lifestyle.

Home: Where The Heart Is

From the moment it begins beating until the moment it stops, the human heart works tirelessly. In an average lifetime, the heart beats more than two and a half billion times, without ever pausing to rest. Like a pumping machine, the heart provides the power needed for life.

This life-sustaining power has, throughout time, caused an air of mystery to surround the heart. Modern technology has removed much of the mystery, but there is still an air of fascination and curiosity. Explore the heart. Continue Reading >>

Hospitalizations for Heart Failure Skyrocketing

(HealthDay News) -- The number of Americans admitted to hospitals for heart failure has jumped in recent years, and the trend almost certainly will continue, government experts report.

"Our study covers more than two decades, from 1979 to 2004, and the number of hospitalizations almost tripled during that time," said Dr. Jing Fang, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and lead author of the report in the Aug. 5 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

A major reason for the increase is the aging of the American population, Fang said. Heart failure, in which the heart progressively loses its ability to pump blood, is more common among older people.

"Another reason is the improvement in technology for treatment of patients with other heart diseases, such as acute myocardial infarction [heart attack]," Fang added. "So, people with diseases of the heart live longer."

Data from the National Heart Discharge Survey showed that the number of admissions to hospitals with any mention of heart failure rose from 1.274 million in 1979 to 3.86 million in 2004, the report said. More than 80 percent of those admitted to hospitals were 65 or older, with Medicare or Medicaid covering the cost.

The report did not cover the cost of the hospitalizations, but the American Heart Association has estimated it to be more than $20 billion annually, Fang said.

There has been a marked increase in the number of hospitalizations for which heart failure was not the primary cause, the report said. Heart failure was listed as the primary cause in no more than 35 percent of cases, with respiratory diseases and other conditions given as the reason for hospital admission in all other cases.

"Most are due to pneumonia or another disease that makes heart failure worse," Fang said. Better control of those other conditions, which include diabetes and kidney disease, could reduce hospitalizations for heart failure, Fang added.

But those people tend to keep coming back to the hospital because "you cannot cure people with heart failure," Fang said. "The best medicine [we] can do is to keep the heart functioning enough for the patient to have good quality of life."

A basic problem is that there is no effective treatment for heart failure severe enough to cause hospitalization, said Dr. Javed Butler, director of the heart failure research program at Emory University, and co-author of an accompanying editorial.

"When you are talking about medications that have been proven, they all are for chronic, stable outpatients," Butler said. "We don't have any proven medications for treatment in the hospital."

What is needed is a major effort to develop in-hospital treatments for severe heart failure, he said. "When you consider the huge cost, it is right up high on the list of conditions we need to study," Butler said. "It is a least-studied, most costly problem. We need to get a better grasp on what we should be doing."

More information
Learn about heart failure and its management from the American Heart Association.