News by Subject Medicine & Health

Researchers at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth have discovered a way to turn neutrophils from toxic to helpful after a hemorrhagic stroke.

A new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds beta blockers are not needed after a heart attack if heart-attack survivors are taking ACE inhibitors and statins. The study is the first to challenge the current clinical guideline that heart-attack survivors should take all three drugs -- beta blockers, ACE inhibitors and statins -- for the rest of their lives.

People with schizophrenia have a mortality rate that is three times greater each year than those without schizophrenia, and die on average, eight years earlier than people without schizophrenia according to a new Ontario study by researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

Organ damage from high blood pressure doesn't only occur in adults; it can also happen in teenagers, according to research presented today at the American Heart Association Council on Hypertension, AHA Council on Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease, American Society of Hypertension Joint Scientific Sessions 2017 in San Francisco.

Overall, home blood pressure monitoring has increased among US adults. However, those with less than a high school diploma and no partner are less likely to monitor blood pressure at home. Adults who have and are being treated for high blood pressure show higher rates of home monitoring.

Primary care practices using the Measure accurately, Act rapidly and Partner with patients (MAP) program drove down hypertension rates among patients. In six months of MAP, hypertension control rose from 65.6 percent to 74.8 percent, among more than 21,000 hypertension patients at US primary care practices.

Gender matters when it comes to what's most likely to elevate blood pressure in young to middle-aged adults. The volume of blood pumped from the left ventricle during heartbeats, i.e., stroke volume, is the main determinant of blood pressure levels in women, while blood pressure in men is more likely to be determined by the amount of resistance in the body's blood vessels.

Women who develop preeclampsia in earlier pregnancy are more likely than women without the condition to have thickening of the left heart muscle one month after delivery. The heart muscle changes were more severe among women who developed preeclampsia before 34 weeks of pregnancy. In another study, telehealth monitoring shows promise to reduce hospital readmissions in women who develop hypertension immediately after having a baby.

Maintaining a healthy weight is a key health behavior to prevent blood pressure increases from young adulthood into middle age. These findings support the need to create interventions that will help people maintain normal body weight throughout their lives.