CardioExchange Archive

April 11th, 2013

Cuban History Offers Important Lessons For Global Health Today

Larry Husten, PHD

A large new study from Cuba shows the impressive benefits that can be achieved with weight loss and increased exercise. Much more ominously, the same study shows the dangers associated with weight gain and less exercise. In the study, published in BMJ, researchers took advantage of a “natural” experiment that occurred in Cuba as a result of a major […]

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April 10th, 2013

Scientific Misconduct: From Darwin and Mendel to Poldermans and Matsubara

Larry Husten, PHD

Responding to recent episodes of scientific misconduct in cardiovascular research involving once prominent cardiovascular researchers, the editor of the European Heart Journal, Thomas Lüscher, has written an editorial discussing the significance of the new cases and placing them in a historical context that includes allegations of scientific misconduct by Mendel and Darwin, among many others. Lüscher writes that scientific misdoncuct […]

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April 9th, 2013

Quinidine Unavailable in Most of the World

Larry Husten, PHD

Quinidine — the only drug known to be effective in preventing lethal ventricular arrhythmias in people with several rare conditions, including Brugada syndrome, idiopathic ventricular fibrillation (VF), and early repolarization syndrome — is no longer available in much of the world. In a study published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Sami Viskin and colleagues surveyed […]

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April 7th, 2013

Researchers Find New Pathway Linking Heart Disease To Carnitine

Larry Husten, PHD

A new line of preliminary research has turned up a novel pathway linking atherosclerosis to red meat and a common supplement contained in energy drinks. If the research is upheld, the findings may have important implications for dietary recommendations and our understanding of atherosclerosis. The research also provides another quite surprising example of the previously […]

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April 4th, 2013

Registry Study Offers Reassurance About Safety and Efficacy of Dabigatran

Larry Husten, PHD

As the first new oral anticoagulant since warfarin, dabigatran (Pradaxa, Boehringer-Ingelheim) has been subject to intense concerns over its safety and efficacy in a real-world population. Last November an FDA investigation found no indication that bleeding rates for dabigatran were any higher than bleeding rates for warfarin. A new study from Scandinavia, published in the Journal of the American […]

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April 3rd, 2013

International Cardiovascular Device Registries: The Next Big Thing

Larry Husten, PHD

A new initiative involving a wide variety of stakeholders — the FDA, the American College of Cardiology, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, industry, medical journals, and others — could lead to an enormous international cooperative effort to make device registries a standard part of the practice of cardiology. This will be a “huge step,” said David […]

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April 2nd, 2013

Lifelong Statin Sentence Now Includes Furloughs

Larry Husten, PHD

Although the benefits of statins are among the best documented in all of medicine, continuous lifelong statin therapy is not always easy to achieve in clinical practice. Now a new retrospective study suggests that although clinical events causing temporary cessation of statin therapy occur often, most of these patients are later able to resume statin therapy. […]

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March 29th, 2013

FDA Approves First SGLT2 Inhibitor for Diabetes

Larry Husten, PHD

The FDA said today that it had approved canaglifozin (Invokana, Johnson & Johnson), the first of a new class of diabetes drugs known as sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors. Canaglifozin is indicated, in conjunction with diet and exercise, to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes. The drug has been studied as monotherapy and in combination with […]

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March 26th, 2013

Controversial NIH Chelation Trial Published in JAMA

Larry Husten, PHD

Final results of the troubled NIH-sponsored Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) testing chelation therapy for coronary disease have now been published in JAMA. Last November, when the preliminary results were presented at the American Heart Association meeting, the positive finding in favor of chelation therapy surprised many observers, though the investigators and senior AHA representatives expressed considerable caution […]

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March 25th, 2013

Once Again FDA Rejects Oral Treprostinil for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Larry Husten, PHD

For the second time the FDA has issued a complete response letter rejecting the new drug application (NDA) of oral treprostinil for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The manufacturer of the drug, United Therapeutics, said in a press release that it planned to discuss the decision with the FDA. “We remain confident that oral treprostinil will play […]

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