Penn Medicine News Blog Archive: Heart

Penn’s signature event at the 3rd annual Philadelphia Science Festival next week is a sure sign of the times. “Big Ideas: Funding and Innovation” draws on current themes and reminders of where the bright ideas really come from.

What do the songs “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees and “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen have in common? And – what could they possibly have to do with health care or saving lives? Well, as it so happens, both songs have a steady rhythm of 100 beats...

When most people think about ways to improve their heart health, they consider eating a healthier diet, getting some additional exercise, and possibly sipping a glass of red wine each night. But few people really consider the complex role that sleep – yes, sleep – plays in their overall cardiovascular...

“The needs that call Penn Medicine to action in the community are profound. Twenty-five percent of Philadelphians live in poverty – that’s nearly 400,000 adults and children – and one in seven city residents have no health insurance. Hunger and homelessness remain, still, throughout the city. These societal problems only...

Mariell Jessup, MD To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. As we wrap-up our Heart Month blog post series, I asked Penn Medicine’s Mariell Jessup, MD, medical director of the Heart...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. Research studies have shown that medications commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – such as Adderall, Dexedrine and Ritalin – have a...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. The mortality rate from both heart disease and stroke have decreased significantly in the past decade, but they still remain the #1 and #4...

 To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. “I know this sounds like a cliché, but one of the main reasons I’m interested in learning about the genetic basis of heart...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. At first pass, lariat seems like just a hifalutin' word for the more down-to-earth, lasso – a long, noosed rope. For most, either word...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. In honor of Heart Month and Valentine's Day, we're revisiting some of our most inspirational heart health patient stories from the last year. Penn...

The Pennsylvania HeartRescue Project, led by the Center for Resuscitation Science in Penn’s department of Emergency Medicine, has partnered with the American Heart Association and the Pennsylvania Bureau of Emergency Medical Services to form the “Lend A Hand, Save a Life” CPR Challenge, which launched last month and will continue through late May. The initiative aims to train 250,000 people across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Penn Medicine is the first in the region to begin testing a new procedure to help people whose high blood pressure can't be controlled using currently available medications.

The new year frequently brings with it resolutions to improve our lives. And the two goals topping most people’s lists are losing weight and getting more exercise. Every January, gyms suddenly become more crowded and weight-loss programs see significant increases in membership. Diet aid apps are downloaded by the thousands....

“We showed for the first time that clotting is reversible,” says John Weisel, Ph.D., professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, in contrast to a long-standing assumption that it isn’t. Weisel and colleagues showed how these sometimes dangerous knots of protein and cells are actually a dynamic, mutable structure this month...

In April 2009, Penn patient Elliot Gordon suffered from an aortic dissection, and required almost immediate open-heart surgery. Less than four years later Gordon will attempt to complete the Philadelphia Half-Marathon Sunday.

Two recent multicenter studies by Penn Medicine researchers have explored some of the issues involved in helping patients understand how receiving a destination LVAD will impact end-of-life planning and what is needed from a destination LVAD patient’s caregiver.

Vladimir R. Muzykantov, MD, PhD, professor of Pharmacology and Medicine, at the Perelman School of Medicine, is devising a recombinant version of thrombomodulin -- a natural anticoagulant present in human blood vessels -- that can be injected in the bloodstream of animals, where it binds to RBCs and circulates for a long time as a prodrug that gets activated at sites of thrombosis, preventing closing up of blood vessels.

Cardiologists at Penn Medicine are testing devices that can allow heart failure patients to be monitored from the comfort of their own homes instead of having to make trips to and from the hospital.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new prescription weight loss drug – the first in more than a decade. Advocates of the drug, which trials showed helped users lose an average of about five percent of their body weight, say it provides an important new weight loss option for the 35 percent of Americans classified as obese. But the medication, which will be sold under the name Belviq, is not without risks. Some studies showed that it causes heart valve problems, an issue that echoes the reasons why the weight-loss drug combination known as Fen-Phen was pulled from the market in 1997. A Penn medical toxicologist and emergency physician, Jeanmarie Perrone, played a role behind the headlines about the drug’s approval, as a member of an FDA advisory committee tasked with reviewing the data about the drug and making recommendations to the agency about whether or not it should be approved.

Pet cpr 1In a unique partnership between veterinary experts and physician-scientists who study and treat cardiac arrest in humans in Penn Medicine’s Center for Resuscitation Science, the same research that is saving patients who suffer cardiac arrests will now be put to use saving the lives of beloved pets. The Reassessment Campaign on Veterinary Resuscitation (RECOVER), announced this month, provides the first evidence-based guidelines on how to best treat cardiopulmonary arrest in dogs and cats.