After Hope Sarfi had bypass surgery last year, she had good support from family and friends. They helped her out where they could, some learned about her condition and they listened to her concerns—everything you could want from those closest to you. But she felt something was missing. That...
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Heart failure is an insidious disease. Its symptoms can be vague—including shortness of breath, swelling of the ankles and fatigue. Too often, patients and family doctors miss the warning signs entirely, explained Peter Liu, MD, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research at the...
Hospitalization for pneumonia is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in middle-aged and older adults with no history of heart disease, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Presenting his findings at the University of...
As many as one in eight people don’t know they have prediabetes and are on the path to developing diabetes. Of Canadian adults, that is nearly 3.5 million people. Both prediabetes and diabetes are important contributors to heart disease. The findings, published recently in the American Journal of...
The health benefits of regular physical activity are well documented and hard to overstate, but too often they are left out of the doctor–patient conversation. In December 2015, JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, published the Viewpoint “ Making Physical Activity Counseling a...
Despite major advances in technology and treatment over the past several decades, cardiovascular disease is still the leading cause of death in the world. In fact, cardiovascular illness has continued to increase at an epidemic rate globally despite a general reduction in age-related mortality over...
One thing we know about women’s hearts is that they are different. Gender differences have been identified in the recognition, treatment and recovery from heart disease related illness, but there are anatomical differences that can affect a woman’s recovery from cardiac surgery. One post-surgical...
The American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association have named the RAFT trial among the top 10 research advances in heart disease in 2010. Led by the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, RAFT showed cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is effective in reducing the risk for death...
Few health challenges are as well-publicized as high blood pressure, a topic that has become all too familiar, appearing everywhere from the daily news to medical conferences. And being so familiar, it is easy to overlook the fact that most of this attention has been devoted to a problem that stems...
Blood Test Identifies Those at Risk for Heart Attack Knowing an individual’s specific risk of heart attack could significantly impact his or her medical care as well as willingness to adopt a healthier lifestyle. A blood test now available in the United States has been shown to do just that. The...
To coincide with coverage of the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Summit, this edition of “Rapids Beats” is dedicated to news related to women and heart disease. Why Women Are Less Likely to Receive Statin Therapy Statin drugs, which lower cholesterol, are equally effective in men and women at...
As commentaries on radiation go, Peter Parker likely summed it up best: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Although no one at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute has had to deal with the complications of acquiring superpowers from a radioactive spider, the staff is profoundly aware...
Almost no one complains about the food. It’s not that the food at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute is better than at other hospitals. But, said Sharon Ann Kearns, the Manager of Quality and Performance Measurement, when people are satisfied with their care and feel they have been well...
You have seven minutes, Dr. Chow. You may begin. Dr. Benjamin Chow was told he had seven minutes to pitch his idea. Seven minutes to describe and convey the importance of a groundbreaking medical technique. To explain how using it would improve access to healthcare for thousands of heart patients in...
A good night’s sleep restores energy, improves performance and generally makes you feel better. Getting the right amount of sleep is also important for good heart health. A South Korean study of more than 47,000 adults found that people who sleep about seven hours a night have significantly fewer...
For decades, patients taking the anti-clotting drug warfarin who required the implantation of a pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator have posed a dilemma. If they are at moderate to high risk of stroke caused by a blood clot, how are doctors to balance the risk of surgical bleeding...
In April of this year, the University of Ottawa Heart Institute expanded its ranks with a new surgeon who brings broad interests in new concepts and technologies that have the potential to improve patient outcomes. Crossing the Atlantic from the Clinique Saint-Luc Bouge in Namur, Belgium, David...
[Editor’s note: This article is an update of previously published story.] Nearly one in every 100 babies is born with some form of congenital heart disease (CHD). In the 1950s, only about 15% of these children with severe heart defects reached their 18th birthday. Today, with advances in treatment...
Modern medical imaging allows doctors to see deep within the body in exquisite detail. Using small amounts of radioactive material called tracers, cardiologists can see in real time how well a patient’s heart is functioning. The positron emission tomography (PET) imaging group at the University of...
There is a flood of advice in the world about diets and healthy eating. From the food pyramid to fad diets, from books to blogs to celebrity chefs, some of it is good information, some of it is outrageous, and a lot of it is complicated and hard to live by. Healthy eating shouldn’t be hard, but it...