According to Statistics Canada, 23% of Canadians aged 15 and older (an estimated 6.7 million people) reported most days were either ‘quite a bit’ or ‘extremely stressful’. Stress is the mind and body’s response to a perceived threat or stressor, triggering the instinct known as the fight-or-flight...
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Scientists at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) have developed a promising new therapy that successfully targets methylglyoxal (MG), a molecule that “toxifies” the heart following a heart attack, according to a study published in Advanced Functional Materials. Under normal conditions...
Obesity rates have grown to such an extent over the past several years that normal-weight individuals are now a minority in Canada. The problem gets worse with age: 16 per cent of adults ages 20 to 39 are obese, while fully one-third, or 33 per cent, of their counter-parts ages 60 to 79 fit that...
Following the 2015 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress (CCC), The Beat reported on a joint initiative of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and the Canadian Institute for Health Information to develop and report on national quality indicators for cardiovascular care. At this year’s Congress, the...
Cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIED) save lives – there’s no question about it. But, on rare occurrences, infections can lead to serious, often life-threatening complications. Last year, it was determined by science that more aggressive use of antibiotics around the time of device...
Oily fish is widely recommended as part of a heart-healthy diet, based in part on a landmark study from the 1970s. In it, Danish researchers Hans Olaf Bang and Jørn Dyerberg connected the low incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) among the Inuit of Greenland (referred to as Eskimos in the study...
COVID-19 wasn’t about to shut down Canada’s largest gathering of cardiovascular specialists and allied health professionals. Last month, as public health officials introduced restrictions to prevent mass get-togethers in regions across the country, heart-focused members of the medical community were...
Within weeks of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic, cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs around the world suspended in-person services due to social distancing measures put in place to help flatten the curve. Considering the unprecedented disruption to the delivery of traditional CR delivered at...
Shortness of breath, swelling ankles, fatigue—they can easily be passed off as part of getting older. But for more than 600,000 Canadians, these are signs of something much more serious. They are among the frustratingly non-specific symptoms of heart failure, the only form of heart disease that is...
Cardiovascular medicine has become so successful at rescuing people from major challenges, such as heart attack and stroke, that it must now confront an entirely new difficulty: helping the survivors of these health crises. In many cases, the hearts of these patients have been significantly weakened...
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes the efforts of many to maintain the health and quality of life of a person with heart failure. Cardiovascular specialists are essential, but no less so are the family doctors and other health care providers who deliver ongoing care; friends and...
Patients admitted to the hospital for heart failure receive a barrage of tests and treatments to assess and stabilize their conditions. But when they are discharged home, much of the responsibility for the patients’ future health rests in their own hands. If they don’t take their medications as...
The Canada Food Guide received its first update in more than a decade earlier this year. Gone are the food groups and portion sizes. The new message for Canadians is clear: eat more plant-based proteins, and less meat and dairy. Kathleen Turner, a registered dietitian with the University of Ottawa...
Last year, research established heart failure-associated deaths and hospitalizations are higher in women than in men. Today, new research from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) suggests women are also faring worse than men when it comes to their chances of long-term survival after...
Traditionally, frailty is thought to be a syndrome of the elderly – one which comes as a natural and inevitable side-effect of aging, gradually transforming strong, healthy bodies into weaker, more delicate frames over time. For clinicians, frailty is a concept which has long posed formidable...
Jim Orban, the new President and CEO of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute Foundation, is ready for his next significant milestone – a major construction project that will add a five-storey extension along with badly needed renovations to the existing 35-year-old facility. The Foundation, the...
Finding a gene associated with disease is one thing. Understanding how it increases the likelihood of contracting that disease can be quite another, especially a complex condition like heart disease. After five years, Heart Institute researchers now know how one genetic variant works and suspect...
March 8th is International Women’s Day, a day where women are globally recognized for their contributions and advancements in society. But could their next battle be against gender biases in the way society cares for them? Due to barriers in sport and physical activity over the last century, many...
In its simplest incarnation, CRISPR-Cas9 is a wildly popular and powerful gene-editing technology which can be thought of as a two-part machine – one that essentially works as a find-and-replace or find-and-remove for your DNA. The first part of the CRISPR-Cas9 machine is the guide RNA, a short...
Julie Rutberg, Genetic Counsellor at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute since 2005, has been elected incoming President of the Canadian Association of Genetic Counsellors (CAGC). In her new position, she and the CAGC’s Board of Directors plan to tackle several big-picture questions about the...