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OSAS correlates with various disorders, such as heart attack and ischemic stroke, causing researchers to wonder what, if anything, are the commonalities between these very different disorders. They hope that through better understanding of what occurs over the course of apnea episodes they can potentially translate this knowledge into glaucoma treatment. To continue to investigate this connection, researchers need to take numerous factors into account and use innovative, new technology to determine the real connection. Creating Innovative Technology Because increased IOP is most often associated with glaucoma, it is the first thing that researchers investigate when they see correlations with other disorders, such as OSAS. In the past, night-time data collection to search for the connection between OSAS and glaucoma was hampered, since it's challenging and uncomfortable to collect data related to shifts in IOP while the patient is sleeping, and constant waking affects the ac...

The first new national guidelines since 2004 on identifying and treating high blood pressure in children and adolescents (aged 3-18 years old) have been published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which convened a panel of experts to produce the new recommendations. The AAP report,  Clinical Practice Guideline for Screening and Management of High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents , offers a series of evidence-based recommendations for pediatricians derived from a comprehensive review of nearly 15,000 medical studies published since 2004. The first-line treatment remains lifestyle changes, as there is a high correlation between hypertension and obesity. When untreated, long-standing hypertension can damage the heart, kidneys and brain. Among the new recommendations is a call to only conduct routine blood pressure measurements at annual preventive care ("wellness") visits, as opposed to the 2004 guidelines that urged blood pressure testing anytime a ...

The stimulant methamphetamine, also popularly known as 'speed,' 'ice' and 'meth,' is linked to a heightened risk of stroke among young people, reveals a review of the available evidence, published online in the  Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry . A stroke caused by a bleed into the brain (haemorrhagic) rather than a clot (ischaemic) is the most common type associated with taking this drug, with men twice as likely to succumb as women, the findings show. Given the often disabling or fatal consequences of a stroke, and the increasing use of methamphetamine among young people, particularly in countries around the Pacific rim (North America, East and Southeast Asia, and Oceania), the findings are a cause for concern, warn the researchers. They base their findings on a comprehensive trawl of research looking at a potential link between methamphetamine use and associated stroke risk in young people (under the age of 45), and published up to ...

The brain may have a distinctive activity pattern during stressful events that predicts bodily reactions, such as rises in blood pressure that increase risk for cardiovascular disease, according to new proof-of-concept research in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access  Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association . The new research, the largest brain-imaging study of cardiovascular stress physiology to date, introduced a brain-based explanation of why stress might influence a person's heart health. "Psychological stress can influence physical health and risk for heart disease, and there may be biological and brain-based explanations for this influence," said Peter Gianaros, Ph.D., the study's senior author and psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. To help understand the brain-body link between stress and health, researchers conducted mental stress tests and monitored blood pre...

The research team -- led by the University of Leeds -- has found that a protein called Piezo1 in the lining of blood vessels is able to detect a change in blood flow during exercise. They have described the protein as an 'exercise sensor'. During physical activity -- as the heart pumps more blood around the body -- the Piezo1 protein in the endothelium or lining of the arteries taking blood from the heart to the stomach and intestines senses the increased pressure on the wall of the blood vessels. In response, it slightly alters the electrical balance in the endothelium and this results in the blood vessels constricting. In a clever act of plumbing, that narrowing of the blood vessels reduces blood flow to the stomach and intestines, allowing more blood to reach the brain and muscles actively engaged in exercise. The scientists say this is ground-breaking research because it identifies for the first time a key biomolecular mechanism by which exercise is sensed. ...

The "Body-on-a-chip" device is a novel in vitro human model without the use of people or animals for drug discovery. This chip allows recapitulating the side effect of anti-cancer drug on human heart cells before expensive clinical trials. Credit: Kyoto University iCeMS Researchers at Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) in Japan have designed a small 'body-on-a-chip' device that can test the side effects of drugs s on human cells. The device solves some issues with current, similar microfluidic devices and offers promise for the next generation of pre-clinical drug tests. The Integrated Heart/Cancer on a Chip (iHCC) was used to test the toxicity of the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin on heart cells. The researchers, led by iCeMS's Ken-ichiro Kamei, found that, while the drug itself was not toxic to heart cells, a metabolite of the drug resulting from its interaction with cancer cells was. The device is sm...