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Can an Apple a Day Keep the Heart Disease Away?

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— Greater physician education on nutrition and counseling can help prevent cardiovascular disease

The U.S. has had the same leading cause of death since 1921. Today, one person in America dies every 34 seconds from this disease. This disease doesn’t care about your demographics — men, women, and most racial and ethnic groups are all affected. The disease in question is none other than heart disease.

We’re surrounded by daily advertisements for methods of combating heart disease. Additionally, the U.S. spends around $229 billion annually in heart-disease related healthcare services, medicine, and lost productivity due to death. The good news? This disease is largely preventable. Read the full story in MedPage Today.

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Top in cardiology: Heart xenotransplants; link between atrial fibrillation and alcohol

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Genetically engineered pig hearts were successfully transplanted into recently deceased humans as part of an effort to create a xenotransplantation protocol for patients with heart disease.

The team of surgeons who performed the investigational procedures observed no early signs of organ rejection over 72 hours. Nader Moazami, MD, surgical director of heart transplantation at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute who led the team, said it was “a milestone and a steppingstone in the right direction.” It was the top story in cardiology last week. Read the full story in Healio.

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Nonprofit aims to help veterans requiring kidney transplants

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No veteran should die waiting for a kidney transplant. However, as of the July 4th weekend, there were 1,781veterans across the United States on a waiting list. Sharyn Kreitzer is on a mission to eradicate the wait.

Three years ago, Kreitzer founded the nonprofit Donor Outreach for Veterans, or DOVE. Her mission is to locate living kidney donors for higher risk patients.
Read the full story in MilitaryTimes.

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New kidney transplant approach could eliminate need for lifelong immune drugs

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“These kidneys are going to last forever,” one researcher said.

Three children who have undergone kidney transplants in California will likely be spared from ever having to take anti-rejection medication, because of an innovative technique that eliminates the need for lifelong immunosuppression, ground-breaking new research suggests.

Scientists at Stanford Medicine detailed the cases Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. All three children have an extremely rare genetic disease called Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia, or SIOD, that often destroys a person’s ability to fight off infection and leads to kidney failure. In each case, a parent donated stem cells taken from bone marrow, as well as a kidney. Read the full story from NBC News.

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Similar mortality for patients with COVID-19 on dialysis, kidney recipients with COVID-19

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Mortality among kidney transplant patients with COVID-19 and those on dialysis with COVID-19 was similar during the first and second waves of the pandemic in Europe.

“A number of studies compared mortality in the first and second waves among patients receiving kidney replacement therapy (KRT). These studies were hampered by the fact that they were single center by design and consequently had a small sample size,” Priya Vart, PhD, from the department internal medicine at the University Medical Center Groningen in The Netherlands, and colleagues wrote. “Furthermore, they lacked information on key patient and disease-related characteristics, including comorbidities, the reason for COVID-19 screening and disease symptoms.” Read more in Healio.

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A Kidney Transplant Could Be the Key to a Healthier, Longer, More Fulfilling Life

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Kidneys act as blood filters for the human body. Normally, kidneys filter approximately half a cup of blood every minute. During the filtration process, the kidneys remove wastes and extra water, resulting in urine. Sometimes, because of certain underlying kidney diseases, they fail to filter the blood correctly. This can lead to kidney failure. Read the full article from CBS Miami.

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Latest Pig-to-Human Heart Transplant: Back to the Drawing Board?

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— Researchers hope to learn more from xenotransplants in brain-dead recipients

Surgeons at New York University (NYU) transplanted two genetically modified pig hearts into individuals who were brain dead, and saw good cardiac function, with no signs of immediate rejection during a 72-hour observation period.

The xenotransplants were conducted on June 16 and July 6 at NYU Langone Tisch Hospital in New York City, and had 10 genetic modifications aimed at preventing rejection and stopping abnormal organ growth. Read more in MedPage Today.

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