Recent Press Releases

A team of Johns Hopkins researchers has uncovered further evidence of the benefits of a balanced diet that replaces white bread and pasta carbohydrates with unsaturated fat from avocados, olive oil and nuts — foods typical of the so-called “Mediterranean diet.”

Coronary calcium in heart arteries provides important clues about risk, even among younger and elderly patients and those without traditional risk factors, according to new studies.

If your doctor says you have a negative stress test, or that your cholesterol or blood pressure are normal, how assured can you be that you’re not likely to have a heart attack in the next seven to 10 years? Assessing traditional risk factors, such as age, high blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking and family history can estimate a person’s risk, but the picture is not always clear-cut. Some newer tests can be offered to provide reassurance or guidance about the need for medications or further testing.

Hospitals that do not have cardiac surgery capability can perform nonemergency angioplasty and stent implantation as safely as hospitals that do offer cardiac surgery. That is the finding of the nation’s first large, randomized study to assess whether patients do just as well having nonemergency angioplasty performed at smaller, community hospitals that do not offer cardiac surgery.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), an important diagnostic test, has traditionally been off limits to more than 2 million people in the United States who have an implanted pacemaker to regulate heart rhythms or an implanted defibrillator to prevent sudden cardiac death. Now, in a study published in the October 4 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, cardiologists at Johns Hopkins report that a protocol they developed has proved effective in enabling patients with implanted cardiac devices to safely undergo an MRI scan.

Each year in the United States, more than 200,000 people have a cardiac defibrillator implanted in their chest to deliver a high-voltage shock to prevent sudden cardiac death from a life-threatening arrhythmia. While it’s a necessary and effective preventive therapy, those who’ve experienced a defibrillator shock say it’s painful, and some studies suggest that the shock can damage heart muscle.

Johns Hopkins experts in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) have defined a set of criteria that could be used to assess a patient’s need for an implanted defibrillator to prevent sudden death. In a study to be published in the September 27 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that is now online, the researchers report that using those criteria, they were able to separate the patients at high risk for a life-threatening irregular heart rhythm from those with low risk.

Heart specialists at Johns Hopkins have figured out how a widely used pacemaker for heart failure, which makes both sides of the heart beat together to pump effectively, works at the biological level. Their findings, published in the September 14 issue of Science Translational Medicine, may open the door to drugs or genetic therapies that mimic the effect of the pacemaker and to new ways to use pacemakers for a wider range of heart failure patients.

The presence of calcium in coronary arteries is a much better predictor of heart attack and stroke than C-reactive protein among people with normal levels of LDL cholesterol, according to a study of more than 2,000 people led by a Johns Hopkins heart specialist.

Johns Hopkins scientists have launched a pioneering research program to create, for the first time, human platelet cells from stem cells in order to study inherited blood clotting abnormalities ranging from clots that cause heart attacks and stroke to bleeding disorders. The study is funded by a $9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of a nationwide initiative to examine how genetic variations cause heart, lung and blood diseases.

Heart experts at Johns Hopkins have begun testing a new device designed to replace blocked aortic valves in patients for whom traditional open-heart surgery is considered too risky, such as elderly patients and those with other serious medical conditions. The testing is part of a nationwide study to evaluate the device, which is deployed in a minimally invasive way. The first two Maryland patients to receive the device had it put in place by Johns Hopkins doctors on July 8, 2011.

Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D., professor and director of the Division of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will become president of the American Heart Association (AHA), the nation’s leading voluntary health organization focused on cardiovascular disease and stroke, on July 1.

Julie A. Freischlag, M.D., the director of the Department of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and surgeon in chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, has been elected the first female vice president of the Society for Vascular Surgery.

Overweight and obese people looking to drop some pounds and considering one of the popular low-carbohydrate diets, along with moderate exercise, need not worry that the higher proportion of fat in such a program compared to a low-fat, high-carb diet may harm their arteries, suggests a pair of new studies by heart and vascular researchers at Johns Hopkins.

Coronary computed tomographic (CT) angiography, which can detect plaque buildup in heart vessels, is sometimes used as a screening tool to assess the risk for a heart attack. However, the usefulness of the test on low-risk patients who do not have coronary symptoms, such as chest pain, has been unclear.

Harry C. “Hal” Dietz, III, M.D., the Victor A. McKusick Professor of Genetics and Medicine at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is one of 72 new members of the National Academy of Sciences, an honorary society that advises the government on scientific matters.

Older, sicker heart-transplant recipients are significantly more likely to be alive a year after their operations if they have their transplants at hospitals that do a large number of them annually, new Johns Hopkins research suggests. These patients fare less well at low-volume centers, the research shows.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have shown in laboratory experiments in mice that blocking the action of a signaling protein deep inside the heart’s muscle cells blunts the most serious ill effects of high blood pressure on the heart.  These include heart muscle enlargement, scar tissue formation and loss of blood vessel growth. 

Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a simplified, cheaper, all-purpose method they say can be used by scientists around the globe to more safely turn blood cells into heart cells.  The method is virus-free and produces heart cells that beat with nearly 100 percent efficiency, they claim.

An inexpensive, routine blood test could hold the key to why some patients with congestive heart failure do well after being discharged from the hospital and why others risk relapse, costly readmission or death within a year, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

A team of heart experts at Johns Hopkins has found that dual lab tests of blood clotting factors accurately predict the patients whose blood vessels, in particular veins implanted to restore blood flow to the heart during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), are more likely to fail or become clogged within six months.  One test gauges the speed of blood platelet clumping and the other measures the level of a clumping chemical byproduct.

A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere has discovered that a single alteration in the genetic code of about a fourth of African-Americans helps protect them from coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death in Americans of all races.

A study of more than 14,000 men and women whose hearts stopped suddenly suggests that the chances of survival are very high if such cardiac arrests are witnessed in large public venues, including airports, sports arenas or malls.  The reasons, researchers say, are that almost four out of five such cases appear to be due to a survivable type of heart rhythm disruption and that big places with lots of people are more likely to have an automated external defibrillator, or AED device, handy, along with those who can apply it as well as CPR.

A study among almost 50,000 people worldwide has identified DNA sequence variations linked with the heart’s electrical rhythm in several surprising regions among 22 locations across the human genome. The variants were found by an international consortium, including Johns Hopkins researchers, and reported Nov. 14 in the Nature Genetics advance online publication.

Duke Cameron, M.D., a long-time Johns Hopkins surgeon, internationally renowned for his work in surgical repair of the heart’s main blood vessel, the aorta, has been named the new cardiac surgeon in charge at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and director of the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered how statins, the most commonly prescribed class of medication in the United States, appear to trigger a rare but serious autoimmune muscle disease in a small portion of the 30 million Americans who take the cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Rolling back suggestions from previous studies, a Johns Hopkins study of 950 healthy men and women has shown that taking daily doses of a cholesterol-lowering statin medication to protect coronary arteries and ward off heart attack or stroke may not be needed for everyone.

Heart imaging specialists at Johns Hopkins have shown that a combination of CT scans that measure how much blood is flowing through the heart and the amount of plaque in surrounding arteries are just as good as tests that are less safe, more complex and more time-consuming to detect coronary artery disease and its severity.

In remarks prepared for the American Heart Association’s golden anniversary celebration of CPR, a Johns Hopkins cardiologist who learned the life-saving technique as a medical student 46 years ago from one of CPR’s pioneers suggests the future of the technique is as bright as its past.

Low levels of vitamin D, the essential nutrient obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight, doubles the risk of stroke in whites, but not in blacks, according to a new report by researchers at Johns Hopkins.

Some 30 Johns Hopkins cardiologists, nurses, technical staff and administrative volunteers have for the first time partnered with Baltimore City Public Schools to screen for early signs of heart disease in as many as 2,000 high-school-bound Baltimore-area students.

A new study suggests yet another reason for Americans to abandon their current fatty diets in favor of one rich in fruits and vegetables and low in saturated fat. Choosing these healthier options appears to significantly reduce the long-term risk of heart disease in patients with mildly elevated blood pressure, particularly African Americans.

Once more — and for the 20th year in a row — The Johns Hopkins Hospital has taken the top spot in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of American hospitals, placing first in five medical specialties and in the top five in 10 others.

In what is believed to be the largest review of the human genetic code to determine why some people’s blood platelets are more likely to clump faster than others, scientists at Johns Hopkins and in Boston have found a septet of overactive genes, which they say likely control that bodily function.

Transplant surgeons at Johns Hopkins who have reviewed the medical records of more than 20,000 heart transplant patients say that it is not simply racial differences, but rather flaws in the health care system, along with type of insurance and education levels, in addition to biological factors, that are likely the causes of disproportionately worse outcomes after heart transplantation in African Americans.

A consortium of five Baltimore hospitals, led by the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine, has acquired and donated to Baltimore city new wireless technology able to transmit electrocardiograms from the field over the Internet to hospital-based medical specialists.

Johns Hopkins cardiac surgeons — none who are involved in the care of ABC ‘s Barbara Walters — are prepared to give background to reporters or comment on diseased aortic valves and aortic valve replacement surgery, performed at a rate of more than one a week at Johns Hopkins for many years.

Nicholas J. Fortuin, M.D., one of Johns Hopkins Medicine's most dedicated and admired clinical cardiologists, teachers and institutional leaders, died unexpectedly near Owings Mills Sunday while biking, his favorite sport and pastime. The cause of death was not known, but it is likely he suffered a heart attack, colleagues say.

A protein discovered in fruit fly eyes has brought a Johns Hopkins team closer to understanding how the human heart and other organs automatically "right size" themselves, a piece of information that may hold clues to controlling cancer.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has been awarded a $9.7 million federal grant to study ways to improve cardiovascular outcomes among African-American patients and to understand and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in blood pressure management in Baltimore.

Cardiologists and heart imaging specialists at 15 medical centers in eight countries, and led by researchers at Johns Hopkins, have enrolled the first dozen patients in a year-long investigation to learn whether the subtle squeezing of blood flow through the inner layers of the heart is better than traditional SPECT nuclear imaging tests and other diagnostic radiology procedures for accurately tracking the earliest signs of coronary artery clogs.

To this day, it still shocks former Dunbar High School basketball coach Bob Wade when he thinks back to June 1993, when he first heard that his star former student, 27-year-old Reggie Lewis, 6'7" and 195 pounds, the top scorer and center for the Boston Celtics, had suddenly collapsed and died during basketball shoot-around.

A team of Johns Hopkins and other researchers have found in animal experiments that an antidepressant developed over 40 years ago can blunt and even reverse the muscle enlargement and weakened pumping function associated with heart failure.

Healthy, older adults free of heart disease need not fear that bouts of rapid, irregular heartbeats brought on by vigorous exercise might increase short- or long-term risk of dying or having a heart attack, according to a report by heart experts at Johns Hopkins and the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA).

A team of U.S., Canadian and Italian scientists led by researchers at Johns Hopkins report evidence from studies in animals and humans supporting a link between Alzheimer’s disease and chronic heart failure, two of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States.

Heart experts at Johns Hopkins are calling premature the early halt of a study by researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Washington Hospital Center on the benefits of combining extended-release niacin, a B vitamin, with cholesterol-lowering statin medications to prevent blood vessel narrowing. Cardiovascular atherosclerosis, as it is also known, is believed responsible for one in three deaths in the United States each year.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins are reporting what is believed to be the first conclusive evidence in men that the long-term ill effects of vitamin D deficiency are amplified by lower levels of the key sex hormone estrogen, but not testosterone

To best detect early signs of life-threatening heart defects in young athletes, screening programs should include both popular diagnostic tests, not just one of them, according to new research from heart experts at Johns Hopkins.

For the second year in a row, volunteer heart disease experts from Johns Hopkins will staff and run Maryland’s only screening program to detect early signs of life-threatening heart abnormalities, including hypertrophic cardiomyopathies, in student athletes.

Denton A. Cooley, M.D., an American pioneer in heart surgery, will be the guest speaker at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s 114th convocation on Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, along with an international team of collaborators, have identified common genetic changes associated with blood pressure and hypertension. The study, reporting online next week in Nature Genetics, breaks new ground in understanding blood pressure regulation and may lead to advances in hypertension therapy.

MAY 2-5, BALTIMORE CONVENTION CENTER, 1 PRATT ST.

• BLACK KIDS WITH HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MAY BE AT HIGHER RISK FOR HEART DISEASE
• MEMO TO DOCS: MINIMIZE SCANS THAT EXPOSE YOUNG PATIENTS TO RADIATION WHEN POSSIBLE
• FLU SHOTS A MUST FOR KIDS WITH SICKLE CELL DISEASE
• TEEN PARENTS OF CRITICALLY ILL NEWBORNS DON’T GET SEVERITY OF ILLNESS
• HIV TREATMENT LAGGING BEHIND FOR MANY INFECTED YOUTH

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that a chemical commonly used in the production of such medical plastic devices as intravenous (IV) bags and catheters can impair heart function in rats.

Lung experts from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere are calling on physicians to suspend the routine use of potent heartburn medications in asthmatics solely to temper recurrent attacks of wheezing, coughing and breathlessness.

Physician-science investigator Edward Kasper, M.D., an expert in chronic heart failure and the heart transplantation that often results from the disease, has been named the new clinical director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Cardiology and co-director of the School’s Heart and Vascular Institute.

One minute, he’s a strapping 40-year-old with an enviable cholesterol level, working out on his treadmill. The next, he’s dead.

Millions more patients could benefit from taking statins, drugs typically used to prevent heart attacks and strokes, than current prescribing guidelines suggest, Johns Hopkins doctors report in a new study.

Two of the world’s leading experts in cardiac surgery will be in Pavia, Italy, tomorrow to attend the signing ceremony of a three-year collaboration agreement between Johns Hopkins Medicine International and San Matteo Hospital.

A widely heralded Johns Hopkins safety initiative to reduce bloodstream infections in intensive care units (ICUs) was implemented in 30 states starting Feb. 1 and could save an estimated $3 billion dollars and 30,000 lives annually. In addition, the program has been launched in Spain and will begin in the United Kingdom starting in April. Pilot programs are also under discussion with health care leaders in Peru and Chile.

Johns Hopkins and other researchers report what is believed to be the first direct evidence in lab animals that the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil amplifies the effects of a heart-protective protein.

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that a drop in blood potassium levels caused by diuretics commonly prescribed for high blood pressure could be the reason why people on those drugs are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. The drugs helpfully accelerate loss of fluids, but also deplete important chemicals, including potassium, so that those who take them are generally advised to eat bananas and other potassium-rich foods to counteract the effect.

Heart experts at Johns Hopkins have evidence that life-saving coronary angioplasty at community hospitals is safer when physicians and hospital staff have more experience with the procedure.

Taking a cue from the way drugs like Viagra put the biological brakes on a key enzyme involved in heart failure, scientists at Johns Hopkins have mapped out a key chemical step involved in blocking the enzyme.

Outstanding researchers in cardiovascular medicine will be honored in The Johns Hopkins Hospital Houck Lobby at 4 p.m., Wednesday, Nov.5, as part of the Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institute’s annual awards ceremony named to commemorate the late Hopkins physician Stanley L. Blumenthal, B.A. ’39 and M.D. ’43.

In a 10-year study of more than a thousand kidney failure patients, sudden cardiac death emerged as the number one cause of death for patients on dialysis, according to a Johns Hopkins researcher. The study, already published online and appearing in the Nov. 2 issue of Kidney International, identified systemic inflammatory response and malnutrition as key risk factors for the fatal heart attacks.

A heart expert at Johns Hopkins is calling for all women with a waistline measuring more than 35 inches to get an annual check-up and detailed risk assessment for heart problems because excess abdominal fat, even in the mildly obese and overweight, leads more than a third of women to underestimate their lifetime risk of having a heart attack, stroke or chest pain (angina.)

The state Medical Examiner's Office cited cardiac arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythm,  as the cause of sudden death of 19 year-old U.S. Naval Academy student Kristen Dickmann.

Heart patients often experience lasting problems with memory, language, and other cognitive skills after bypass surgery. However, these problems aren’t caused by the surgery itself or the pump used to replace heart function during surgery, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings may lead to better approaches to prevent cognitive decline regardless of which treatment heart disease patients receive.

Volunteer heart experts at Johns Hopkins have embarked on what is believed to be the largest single-day event to date to screen young athletes in the United States for early signs of life-threatening defects in the body’s blood-pumping organ.

A pricy drug used to treat a rare but well-known genetic disorder may hold wider promise as a treatment for millions of Americans with potentially lethal enlarged hearts, due mainly to high blood pressure, a study from Johns Hopkins shows.

Heart specialists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere report what is believed to be the first wide-scale evidence linking severe overweight to prolonged inflammation of heart tissue and the subsequent damage leading to failure of the body’s blood-pumping organ.

Long known for its role in preventing anemia in expectant mothers and spinal birth defects in newborns, the B vitamin folate, found in leafy green vegetables, beans and nuts has now been shown to blunt the damaging effects of heart attack when given in short-term, high doses to test animals.

An estimated one in 20 patients undergoing a common operation to boost blood supply to the heart and to ward off repeat heart attacks may do better if their surgeons also remold the heart to a near normal size, by cutting and suturing together stretched muscle and scar tissue resulting from the initial attack, according to cardiac surgeons at Johns Hopkins.

A study by an international team of cardiac imaging specialists, led by researchers at Johns Hopkins, concludes that sophisticated computed tomography (CT) scans of the heart and its surrounding arteries are almost as reliable and accurate as more invasive procedures to check for blockages.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may progress more rapidly in people with high blood pressure or a form of irregular heartbeat, atrial fibrillation, according to results of a Johns Hopkins study published in the Nov. 6, 2007, issue of Neurology. The findings suggest that treating these conditions may also slow memory loss in people with AD.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have evidence to explain why the supposedly natural act of aging is by itself a very potent risk factor for life-threatening heart failure.

The Johns Hopkins Heart Institute today announced a $1.5 million gift from the Mirowski Family Foundation for cardiovascular research. The Michel Mirowski, M.D. Discovery Fund, named in honor of Mirowski and his wife, Anna, will support researchers pursuing novel ideas not yet eligible for traditional sources of funding.

The genetic family ties that bind brothers and sisters also link their risk for developing clogged arteries and having potentially fatal heart attacks, scientists at Johns Hopkins report.  And according to researchers, brothers bear the brunt of the burden.

Jose Vargas could not understand why completing the exercise portion of his Army training in 2002 was so difficult.  He was exhausted after running, had lost his appetite and was increasingly lethargic.  For the seemingly healthy 24-year-old, the symptoms were mysterious and troubling.

Outstanding researchers in cardiovascular medicine will be honored in The Johns Hopkins Hospital Houck Lobby at 4 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 24, as part of the Johns Hopkins Heart Institute’s annual awards ceremony named to commemorate the late Hopkins physician Stanley L. Blumenthal, B.A. ’39 and M.D. ’43.

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center have been awarded $12.6 million in additional funding from its original namesake, the Las Vegas-based Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, to continue studies into the causes of sudden cardiac death. More than 300,000 Americans die each year when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood, triggered by an electrical disturbance in the heart.

Diabetes and high blood pressure, two conditions rooted in genetics and environmental surroundings, play a much greater role than race alone in determining who is mostly likely to develop heart failure, according to the latest study from cardiologists at Johns Hopkins. Each year, nearly 300,000 Americans die from heart failure.

Generally healthy African Americans may be at higher risk of heart failure because of racial variations in heart muscle’s pumping ability, a Johns Hopkins study suggests.

Johns Hopkins cardiologists are calling for an expansion of the criteria widely used by physicians to detect and assess a postmenopausal woman’s chances of developing cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death among women in the United States.