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Journal of the American College of Cardiology

Journal of the American College of Cardiology

The Source for Interventional Cardiovascular News and Education What Is a Total Artificial Heart A total artificial heart (TAH) is a device that replaces the two lower chambers of the heart. These chambers are called ventricles (VEN-trih-kuls). You might benefit from a TAH if both of your ventricles don't work due to end-stage heart failure. Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. Overview You might need a TAH for one of two reasons: To keep you alive while you wait for a heart transplantIf you're not eligible for a heart transplant, but you have end-stage heart failure in both ventricles The TAH is attached to your heart's upper chambers—the atria (AY-tree-uh). Currently, the two types of TAHs are the CardioWest and the AbioCor. The CardioWest has tubes that, through holes in the abdomen, run from inside the chest to an outside power source. Normal Heart and CardioWest Total Artificial Heart Figure A shows the normal structure and location of the heart. The AbioCor TAH is completely contained inside the chest. Outlook

Vitamin D Health CardioSource - Home Novel Catheter Technique Successfully Patches Holes In The Heart A novel catheter technique for patching holes in the heart may make it possible for many patients to avoid surgery altogether and others to regain enough strength to safely undergo surgical repair at a later date, according to a new study. The patch successfully closed ventricular septal defects (VSDs)--or ruptures in the wall between the right and left ventricles--in nearly all patients, allowing blood to circulate normally again and relieving fluid back-up in the lungs. After recovery, patients were able to return to active lives. "Patients with acute VSDs may be critically ill with heart failure and perhaps be in cardiogenic shock," said Matthew W. Martinez, M.D., a cardiology fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. "This procedure offers an alternative for patients who are too sick to undergo emergency heart surgery or simply don't want surgery." To track the long-term effectiveness of the catheter procedure, Dr. Implantation of the VSD occluder was performed by Donald J.

Vitamin D regulation of immune function. [Vitam Horm. 2011] - Grogono's Acid-Base Tutorial Artificial Heart Implant Leads to Suit Over Consent Process Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/Templates/headermain.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/ahrp/public_html/SuitsDecisions/heartsuit1102.php on line 19 Artificial Heart Implant Leads to Suit Over Consent Process Recipient's Widow Says She and Her Husband Were Misinformed and Misled on Risks, Benefits By Debbie Goldberg Special to The Washington Post Saturday, November 30, 2002; Page A03 PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 25 -- When James Quinn, a 51-year-old Vietnam veteran dying of heart failure, agreed to become the fifth patient to test the first fully implanted artificial heart last November, he and his wife, Irene, thought he was getting a new chance at life. "I figured it was like a regular heart," Irene Quinn said last week. "He would have been better off dead," Irene Quinn said of her husband and her experience with the artificial heart. Thomas L.

Deconstructing Vitamin D Welcome! If you want to lose weight, gain muscle, increase energy levels or just generally look and feel healthier you've come to the right place. Here's where to start: Visit the Start Here and Primal Blueprint 101 pages to learn more about the Primal Lifestyle. Thanks for visiting! Before phototropic plants began bending toward sunlight, before jellyfish developed ocelli, the light-sensing organs that allow them to distinguish between up (sunlight) and down, before the bikini-clad beach denizens began tanning en masse, and before the first house cat followed the sliver of sunlight around the room all afternoon, our primitive, microscopic marine forebears were flourishing by converting the sun’s energy into chemical energy usable by biological life. Humans don’t directly consume sunlight, though. For some organisms, like the naked mole rat with its natural, “preferred” vitamin D deficiency, vitamin D is unimportant. Vitamin D is essential to us. Check out the anthropological records.

FDA Overview An Humanitarian Use Device (HUD) is a device that is intended to benefit patients by treating or diagnosing a disease or condition that affects or is manifested in fewer than 4,000 individuals in the United States per year. A device manufacturer`s research and development costs could exceed its market returns for diseases or conditions affecting small patient populations. The HUD provision of the regulation provides an incentive for the development of devices for use in the treatment or diagnosis of diseases affecting these populations. To obtain approval for an HUD, an humanitarian device exemption (HDE) application is submitted to FDA. Form FDA-3674, ClinicalTrials.gov Data Bank Currently, FDA is reviewing the legislation and developing guidance on which clinical trials meet the definition of "applicable" trials and are required to report to ClinicalTrials.gov.

Vitamin D supplements may yield immune benefits in healthy people Improving levels of vitamin D in the blood via supplementation could help to fight of disease by affecting gene expression and boosting the immune system, say researchers. The study, published online in PLoS ONE, reveals for the first time that improvement in the vitamin D status of healthy adults significantly impacts genes involved with a number of biologic pathways associated with cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases. Led by researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), USA, the new findings – from a randomised, double-blind pilot trial - go a step further then previous research that has suggested vitamin D may be associated with increased risks of ill health by providing direct evidence that improvement in vitamin D status plays a role in improving immune responses and lowering the risk for many diseases. The sunshine vitamin Vitamin D is unique in that it can be both ingested and synthesized by the body with sun exposure.

Vitamin D Hormone If you have a neurologic problem that is severe enough to see a neurologist, you are probably not healing your body normally in sleep. Most people who have a neurologic problem such as headache, tremor, balance difficulties, vertigo, burning in the feet, depression, body pain, stroke, or memory loss also have abnormal sleep. Surprisingly, fixing the sleep can often fix the neurologic problem. In 2005 one of my patients with daily headache found that she had sleep apnea. In the beginning all we had for treatment were sleeping pills and sleep apnea masks. Vitamin D affects intestinal bacteria and the production of B vitamins: Vitamin D deficiency leads to a change in the intestinal bacterial populations that make and supply us daily with 8 B vitamins. The B vitamins are just as important for normal sleep and should be given with vitamin D: We must get into deep sleep to repair our body and the B vitamins are the building blocks of those repairs. Vitamin D is not a vitamin:

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