Scholars World Heart Congress

Patients with HIV have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), in particular, a high risk for heart failure (HF )  and stroke, according to results published in  the Journal of the American Heart Association . The study included participants with HIV (n=19,798) and age- and sex-matched controls without HIV (n=59,302) from the MarketScan Commercial and Medicare databases from 2009 to 2015. The researchers used validated algorithms to identify incidence of  CVDs , including myocardial infarction (MI), HF, atrial fibrillation (AF), peripheral artery disease, stroke, and CVD-related hospitalization. They used adjusted Cox models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs of CVD endpoints. After a mean follow-up of 20 months, the researchers identified 154 MIs (46 among participants with HIV and 108 among controls), 223 cases of HF (116 among participants with HIV and 107 among controls), 93 strokes (46 among participants with HIV and 47 among controls), 397 cases of AF (

Smoking is killing 17 Australians a day from stroke, heart attack, and other cardiovascular conditions, according to a large-scale Australian study. ‘A population almost twice the size of Port Douglas is being wiped out in Australia each year, with smoking causing more than 6400 cardiovascular deaths, including from heart attack and stroke.’   That is Professor Emily Banks from the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, lead author of the world-first study.   Published in  BMC medicine , the study utilised health information from 188,167 cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer-free people who joined the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study. They were monitored for up to 36 different types of CVD over seven years, making the study the first research to trace the effects of smoking on the entire cardiovascular system.   ‘That includes investigating the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, heart muscle disease, rhythm problems, and gangrene in