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Category Archives: Howard University Faculty Practice Plan
Learn More About Me
Dr. Bryan H. Curry is an established cardiologist currently working at Howard University Faculty Practice Plan of Howard University Health Sciences in Washington, DC. He serves as Clinical Cardiologist, Associate Professor of Medicine, and Assistant Director of Echocardiography and Nuclear Cardiology. Dr. Bryan H. Curry is considered an authority in nuclear cardiology or the practice of using nuclear imaging to treat vascular diseases. He holds medical privileges at the Howard University Hospital and attributes his success to his perseverance, compassion, and passion for the field of cardiology. In his time from his busy schedule, Dr. Bryan H. Curry enjoys photography, cooking, and tennis. For more information about Dr. Bryan H. Curry, please visit http://Bryan-Curry.info.
My Entry into the Leading Physicians of the World
Hey Everyone! Check out my entry into the Leading Physicians of the World:
Genome-wide screen of learning in zebrafish identifies enzyme important in neural circuit
Implications for understanding underlying molecular genetics of human neuropsychiatric disorders, according to Penn study
Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania describe the first set of genes important in learning in a zebrafish model in the journalNeuron this week. “Using an in-depth analysis of one of these genes, we have already revealed an important relevant signaling pathway,” says senior author Michael Granato, PhD, a professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. “The proteins in this pathway could provide new insights into the development of novel pharmacological targets.”Over the last 20 years, zebrafish have become great models for studying development and disease. Like humans, zebrafish are vertebrates and over 80 percent of human genes bearing disease descriptions are also present in zebrafish. As such, this animal model has become increasingly popular to study human diseases such as cardiovascular conditions or tumor formation.
Read the rest of the article at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/291338.php.
Childhood sleep disorders: how do they affect health and well-being?
Although around 25-40% of children and adolescents in the US experience some form of sleep disorder, such conditions are often overlooked, with a lack of realization of just how important a good night’s sleep is for a child’s present and later-life health. In line with National Sleep Awareness Week, we look at how sleep problems can affect the short- and long-term health of children and teenagers and what parents can do to reduce these risks.When you think of sleep disorders in children, the first types likely to spring to mind are night terrors, nightmares and sleepwalking. These fall into a class of sleep disorders known as parasomnias.It is estimated that up to 6.5% of children – particularly those aged 4-12 years – experience night terrors, defined as episodes of intense fear, screaming and flailing during sleep. Approximately 3% of preschool and school-aged children experience nightmares, while up to 15% of children aged 4-12 years sleepwalk.Perhaps less associated with children and adolescents isinsomnia and obstructive sleep apnea. In fact, insomnia, the inability to fall asleep or frequent awakening, is estimated to affect around 25% of children and teenagers. Obstructive sleep apnea – when an individual stops breathing for long periods during sleep – affects around 2-4% of children.One in 4 patients who visited emergency department for chest pain did not receive follow-up care
Patients with multiple health issues and who are at higher risk of adverse events are less likely to receive follow-up care from a physician after visiting an emergency department for chest pain, reports a study published in CMAJ(Canadian Medical Association Journal).Chest pain is one of the most common reasons people visit emergency departments, with about 500 000 visits every year in Canada alone.The study looked at 56 767 patients with chest pain who visited an emergency department in Ontario between April 2004 and March 2010. Of these, 42 535 (75%) were seen by a primary care physician or cardiologist within 30 days after discharge, and 14 232 (25%) did not receive follow-up care. Patients with multiple illnesses such as heart disease, kidney disease and dementia, and rural residency were less likely than others to receive follow-up care in the following month. Patients who had visited a primary care physician or cardiologist in the preceding year were more likely to see a physician after discharge.”We initially thought that emergency department physicians would risk stratify patients such that those with more medical and cardiac comorbidities would receive more physician follow-up care,” writes Dr. Dennis Ko, a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and an interventional cardiologist at the Schulich Heart Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, with coauthors. “However, patients with more medical comorbidities in our cohort were less likely to receive physician follow-up postdischarge.”
Read the rest of the article at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/289784.php.
Novel peptide shows promise in penetrating heart attack scar tissue to regenerate cardiac nerves and avert dangerous arrhythmias
Case Western Reserve’s chemical compound aimed at restoring spinal cord function may have an additional purpose: stopping potentially fatal arrhythmias after heart attack.Case Western Reserve neurosciences professor Jerry Silver, PhD, long has believed that lessons learned over decades from spinal cord research could someday apply to other areas of the body. He got the chance to test his theory when a colleague from another campus realized that his new compound – intracellular sigma peptide (ISP) – could address a critical cardiac issue.The results of the project, led by Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU) researcher Beth A. Habecker, PhD, exceeded even Silver’s greatest hopes: 100 percent success in animal models. Details can be found in Nature Communication.”Essentially, the OHSU group cured arrhythmia in the mouse using ISP,” Silver said. “They observed true regeneration right back into the scar within the infarct area. This is pretty exciting.”
Read the rest of the article at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/289007.php.
Early detection of heart attacks aided by gold nanoparticles
NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering professors have been collaborating with researchers from Peking University on a new test strip that is demonstrating great potential for the early detection of certain heart attacks.
Kurt H. Becker, a professor in the Department of Applied Physics and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and WeiDong Zhu, a research associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, are helping develop a new colloidal gold test strip for cardiac troponin I (cTn-I) detection. The new strip uses microplasma-generated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and shows much higher detection sensitivity than conventional test strips. The new cTn-I test is based on the specific immune-chemical reactions between antigen and antibody on immunochromatographic test strips using AuNPs.
Compared to AuNPs produced by traditional chemical methods, the surfaces of the gold nanoparticles generated by the microplasma-induced liquid chemical process attract more antibodies, which results in significantly higher detection sensitivity.
cTn-I is a specific marker for myocardial infarction. The cTn-I level in patients experiencing myocardial infarction is several thousand times higher than in healthy people. The early detection of cTn-I is therefore a key factor of heart attack diagnosis and therapy.
The use of microplasmas to generate AuNP is yet another application of the microplasma technology developed by Becker and Zhu. Microplasmas have been used successfully in dental applications (improved bonding, tooth whitening, root canal disinfection), biological decontamination (inactivation of microorganisms and biofilms), and disinfection and preservation of fresh fruits and vegetables.
The microplasma-assisted synthesis of AuNPs has great potential for other biomedical and therapeutic applications such as tumor detection, cancer imaging, drug delivery, and treatment of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
The routine use of gold nanoparticles in therapy and disease detection in patients is still years away: longer for therapeutic applications and shorter for biosensors. The biggest hurdle to overcome is the fact that the synthesis of monodisperse, size-controlled gold nanoparticles, even using microplasmas, is still a costly, time-consuming, and labor-intensive process, which limits their use currently to small-scale clinical studies, Becker explained.
Adapted by MNT from original media release
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/288143.php
Researchers develop a new distance rehabilitation system for patients with heart pathologies
A team of Spanish researchers of the Universitat Politècnica de València, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the company Medtronic have participated in the development of a new distance heart rehabilitation system based on physical exercise routines for people affected by heart pathologies.
The system is designed for both chronic patients and the recovery of people who have suffered a heart event (for instance, a heart attack) or if they have had heart surgery. In any of these cases, it helps patients to exercise and adopt a healthy lifestyle.
HeartCycle GEx has been developed within the European project HeartCycle. This system creates an online connection between the cardiologist in the hospital and the patients in their homes. The latter, equipped with sensorized t-shirts, do the rehabilitation exercises while their mobile telephones receive all the information about their heart and respiration rate, and messages to make more or less effort according to the doctor’s instructions, etc.
Its main advantage is its ability to motivate patients; GEx helps patients follow the rehabilitation program in an easier and more entertaining way. To that end, GEx incorporates multimedia content, an avatar, as well as graphic information about the indicators related to the patient’s performance (heart rate, effort level, etc).
“The Achilles’ heel of heart rehabilitation is that patients abandon it in a few weeks, so its effect is watered down. If the user is motivated, the level of compliance will increase and their health will improve. The most important aspect is to improve adherence to the rehabilitation plan and maintain it over time, and this system does just that”, explains Alvaro Martínez, researcher at the ITACA Institute of the Universitat Politècnica de València.
In addition, GEx will be connected to the hospital information systems in order to guarantee optimum, personalised health care for the patient. The system enables each user’s condition to be monitored and the response to the instructed therapy assessed, so personalised plans can be created and any deterioration in health status that requires immediate intervention can be detected.
The doctor has a web application in which to program the personalised rehabilitation plan that is sent to the patient – the prescribed plan is adapted to the patient’s physical condition, who performs an effort test – to design the most suitable prescription possible.
“Every time the patient does one of the exercises, the system sends new data, so the doctor can immediately determine whether the patient’s effort meets the standard set and make adjustments to the prescription if necessary”, adds Alvaro Martínez.
This doctor’s web application was entirely developed at the ITACA Institute of the Universitat Politècnica de València.
“Today, the heart rehabilitation programs in Spain take place in hospitals or specialized centres. HeartCycle GEx is a different and convenient alternative to access to those programs since the patients can follow them anywhere, even at home, maintaining the level of health care that they receive”, says Cecilia Vera, researcher at the Life Supporting Technologies Group of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Validation in hospitals
GEx has been validated with 132 patients at three hospitals in Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom and, according to the tests performed, it provides better results than traditional rehabilitation programs, “This improvement is seen in the patient’s functional capacity, as well as in weight loss and a reduction in cholesterol levels”, says Alvaro Martínez.
“HeartCycle GEx is an initial step to the new heart rehabilitation systems of the future, providing personalised solutions, adapted to each patient and accessible from any location”, adds Cecilia Vera.
The results have been released in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Adapted by MNT from original media release
Picture courtesy of medicalxpress.com.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/287370.php
High fitness levels reduce hypertension risk
While being physically fit is beneficial in and of itself, researchers now report that people with high levels of fitness are less likely to develop high blood pressure – also referred to as hypertension – a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, examined the association of fitness with hypertension among participants undergoing treadmill stress tests to rule out ischemia as a cause of chest pain or shortness of breath.
“If you’re exercising and you’re fit, your chances of developing hypertension are much less than someone else who has the same characteristics but isn’t fit,” says Dr. Mouaz H. Al-Mallah, senior author of the study.
Normal blood pressure is below 120/80 mm Hg – the first number (systolic measurement) represents peak pressure in the arteries and the second number (diastolic measurement) represents minimum pressure in the arteries. Blood pressure is considered to be high when it is greater than 140/90 mm Hg.
There are two types of hypertension. While secondary hypertension appears suddenly and is caused by underlying conditions such as kidney or thyroid problems, primary hypertension has no identifiable cause and develops gradually over the course of many years.
In the US, hypertension affects 1 in 3 adults. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), 78 million people in the country have been diagnosed with the condition.
“Hypertension is associated with a lot of other illnesses and adds significantly to health care costs,” explains Dr. Al-Mallah, “so we need to know how we can reduce it.”
Measuring physical fitness and high blood pressure
The researchers assessed 57,284 participants from the Henry Ford Exercise Testing (FIT) Project, from 1991-2009, taking treadmill stress tests. Of these, 35,175 participants had a history of hypertension.
The team measured the physical fitness of the participants by estimating how much oxygen their bodies used per kg ofbody weight per minute, and thus how much energy they burned in metabolic equivalents (METs).
With 1 MET representing the amount of energy expended by the body at rest, a large number of METs reflects a high-intensity workout.
The researchers observed that participants whose most intense exercise was less than 6 METs had more than a 70% likelihood of having hypertension at the start of the study. Conversely, participants whose maximal exercise output was 12 METs were less than 50% likely to have hypertension.
During the stress test, participants who managed to reach 12 METs or more were 20% less likely to develop hypertension compared with participants who reached less than 6 METs.
A total of 8,053 new cases of hypertension were reported in participants’ medical records and administrative claims during the study’s follow-up period. Of these new cases, 49% were among participants with the lowest fitness (less than 6 METs), and only 21% were among participants with the highest fitness (more than 12 METs).
Fitness: a ‘strong predictor’ of hypertension
Although the study uses a large and diverse population sample, the participants were all originally referred for a stress test, indicating that their initial cardiovascular disease risk would be greater than that of the general population, potentially hindering the generalizability of the findings. The study was also limited by a lack of measuring incidental hypertension in a clinical setting.
Dr. Al-Mallah states that further study is required in order to determine how increasing and decreasing fitness levels affect the risk of hypertension over time. Physical activity was not formally assessed in the study, and this could be addressed in future research as well.
Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of premature mortality in the developed world. High levels of exercise have been associated with protecting the body from certain health conditions, and now this study suggests adding hypertension to the list.
“Fitness is a strong predictor of who develops hypertension and who does not,” says Dr. Al-Mallah. “This is a clear message to everyone: patients, physicians and lawmakers. It’s very important to be fit.”
Medical News Today also recently reported on a study suggesting that sugars may contribute more to hypertension risk than salt.
Written by James McIntosh
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/287109.php
Bryan H. Curry, MD 