Evaluating the role of statins in prevention of preeclampsia: deeper insights into maternal cardiometabolic changes.

Pregnant women with gestational hypertension and/or preeclampsia, have derangements of atherogenic lipids in early pregnancy. Changes in maternal lipids can promote atherogenesis through endothelial injury. These alterations in serum lipid levels have been linked to adverse pregnancy outcomes and maternal morbidity and mortality.

Communication approaches to enhance patient motivation and adherence in cardiovascular disease prevention.

Preventive cardiology visits have traditionally focused on educating patients about disease risk factors and the need to avoid and manage them through lifestyle changes and medications. However, long-term patient adherence to the recommended interventions remains a key unmet need. In this review we discuss the rationale and potential benefits of a paradigm shift in the clinician-patient encounter, from focusing on education to explicitly discussing key drivers of individual motivation.

Comprehensive Care Models for Cardiometabolic Disease.

Purpose Of Review: The high burden of cardiovascular disease and the simultaneous obesity pandemic is placing an extraordinary strain on the health care system. In the current siloed care model, patients with cardiometabolic disease receive only fractionated care from multiple specialists, leading to insufficient treatment, higher costs, and worse outcomes.

Recent Findings: The imminent need for a new care model calls for the creation of a distinct cardiometabolic specialty in conjunction with a cardiometabolic outpatient clinic dedicated to the comprehensive cardiometabolic care.

Deaths from heart failure and cancer: location trends.

Background: Increasing utilisation of hospice services has been a major focus in oncology, while only recently have cardiologists realised the similar needs of dying patients with heart failure (HF). We examined recent trends in locations of deaths in these two patient populations to gain further insight.

Methods: Complete population-level data were obtained from the Mortality Multiple Cause-of-Death Public Use Record from the National Center for Health Statistics database, from 2013 to 2017.

Incorporation of genetic testing significantly increases the number of individuals diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia.

Background: It is estimated that less than 10% of cases of familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) in the United States have been diagnosed. Low rates of diagnosis may in part be attributable to affected patients not meeting the clinical diagnostic criteria of the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network (DLCN), Simon Broome, or US MEDPED diagnostic criteria.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the utility of incorporating genetic testing into a patient's evaluation for FH.

Making Breast Screening Convenient: a Community-Based Breast Screening Event During a Historically Black University's Homecoming Festivities.

A breast screening event was conducted during the homecoming festivities of a historically Black university located in a rural county in Mississippi. Two healthcare providers performed clinical breast exams for 26 African American women during the event. This was a prime opportunity to make breast screening accessible for non-elderly African American women.

A Clinician's Guide to Healthy Eating for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention.

Despite continued advances in health care, the cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality rate has plateaued in recent years and appears to be trending upward. Poor diet is a leading cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, which are leading contributors to CVD morbidity and mortality. Although dietary modification is a cornerstone of CVD prevention, implementation in clinical practice is limited by inadequate formal training in nutrition science.

Aging in place? Evidence that a state Medicaid waiver program helps frail older persons avoid institutionalization.

Long-term care will increasingly shift from institutions to home and community based services. Using data from a Medicaid home care waiver program in South Carolina, the Community Long-Term Care (CLTC) program, we evaluated differences in frailty and service use among CLTC clients between 1995 (n = 3,748) and 2005 (n = 9,157). The expectation was that CLTC clients had become more frail in that period, and had greater access to services in the community, results that might suggest the CLTC program had helped individuals to avoid institutionalization.

Application of capture-recapture methodology to estimate the prevalence of dementia in South Carolina.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of dementia in individuals 65 years of age and older in the state of South Carolina using capture-recapture methodology.

Methods: We linked data from the Department of Mental Health admissions, inpatient admissions, and emergency room visits. Separate log-linear models were used to obtain estimates of the underascertainment-corrected prevalence of dementia in twelve age-gender-race subgroups, which were summed to estimate the prevalence of dementia in the total population.

Co-morbidity associated with dementia.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify common co-morbid conditions associated with dementia subtypes and to evaluate the association of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and anemia with dementia subtypes relative to controls.

Methods: Hospital discharge data were used to identify 15,013 subjects from South Carolina with a diagnosis of dementia between 1998 and 1999. A control group of 15,013 persons without dementia was randomly sampled from hospital discharge records and matched to persons with dementia on the basis of age, race, and gender.