Enhancing Parental Coping with a Child's Heart Condition: A Co-production Pilot Study.

Families of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) can have difficulties coping with the stress of their child's condition and would benefit from assistance to cope better. To address the needs of these parents, the Australian Center for Heart Health/HeartKids Australia/Melbourne Graduate School of Education co-produced was initiated. This project involved two systematic literature reviews, interviews with parents of children with CHD, and the development and piloting of a manualised parental coping program.

"Will she live a long happy life?" Parents' concerns for their children with Fontan circulation.

Background: Families of children at the worst end of the congenital heart disease endure a significant burden which is often not clearly delineated in the clinical literature. We examined the greatest concerns of parents whose children have a Fontan circulation.

Methods: Parents ( = 107) of children in the Australian and New Zealand Fontan Registry completed online surveys with open-ended and closed questions.

"How long will I continue to be normal?" Adults with a Fontan circulation's greatest concerns.

Background: Little is known about adults living with a Fontan circulation's concerns outside the scope of their clinical outcomes. We examined adults with a Fontan circulations' greatest concerns, as well as their concerns around anti-coagulation, pregnancy and finances.

Methods: Adults with a Fontan circulation in the Australian and New Zealand Fontan Registry were invited to complete an anonymous online survey, of which 57 participated.

Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition lowers body weight and improves glucose tolerance in C57BL/6J mice maintained on a high fat diet.

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is functional within adipose tissue and angiotensin II, the active component of RAS, has been implicated in adipose tissue hypertrophy and insulin resistance. In this study, captopril, an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor that prevents angiotensin II formation, was used to study the development of diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance in obesity prone C57BL/6J mice. The mice were fed a high fat diet (w/w 21% fat) and allowed access to either water or water with captopril added (0.