There are limited data on the association between secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure across the life course and depressive symptoms among older adults. We aimed to investigate the association of childhood household SHS exposure, adulthood household SHS exposure, lifetime social SHS exposure, and their coexistence with depressive symptoms in older adults.Data were from the 2011-2012 and 2014 waves ...

Remoteness has been shown to predict poor clinical outcomes following myocardial infarction (MI). This study investigated 1-year clinical outcomes following MI by remoteness in Victoria, Australia.We included all admissions for people discharged from hospital following MI between July 2012 and June 2017 (n = 43,729). Remoteness was determined using the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australi...

Skeletal muscle (SM)-associated mechanisms of exercise intolerance in HFpEF are insufficiently defined, and inadequate augmentation of SM blood flow during physical effort may be one of the contributors. Therefore, we sought to investigate the association of SM perfusion response to exertion with exercise capacity in this clinical condition.Echocardiography and SM microvascular perfusion by con...

Recent studies have identified an association between moderate aortic stenosis (AS) and outcome. We assessed whether Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) structured reporting (SR), which captures and inserts echocardiographic measurements and text data directly into radiological reports, may lead to misclassifying patients with severe AS as moderate.Moderate or severe AS cases...

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is associated with ∼90% mortality rate. In the pediatric population, this would equate to a large number of years of life lost, posing a heavy medical and economic burden to society.The purpose of this study was to outline the characteristics and causes of pediatric OHCA (pOHCA) and associations with survival until discharge in patients enrolled in the End ...

It is unclear why blood pressure (BP), metabolic markers and smoking increase stroke incidence in women more than men. We examined these associations with carotid artery structure and function in a prospective cohort study.Participants in the Australian Childhood Determinants of Adult Health study at ages 26-36 years (2004-06) were followed-up at 39-49 years (2014-19). Baseline risk factors inc...

Determine if asymmetric handgrip strength exists in childhood and adulthood and quantify the degree of tracking of handgrip strength asymmetry over time.Participants from the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study had their right and left handgrip strength measured using handgrip dynamometry in childhood (1985: 9-15 y), young adulthood (2004-06: 26-36 y) and/or mid-adulthood (2014-19: 36-...

Inflammation is a core component of residual cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetes. With new anti-inflammatory therapeutics entering the field, accurate markers to evaluate their effectiveness in reducing cardiovascular disease are paramount. Gallium-68-labelled DOTATATE (Ga-DOTATATE) has recently been proposed as a more specific marker of arterial wall inflammation than F-fluorodeoxyglucose (...

Tidal ventilation is essential in supporting the transition to air-breathing at birth, but excessive tidal volume (V) is an important factor in preterm lung injury. Few studies have assessed the impact of specific V levels on injury development. Here, we used a lamb model of preterm birth to investigate the role of different levels of V during positive pressure ventilation (PPV) in promoting ae...

Catheter ablation for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is associated with improved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and survival compared with medical therapy. Nonrandomized studies have reported improved success with posterior wall isolation (PWI).To determine the impact of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) with PWI vs PVI al...

Secondary prevention implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) are indicated in young patients presenting with aborted sudden cardiac death (SCD) because of ventricular arrhythmias. Transvenous-ICDs (TV-ICDs) are effective, established therapies supported by evidence. The significant morbidity associated with transvenous leads led to the development of the newer subcutaneous-ICD (S-ICD). T...

Vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) is a rare complication of adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccines. VITT is associated with markedly raised levels of D-dimer yet how VITT modulates the fibrinolytic system is unknown. We aimed to compare changes in fibrinolytic activity in plasma from patients with VITT, patients diagnosed with venous thromboembolism post-vaccination b...

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging has become an essential technique for the assessment of cardiac function and morphology, and is now routinely used to monitor disease progression and intervention efficacy in the clinic. Cardiac fibrosis is a common characteristic of numerous cardiovascular diseases and often precedes cardiac dysfunction and heart failure. Hence, the detection of ...

To describe trends in hospitalisation for subtypes of cardiovascular diseases among people with diabetes.The data sources included the Australian diabetes registry, admitted hospitalisation datasets, and death registry from 2011 to 2019. The outcomes comprised hospital admissions for: all CVD; all cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke; angina and ischaemic heart disease (A...

Myocardial infarction (MI) remains a major health burden in Australia. Yet the future burden of MI has not been extensively studied for the Australian population.A multistate lifetable model was constructed to estimate the lifetime risk of MI and project the health burden of MI for the Australian population aged between 40 and 100 years over a 20-year period (2019-2028). Data for the model was ...

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but these measurements can identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening, ...

The beneficial effects of exercise on the cardiovascular system are well-accepted and provide an opportunity to identify new prevention and treatment strategies for cardiovascular disease (CVD) 1, 2. However, key knowledge gaps remain. Exercise represents a complex stimulus with varying impacts based on exercise type, duration, and intensity. Furthermore, exercise impacts multiple cell types an...

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Sleep duration is associated with risk of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. It is thought that shorter sleep increases sympathetic activity. However, most studies are based on acute experimental sleep deprivation that have produced conflicting results. Furthermore, there are limited data available on habitual sleep duration and gold-standard measures of sympathetic activation. Hence, th...