Atherosclerotic plaque rupture leading to myocardial infarction is a major global health burden. Applying the tandem stenosis (TS) mouse model, which distinctively exhibits the characteristics of human plaque instability/rupture, we use quantitative proteomics to understand and directly compare unstable and stable atherosclerosis. Our data highlight the disparate natures and define unique prote...

We aimed to evaluate the microcirculatory resistance (MR) and myocardial metabolic adaptations at rest and in response to increased cardiac workload in patients with suspected coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD).Patients with objective ischaemia and/or myocardial injury and non-obstructive coronary artery disease underwent thermodilution-derived microcirculatory assessment and transcardiac...

To compare the cost-effectiveness of coronary artery calcium (CAC) score-guided statin therapy criteria and American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines (10-year pooled cohort equation [PCE] risk ≥ 7.5%) with selection according to Australian guidelines (5-year absolute cardiovascular disease risk [ACVDR] ≥ 10%), for people with family histories of premature co...

Pain perception can be modulated by several factors. Phenomena like temporal summation leads to increased perceived pain, whereas behavioral conditioning can result in analgesic responses. Furthermore, during repeated, identical noxious stimuli, pain intensity can vary greatly in some individuals. Understanding these variations is important, given the increase in investigations that assume stab...

It is well-known that secondhand smoke exposure in childhood or adolescence is positively associated with morbidity and mortality. However, less is known about the current status of and most recent trends in secondhand smoke exposure among adolescents in China.We aimed to assess recent changes in the prevalence of secondhand smoke exposure among adolescents in China using nationally representat...

The American Heart Association recently updated its construct of what constitutes cardiovascular health (CVH), called Life's Essential 8. We examined the association of total and individual CVH metrics according to Life's Essential 8 with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-specific mortality later in  life.Data were from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005...

The frequency and significance of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in seropositive (R+) heart transplant recipients (HTR) is unclear, with preventative recommendations mostly extrapolated from other groups. We evaluated the incidence and severity of CMV infection in R+ HTR, to identify risk factors and describe outcomes.R+ HTR from 2010 to 2019 were included. Antiviral prophylaxis was not routin...

Coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD) is associated with cardiac dysfunction and predictive of cardiac mortality in obesity, especially in females. Clinical data further support that CMD associates with development of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and that mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonism may be more efficacious in obese female, versus male, HFpEF patients. Accordi...

Cardiovascular ailments are a major cause of mortality where over 1.3 billion people suffer from hypertension leading to heart-disease related deaths. Snake venoms possess a broad repertoire of natriuretic peptides with therapeutic potential for treating hypertension, congestive heart failure, and related cardiovascular disease. We now describe several taipan () natriuretic peptides TNPa-e whic...

Cardiometabolic diseases encompass a range of interrelated conditions that arise from underlying metabolic perturbations precipitated by genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. While obesity, dyslipidaemia, smoking, and insulin resistance are major risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases, individuals still present in the absence of such traditional risk factors, making it difficult to ...

Investigating modifiable risk factors for the early stages of the development of type 2 diabetes is essential for effective prevention. Some studies show protective associations between dairy and prediabetes; however, associations are heterogeneous by the type and fat content of dairy foods.To examine the relationship between the consumption of dairy, including different types of dairy products...

Sex differences in patients presenting with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and shockable rhythm might be associated with disparities in clinical outcomes.We conducted a retrospective cohort study and compared characteristics and short-term outcomes between male and female adult patients who presented with OHCA and shockable rhythm at two large metropolitan health services in Melbourne, A...

Attainment of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) therapeutic goals in statin-treated patients remains suboptimal. We quantified the health economic impact of delayed lipid-lowering intensification from an Australian healthcare and societal perspective.A lifetime Markov cohort model (n = 1000) estimating the impact on coronary heart disease (CHD) of intensifying lipid-lowering treatment...

We quantified the individual and joint contribution of contemporaneous causal behavioural exposures on the future burden of oesophageal and stomach cancers and their subtypes and assessed whether these burdens differ between population groups in Australia, as such estimates are currently lacking.We combined hazard ratios from seven pooled Australian cohorts (N = 367,058) linked to national canc...

The gut-lung axis is generally recognized, but there are few large studies of the gut microbiome and incident respiratory disease in adults.We sought to investigate the association and predictive capacity of the gut microbiome for incident asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).Shallow metagenomic sequencing was performed for stool samples from a prospective, population-based c...

Circulating biomarkers may be useful in understanding prognosis and treatment efficacy in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. In the VICTORIA (Vericiguat Global Study in Subjects with Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction) trial, vericiguat, a soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator, decreased the primary outcome of cardiovascular death or heart failure hospitalization in heart fa...

Colchicine is a broad-acting anti-inflammatory agent that has attracted interest for repurposing in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Here, we studied its ability at a human equivalent dose of 0.5 mg/day to modify plaque formation and composition in murine atherosclerosis and investigated its actions on macrophage responses to atherogenic stimuli in vitro. In atherosclerosis induced by hi...