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Effect of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors and Receptor Blockers on Appropriate Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator Shock in Patients With Severe Systolic Heart Failure (from the GRADE Multicenter Study)
Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a leading cause of mortality in patients with cardiomyopathy. Although angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) decrease cardiac mortality in these cohorts, their role in preventing SCD has not been well established. We sought to determine whether the use of ACEi or ARB in patients with cardiomyopathy is associated with a lower incidence of appropriate implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) shocks in the Genetic Risk Assessment of Defibrillator Events study that included subjects with an ejection fraction of ≤30% and ICDs.Relation of Circulating Liver Transaminase Concentrations to Risk of New-Onset Atrial Fibrillation
Heart failure, a strong risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF), is often accompanied by elevated liver transaminases. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that elevated transaminases are associated with the risk for incident AF in the community. A total of 3,744 participants (mean age 65 ± 10 years, 56.8% women) from the Framingham Heart Study Original and Offspring cohorts, free of clinical heart failure, were studied. Cox proportional-hazards models adjusted for standard AF risk factors (age, gender, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, electrocardiographic PR interval, antihypertensive treatment, smoking, diabetes, valvular heart disease, and alcohol consumption) were examined to investigate associations between baseline serum transaminase levels (alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase) and the incidence of AF over up to 10 years (29,099 person-years) of follow-up.White Blood Cell Count and Risk of Incident Atrial Fibrillation (From the Framingham Heart Study)
Several studies have reported that inflammatory markers are associated with atrial fibrillation (AF). The white blood cell (WBC) count is a widely available and broadly used marker of systemic inflammation. We sought to investigate the association between an increased WBC count and incident AF and whether this association is mediated by smoking, myocardial infarction, and heart failure. We examined the participants in the Framingham Heart Study original cohort. Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to examine the relation between the WBC count and incident AF during a 5-year follow-up period.
