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World Heart Day: Take the road to a healthy heart

In recognition of World Heart Day on the 29th September 2013, we have brought together a collection of articles that have been published in the last year across our open access journals on prevention and control of cardiovascular disorders. World Heart Day 2013 addresses the importance of a life-course approach to the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease (CVD) with a focus on women and children. This campaign will highlight what actions can be taken through a person’s life to reduce their risk of CVD.

  1. Hypertension is one of the most important and common cardiovascular risk factors. Defining the level at which blood pressure starts causing end-organ damage is challenging, and is not easily answered. The thre...

    Authors: Pascal Meier, Franz H Messerli, Andreas Baumbach and Alexandra J Lansky
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:211
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  2. To assess prevalence rates of subjective and objective reports of two cardiovascular disorders (hypertension and hypercholesterolemia) for the same subset of respondents in a large-scale study. To determine wh...

    Authors: Irene Mosca, Bláithín Ní Bhuachalla and Rose Anne Kenny
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:64
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  3. Prospective cohort studies of prehypertension and the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are controversial after adjusting for other cardiovascular risk factors. This meta-analysis evaluated the associa...

    Authors: Yuli Huang, Sheng Wang, Xiaoyan Cai, Weiyi Mai, Yunzhao Hu, Hongfeng Tang and Dingli Xu
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:177
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  4. Inadequate diagnosis and suboptimal control of hypertension is a major driver of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in Africa. Understanding the levels of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension a...

    Authors: James Kayima, Rhoda K Wanyenze, Achilles Katamba, Elli Leontsini and Fred Nuwaha
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:54
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. The relevance of physical activity (PA) for combating cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in children has been highlighted, but to date there has been no large-scale study analyzing that association in children ...

    Authors: David Jiménez-Pavón, Kenn Konstabel, Patrick Bergman, Wolfgang Ahrens, Hermann Pohlabeln, Charalampos Hadjigeorgiou, Alfonso Siani, Licia Iacoviello, Dénes Molnár, Stefaan De Henauw, Yannis Pitsiladis and Luis A Moreno
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:172
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  7. Prospective studies in non-Mediterranean populations have consistently related increasing nut consumption to lower coronary heart disease mortality. A small protective effect on all-cause and cancer mortality ...

    Authors: Marta Guasch-Ferré, Mònica Bulló, Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, Emilio Ros, Dolores Corella, Ramon Estruch, Montserrat Fitó, Fernando Arós, Julia Wärnberg, Miquel Fiol, José Lapetra, Ernest Vinyoles, Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós, Lluís Serra-Majem, Xavier Pintó, Valentina Ruiz-Gutiérrez…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:164
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  8. The hypocholesterolemic effect of plant stanol ester consumption has been studied extensively, but its effect on cardiovascular health has been less frequently investigated. We studied the effects of plant sta...

    Authors: Helena Gylling, Janne Halonen, Harri Lindholm, Jussi Konttinen, Piia Simonen, Markku J Nissinen, Aslak Savolainen, Airi Talvi and Maarit Hallikainen
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:50
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  9. Management of cardiovascular risk factors includes commitment from patients to adhere to prescribed medications and adopt healthy lifestyles. Unfortunately many fail to take up and maintain the four key health...

    Authors: Jenni Murray, Grania Fenton, Stephanie Honey, Ana Claudia Bara, Kate Mary Hill and Allan House
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:48
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  10. In this study the value of thrombin generation parameters measured by the Calibrated Automated Thrombography for prediction of blood loss after cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass was investigated.

    Authors: Yvonne Bosch, Raed Al Dieri, Hugo ten Cate, Patty Nelemans, Saartje Bloemen, Coenraad Hemker, Patrick Weerwind, Jos Maessen and Baheramsjah Mochtar
    Citation: Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2013 8:154
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  11. The late cardiotoxic effects of anthracycline chemotherapy influence morbidity and mortality in the growing population of childhood cancer survivors. Even with lower anthracycline doses, evidence of adverse ca...

    Authors: Edythe B Tham, Mark J Haykowsky, Kelvin Chow, Maria Spavor, Sachie Kaneko, Nee S Khoo, Joseph J Pagano, Andrew S Mackie and Richard B Thompson
    Citation: Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 2013 15:48
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. Current guidelines recommend that transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) should be performed for acute risk stratification following acute pulmonary embolism (PE), but it is unclear whether the initial TTE can p...

    Authors: Vincent Chow, Austin Chin Chwan Ng, Tommy Chung, Liza Thomas and Leonard Kritharides
    Citation: Cardiovascular Ultrasound 2013 11:17
    Content type: Research Published on:

  14. An elevated mean platelet volume is associated with increased platelet activation and thus may predict thrombotic events. The goal of this study was to investigate the association of the mean platelet volume a...

    Authors: Ertekin Utku Unal, Anil Ozen, Sabit Kocabeyoglu, Ahmet Baris Durukan, Sercan Tak, Murat Songur, Umit Kervan and Cemal Levent Birincioglu
    Citation: Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2013 8:91
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. A high body mass index (BMI) is associated with an increased risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD); however, a low BMI may also be associated with an increased mortality risk. There is limited in...

    Authors: Dexter Canoy, Benjamin J Cairns, Angela Balkwill, F Lucy Wright, Jane Green, Gillian Reeves and Valerie Beral
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:87
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  16. Traditional echocardiographic methods like left ventricular ejection fraction(EF) and wall motion scoring (WMS) and new methods like speckle tracking (ST) based 2D strain carry important prognostic information...

    Authors: Carl Westholm, Jonas Johnson, Anders Sahlen, Reidar Winter and Tomas Jernberg
    Citation: Cardiovascular Ultrasound 2013 11:9
    Content type: Research Published on:

  17. The proceeding of blood pressure (BP) from normal level to the hypertension has been found to be associated with increased cardiovascular events and multiple vascular risk factors. However, whether the process...

    Authors: Hua Hong, Hongxuan Wang and Huanquan Liao
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:20
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  18. Recently, some US cohorts have shown a moderate association between red and processed meat consumption and mortality supporting the results of previous studies among vegetarians. The aim of this study was to e...

    Authors: Sabine Rohrmann, Kim Overvad, H Bas Bueno-de-Mesquita, Marianne U Jakobsen, Rikke Egeberg, Anne Tjønneland, Laura Nailler, Marie-Christine Boutron-Ruault, Françoise Clavel-Chapelon, Vittorio Krogh, Domenico Palli, Salvatore Panico, Rosario Tumino, Fulvio Ricceri, Manuela M Bergmann, Heiner Boeing…
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2013 11:63
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  19. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between postprandial glucose level and atherosclerosis in patients without diabetes and cardiovascular disease by determining carotid ultrasonographic var...

    Authors: Kentaro Watanabe, Tatsuya Suzuki, Motoshi Ouchi, Kazunari Suzuki, Makoto Ohara, Masao Hashimoto, Hidetoshi Yamashita, Masaru Okazaki, Kazuhito Ishii and Kenzo Oba
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:11
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  20. Adiponectin, paradoxically reduced in obesity and with lower levels in African Americans (AA), modulates several cardiometabolic risk factors. Because abdominal visceral adipose tissue (VAT), known to be reduc...

    Authors: Aurelian Bidulescu, Jiankang Liu, DeMarc A Hickson, Kristen G Hairston, Ervin R Fox, Donna K Arnett, Anne E Sumner, Herman A Taylor and Gary H Gibbons
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:9
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  21. Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune chronic disease characterized by diffuse fibrosis involving several organs, including heart. Aim of our study was to analyze left ventricular (LV) myocardial deformati...

    Authors: Maurizio Cusmà Piccione, Concetta Zito, Gianluca Bagnato, Giuseppe Oreto, Gianluca Di Bella, Gianfilippo Bagnato and Scipione Carerj
    Citation: Cardiovascular Ultrasound 2013 11:6
    Content type: Research Published on:

  22. The aim of the present study was to verify the effects of an acute resistance training (RT) session and insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) on systolic (SBP), diast...

    Authors: Jéssica Cardoso de Souza, Ramires Alsamir Tibana, Nuno Manuel Frade de Sousa, Vinícius Carolino de Souza, Margô G O Karnikowski, Jonato Prestes and Carmen Silvia Grubert Campbell
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2013 13:3
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  23. Healthy lifestyles are an important facet of cardiovascular risk management. Unfortunately many individuals fail to engage with lifestyle change programmes. There are many factors that patients report as influ...

    Authors: Jenni Murray, Cheryl Leanne Craigs, Kate Mary Hill, Stephanie Honey and Allan House
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2012 12:120
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  24. We aimed to evaluate the multivariate association between functional microvascular variables and clinical-laboratorial-anthropometrical measurements.

    Authors: Diogo G Panazzolo, Fernando L Sicuro, Ruth Clapauch, Priscila A Maranhão, Eliete Bouskela and Luiz G Kraemer-Aguiar
    Citation: BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 2012 12:102
    Content type: Research article Published on: