Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The rising incidence of impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes has resulted in a worldwide health-care crisis. Despite lifestyle changes and pharmacotherapy, over 25% of patients with diabetes have severe myocardial ischemia, myocardial infarction or both but without chest pain. Robert O’Rourke examines whether all patients with type 2 diabetes should be investigated for coronary artery disease, and possible treatment options.
The management of atrial fibrillation, the most frequent sustained arrhythmia in humans, aims to reduce symptoms and to minimize the risk of thromboembolic events, such as strokes. This review compares and contrasts the rhythm-control and the rate-control approach for treating patients with this arrhythmia.
Risk factors identified by the Framingham Heart Study are useful for assessing a person's risk of cardiovascular disease; however, additional risk factors are needed. In this review, the potential role of lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2as a novel inflammatory marker for cardiovascular risk assessment is discussed.
Although excessive epicardial fat increases the work of pumping, this visceral fat depot is important source of free fatty acids and various bioactive molecules, and constitutes a metabolically active organ. Iacobelliset al. discuss its role, in the context of regional fat distribution, in cardiac pathology and the assessment of cardiac disease.
As defibrillator therapy is invasive and expensive, using a defibrillator as primary prevention therapy requires risk stratification to identify suitable patients at significant risk. In this review Antonis A Armoundaset alevaluate whether clinical data support the use of microvolt T-wave alternans testing to identify patients who are unlikely to benefit from primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillator therapy.