Electrocardiography ; methods ; Heart Conduction System ; physiopathology ; Heart Diseases ; diagnosis ; Humans

OBJECTIVETo study on basic Volt-ampere (V-A) characteristics of human acupoints and the changes with physiologic and pathologic changes, and probe their biophysical basis.

METHODSThe research works of this research group about V-A characteristics of acupoints in recent 10 years were systematized and analyzed.

RESULTSV-A characteristic curve of human acupoints is of the both characteristics of non-linear and inertia. Compared with controlled point, the lower electric resistance characteristic of acupoints is not popular and the lower inertia is popular. V-A area of acupoints has no obvious circadian rhythms and the inertia area of a large part of acupoints has obvious circadian rhythms, with the phase of peak value corresponding to the phase of valley value of body temperature rhythms. V-A characteristics of acupoints in the patients of heart disease or stomach diseases changes obviously, and these changes have a certain specificities of acupoints. After remission of the lesion, the V-A characteristics of acupoints restore normal. The V-A area and the inertia area of acupoints in the corpse are obviously smaller than the normal person, with disappearance of the characteristics of both the non-linear and inertia of the normal person.

CONCLUSIONHuman acupoints have characteristics of non-linear and inertia, and the non-linear characteristic reflects complexity of physiology and behavior, while the inertia characteristic is related with energy metabolism of acupoints. The inertia area can more sensitively reflect human physiologic and pathological changes as compared with the V-A area, so it is an important index for the studies on electric characteristics of acupoints in the future.

Acupuncture Points ; Biophysical Phenomena ; Biophysics ; Electric Conductivity ; Heart Diseases ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Stomach Diseases ; physiopathology

Renalase, a novel amine oxidase, is secreted by kidney. It regulates heart function and blood pressure by degrading catecholamines. Hormones secreted by the kidney are associated with cardiovascular disease. Renalase, as a new biomarker of heart and kidney functional correlation, can lower blood pressure, protect ischemic heart muscle, improve heart function and degrade catecholamine.
Animals ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; physiopathology ; Heart Failure ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Hypertension ; physiopathology ; Monoamine Oxidase ; genetics ; physiology ; Myocardial Ischemia ; physiopathology

Pathological processes such as myocardial apoptosis, cardiac hypertrophy, myocardial fibrosis, and cardiac electrical remodeling are involved in the development and progression of most cardiac diseases. MicroRNA-21 (miR-21) has been found to play an important role in heart diseases as a novel type of endogenous regulators, which can inhibit cardiomyocyte apoptosis, improve hypertension and cardiac hypertrophy, promote myocardial fibrosis and atrial electrical remodeling. In this review, we summarize the research progress on the function of miR-21 in heart diseases and its mechanism, and discuss its potential application in diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases.
Cardiomegaly ; genetics ; physiopathology ; Heart Diseases ; genetics ; physiopathology ; Humans ; MicroRNAs ; genetics ; metabolism ; Myocardium ; pathology

Auscultation, the act of listening for heart sounds to aid in the diagnosis of various heart diseases, is a widely used efficient technique by cardiologists. Since the mechanical prosthetic heart valves are widely used today, it is important to develop a simple and efficient method to detect abnormal mechanical valves. The study on five different mechanical valves showed that only the case of perivalvular leakage could be detected by spectral estimation. Though it is possible to classify different mechanical valves by using time-frequency components of the signal directly, the recognition rate is merely 84%. However, with the improved local discriminant bases (LDB) algorithm to extract features from heart sounds, the recognition rate is 97.3%. Experimental results demonstrated that the improved LDB algorithm could improve classification rate and reduce computational complexity in comparison with original LDB algorithm.
Algorithms ; Heart Sounds ; physiology ; Heart Valve Diseases ; physiopathology ; surgery ; Heart Valve Prosthesis ; Heart Valves ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Pattern Recognition, Automated ; Phonocardiography ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Spectrum Analysis ; methods

Adult ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; physiopathology ; Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena ; Case-Control Studies ; Female ; Heart ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Sports ; Stress, Psychological ; physiopathology

OBJECTIVETo explore the effects of particulate matters less than 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) on heart repolarization/depolarization and heart rate variability (HRV).

METHODSWe conducted a panel study for elderly subjects with heart disease in Beijing from 2007 to 2008. PM2.5 was measured at a fixed station for 20 h continuously each day while electrocardiogram (ECG) indexes of 42 subjects were also recorded repeatedly. Meteorological data was obtained from the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System. A mixed linear regression model was used to estimate the associations between PM2.5 and the ECG indexes. The model was adjusted for age, body mass index, sex, day of the week and meteorology.

RESULTSSignificant adverse effects of PM2.5 on ECG indexes reflecting HRV were observed statistically and the strongest effect of PM2.5 on HRV was on lag 1 day in our study. However, there were no associations between PM2.5 and ECG indexes reflecting heart repolarization/depolarization. Additionally, the effects of PM2.5 on subjects with hypertension were larger than on the subjects without hypertension.

CONCLUSIONThis study showed ambient PM2.5 could affect cardiac autonomic function of the elderly people with heart disease, and subjects with hypertension appeared to be more susceptive to the autonomic dysfunction induced by PM2.5.

Aged ; Air Pollutants ; toxicity ; Electrocardiography ; Environmental Monitoring ; Female ; Heart Diseases ; physiopathology ; Heart Rate ; drug effects ; Heart Ventricles ; drug effects ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Particle Size

This paper reports the establishment of a model of turbulent flow separation area for experiment on the downstream of tubal stenosis, and adjust it to cooperate with the velocity and turbulent shear stress (TSS) detection by means of the particle image velocimetry (PIV), and with the pressure detection of pressure sensor in vitro. The velocity, TSS and wall pressure characteristics of the downstream of tubal stenosis were quantitatively detected and analyzed via the PIV and pressure sensor. And the hydrodynamic characteristics of the velocity, TSS and wall pressure in the flow separation area were primarily understood. The model can cooperate smoothly with the PIV and pressure sensor to detect the velocity, TSS and wall pressure; there exist low velocity, low TSS and low pressure in the flow separation area downstream of tubal stenosis.
Blood Flow Velocity ; physiology ; Computer Simulation ; Constriction, Pathologic ; physiopathology ; Heart Valve Diseases ; physiopathology ; Models, Cardiovascular ; Rheology ; Stress, Mechanical ; Vascular Diseases ; physiopathology

Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Female ; Heart Failure ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; physiopathology ; Lymphatic Diseases ; physiopathology ; Lymphoid Tissue ; physiopathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pleura ; physiology ; Pleural Effusion ; metabolism ; Pulmonary Heart Disease ; physiopathology

BACKGROUNDAs the Shanghai Obstetrical Cardiology Intensive Care Center, our hospital has accumulated a large number of clinical data of pregnant women with heart disease. This paper is a retrospective analysis of 1142 pregnancies in women with heart disease so as to evaluate the maternal and fetal outcomes of these patients.

METHODSA retrospective analysis was carried out for pregnancies in 1142 women with heart disease who delivered in Shanghai Obstetrical Cardiology Intensive Care Center between 1993 and 2007.

RESULTSIn this study, main heart diseases in pregnancy were arrhythmia (n = 359, 31.4%), congenital heart disease (CHD; n = 291, 25.5%), and myocarditis and its sequelae (n = 284, 24.9%); based on the functional classification criteria of New York Heart Association (NYHA), more than half (n = 678, 59.4%) of patients were classified NYHA Class I; pregnant women in NHYA Class I-II (n = 951, 83.3%) commonly had arrhythmia, myocarditis and its sequelae, while those in NHYA Class III-IV (n = 191, 16.7%) mainly had CHD, rheumatic heart disease (RHD), cardiopathy induced by hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy, and peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM). Cardiac failure occurred in 97 (8.5%) patients, and 8 (0.7%) maternal deaths and 12 (1.1%) perinatal deaths were reported in this study. Compared with those in NHYA Class I-II, women in NHYA Class III-IV had a significantly lower gestational age at birth (P < 0.05), lower birth weight (P < 0.01), and higher incidence of preterm delivery, small for gestational age and perinatal death (P < 0.01). The incidence of cardiac failure in pregnant women with cardiopathy induced by hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy and PPCM was relatively high, with a rate of 80% and 52.2%, respectively. After cardiac operation, 131 (90.3%) women were in classified NHYA Class I-II and 14 (9.7%) in NHYA Class III-IV.

CONCLUSIONSArrhythmia is the type of heart disease that has a highest incidence in patients with heart disease in pregnancy, while main types of heart disease that impair cardiac function are CHD and RHD; cardiac failure is more frequently caused by cardiopathy induced by hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy and PPCM; impaired cardiac function increases perinatal morbidity; cardiac surgery before pregnancy could improve the cardiac function.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Female ; Heart Diseases ; complications ; physiopathology ; surgery ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Complications, Cardiovascular ; physiopathology ; surgery ; Pregnancy Outcome ; Retrospective Studies