Health News

Fighting fires raises risk for irregular heartbeat

Fighting fires comes with many risks. But new research shows there’s a new one to consider: increased exposure to fires appears to raise the likelihood of developing atrial fibrillation, or AFib, an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other problems. Researchers found the more fires a firefighter fought, the […]

Health Problems

What’s at the ‘heart’ of a heartbeat?

In the confines of the thoracic chamber, a heart has lost its rhythm. Its two upper chambers, the atria, are beating out of sync with the two lower chambers, the ventricles. The resulting chaos is called atrial fibrillation and is a major concern because it prevents the heart from pumping effectively and is associated with […]

Personal Health

Scientists catch heartbeat ‘molecular switch’ in action

Oxford University Radcliffe Department of Medicine researchers have developed a new method that uses a protein originally found in marine corals to visualise the flow of calcium that makes the heart beat. In a paper published in the journal Circulation Research, they used this technique to uncover the effects of genetic errors that contribute to […]