Specialists with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Montefiore Health System have received a five-year grant worth $5.2 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study why Hispanic patients face a higher risk of heart failure.
“This funding will help us better understand and predict heart failure among Hispanics—and potentially other population groups,” Carlos J. Rodriguez, MD, MPH, principal investigator on the grant and a professor with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
The group hopes to recruit approximately 1,600 men and women over the age of 45 years old who previously enrolled in the NIH-funded Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. Each participant would undergo a variety of tests, including echocardiograms, focused on the health of their aorta. These findings will then be compared with data from other patient populations.
“Previous cardiac research focused on the heart while failing to account for the relationship between the heart and the aorta, despite their intimate connection,” Rodriguez said. “For example, aortic stiffness significantly increases with age and is associated with heart failure and hypertension, but how that occurs isn’t well understood. We hypothesize that aortic stiffness impairs the mechanical interaction, or ‘coupling,’ between the aorta and the heart, which in turn contributes to heart failure. We’re hoping this study will shed light on these mechanisms and that we can use the heart-aorta relationship to help identify people who are at risk for heart failure earlier.”
The team’s goal is to identify new and improved ways to identify patients who my face a heightened heart failure risk. Hispanic patients face a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD-related mortality, so every bit of new information about this population is crucial.
“We hope our study leads to new ways of identifying people at high risk of heart failure or for detecting it earlier, providing an opportunity to intervene to prevent severe disease,” Rodriguez said.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.