The racial gap for cardiovascular health in America is narrowing, but the news isn’t as encouraging as it initially sounds. The disparity is shrinking because decreasing overall health in whites, not because of gains made by minority groups.

War injuries and subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been found to double the risk for high blood pressure, according to a new study published in Hypertension on March 19.

Girls who enter puberty earlier have an increased risk of obesity as they get older, according to research published online Feb. 6 in the International Journal of Obesity.

Higher alcohol consumption was linked to faster and faster heart rates in a study of more than 3,000 people attending the Munich Oktoberfest.

DUBLIN and BARCELONA, Spain - MARCH 19, 2018 - Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) today announced one-year results from the CRYO4PERSISTENT AF study of ablation with the Arctic Front Advance(TM) Cryoballoon to isolate the pulmonary veins in patients with symptomatic persistent atrial fibrillation (AF).

ABBOTT PARK, Ill., March 19, 2018 — Abbott today announced that the Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in Japan granted national reimbursement for the company's MitraClip therapy to treat people with mitral regurgitation, a serious, progressive heart disease in which the mitral valve does not close properly, allowing blood to flow backward into the heart.

Canagliflozin reduced the risk of death or hospitalization for heart failure by 22 percent among patients with type 2 diabetes and a high risk of cardiovascular disease, according to results of the CANVAS trial presented March 11 at the American College of Cardiology’s scientific session and published simultaneously in Circulation.

Increased exposure to air pollution may contribute to the higher risk of heart disease found in the black population, researchers reported in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.