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Biobanking in health care has evolved over the last few decades from simple biological sample repositories to complex and dynamic units with multi‐organizational infrastructure networks and has become an essential tool for modern medical research. Cardiovascular tissue biobanking provides a unique opportunity to utilize cardiac and vascular samples for translational research into heart failure and other related pathologies. Current techniques for diagnosis, classification, and treatment monitoring of cardiac disease relies primarily on interpretation of clinical signs, imaging, and blood biomarkers. Further research at the disease source (i.e. myocardium and blood vessels) has been limited by a relative lack of access to quality human cardiac tissue and the inherent shortcomings of most animal models of heart disease. In this review, we describe a model for cardiovascular tissue biobanking and databasing, and its potential to facilitate basic and translational research. We share techniques to procure endocardial samples from patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, in addition to aortic disease samples. We discuss some of the issues with respect to data collection, privacy, biobank consent, and the governance of tissue biobanking. The development of tissue biobanks as described here has significant scope to improve and facilitate translational research in multi‐omic fields such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. This research heralds an era of precision medicine, in which patients with cardiovascular pathology can be provided with optimized and personalized medical care for the treatment of their individual phenotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AIM: To determine the association between coronary calcification score (CACS) obtained by electron beam computed tomography (EBCT) and cardiovascular risk factors in Type 2 diabetic subjects entered into a prospective cohort study. METHODS: Type 2 diabetic subjects attending routine hospital diabetic clinics without known coronary heart disease (CHD) underwent EBCT to measure CACS. Demographic data were obtained and conventional cardiovascular risk factors were measured at baseline. RESULTS: Four hundred and ninety-five subjects were assessed of whom 67.7% were male. They had a mean (SD) age of 62.9 (7.1) years, with median (inter-quartile range) duration of diabetes of 8 (4-13) years. None had a history of coronary artery disease. Forty-five per cent were receiving lipid-lowering agents (including 36% statins). In a univariate analysis, there were significant associations between increased CACS and age, duration of diabetes, male gender, waist-hip ratio (WHR), systolic blood pressure, and the use of statins. In a multivariate model adjusting for the possible interaction of these and other factors, the significant association between CACS and WHR, systolic blood pressure, male gender and statin use remained. CONCLUSIONS: The close association between CACS and WHR and the association with systolic blood pressure suggest that coronary calcification may be particularly linked to the metabolic syndrome in Type 2 diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Type 1 diabetes is associated with a high incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) despite paradoxically normal or high high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol concentrations. Triglyceride (TG) concentrations have been shown to be important determinants of two aspects of HDL metabolism: cholesterol esterification rate and esterified cholesterol (EC) net mass transfer rate between HDL and the apolipoprotein B-containing lipoproteins. In order to try to explain the paradox, we aimed to assess the relationships between plasma TG and these two processes in Type 1 diabetic compared with non-diabetic subjects. Methods Rates of cholesterol esterification and EC net mass transfer between HDL and the apolipoprotein B-containing lipoproteins were assessed by incubating whole plasma at 37°C; intra-assay coefficients of variation were 6% and 30 %, respectively. Results Ten Type 1 diabetic and 10 non-diabetic subjects, with similar ages, sex distributions, body mass indices and total cholesterol and TG concentrations, were assessed. Apolipoprotein A1, HDL unesterified cholesterol, and HDL phospholipid concentrations were greater in the Type 1 diabetic subjects. There were no significant differences in the rates of cholesterol esterification or EC net mass transfer between the groups. There were strong associations between plasma TG and the rate of cholesterol esterification and between plasma TG and the rate of EC net mass transfer in Type 1 diabetic subjects (r = 0.83, P = 0.0027 and r = 0.88, P = 0.0009, respectively) and in non-diabetic subjects (r = 0.91, P = 0.0002 and r = 0.79, P = 0.0070, respectively). However, the slopes of the associations with plasma TG were significantly steeper in the Type 1 diabetic subjects (analyses of covariance P = 0.0053 and P = 0.0146, respectively). Conclusions Increases in TG may therefore promote more EC enrichment of atherogenic apolipoprotein B-containing lipoproteins in Type 1 diabetes while also promoting more... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John A. Hobson was a self-styled economic heretic who developed an original and remarkably comprehensive system of economic and social thought. This system is based on certain distinctively Hobsonian concepts and theories. Hobson's economic heresies were based on his theory of distribution in which he rejected orthodox marginal productivity theory and developed a theory of economic surplus the distribution of which is determined by economic power. This underlay his theory of under-consumption which in turn was used to explain and analyze economic and social issues such as unemployment, the business cycle, the labor movement, imperialism and taxation. Hobson was also critical of the whole methodology of economic science on the grounds that it abstracted from human welfare in its widest sense. He argued that proper values should be introduced into the study of economic activity so that it could assist in the attainment of the best conditions of human life, both social and individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a patient with Takayasu arteritis and severe aortic valve regurgitation and bilateral carotid artery occlusions, who underwent aortic valve replacement and aorto-bicarotid bypass. The management of the cardiovascular manifestations of Takayasu arteritis is reviewed., (© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)