People who've had a bout of shingles may face a heightened risk of heart attack or stroke in later years, a new, large study suggests.

Anyone who ever had chickenpox can develop shingles — a painful rash that is caused by a reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox. About one-third of Americans will develop shingles in their lifetime, according to the U.S. Centers for Diseas...

Doctors give men and women different advice to head off heart disease, even though guidelines for both are the same.

Men were 20% more likely to be prescribed statins to lower blood levels of bad cholesterol compared with women, a new study found.

Women, meanwhile, were 27% more likely to be advised to lose weight or reduce their salt intake, and 38% more likely to receive recommen...

The winter holidays are a time of celebrating and sharing precious time with family and friends, but they can also be deadly: More people die of heart attacks on Christmas Day than on any other day of the year.

Experts aren't certain what's behind that troubling fact, but they offer some suggestions to help ensure that you and your loved ones aren't among them.

"The holidays are a ...

Black adults who undergo a common procedure to open up clogged arteries are readmitted to the hospital more often than their white peers. They're also more likely to die in the years after treatment, a new study finds.

Researchers looked at how patients fared following balloon angioplasty and coronary stenting -- "one of the most common cardiovascular procedures performed in the U.S....

Toss out your salt shaker if you want to lower your risk of heart disease, a new study suggests.

Even if you already follow a low-salt diet, sprinkling salt on your food can raise your risk for heart disease, heart failure and plaque in cardiac arteries, researchers report.

"Compared with people who always added salt to foods -- usually at the table -- those who sometimes, rare...

Persistent asthma may take a toll on the heart, not just the lungs, a new study suggests.

When the respiratory condition is relentless, it appears tied to plaque in the carotid arteries, increasing the risk for heart attack and stroke, researchers say.

The carotid arteries — large arteries on the sides of the neck — carry blood to the brain.

In a study of more than ...

Shoveling snow is a strenuous workout that poses risks for people with heart conditions.

“We have to think of shoveling snow as a pretty significant exertion, like an exercise,” said Dr. Donald Ford, chair of family medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio. “So if you're go...

Blood levels of HDL, the famously "good" kind of cholesterol, may not make a big difference to heart health after all -- particularly for Black people, a large new study suggests.

The study, of nearly 24,000 U.S. adults, found that low HDL levels were tied to a somewhat higher risk of heart attack among white people. That was not the case for Black adults, however.

Meanwhile, high H...

Regular exercise has long been hailed as a great way to preserve heart health, but could a morning workout deliver more benefits than an evening visit to the gym?

New research suggests that for women in their 40s and up, the answer appears to be yes.

“First of all, I would like to stress that being physically active or doing some sort of exercise is beneficial at any time of day,�...

Americans aged 25 to 44 — so-called millennials — are dying at significantly higher rates from three leading killers than similarly aged people just 10 years ago, the latest government data shows.

Looking at data collected between 2000 and 2020, the new report from the U.S. National Center for He...

Evaluating a person's psychological stress can be a good way to gauge their risk of heart and blood vessel disease, new research suggests.

And a brief questionnaire could help with the assessment, the study findings showed.

“Our study is part of the accumulating evidence that psychological distress is a really important factor in a cardiovascular diagnosis, such as the other healt...

Millions of people take daily medication to lower their cholesterol levels and prevent heart attacks, but there hasn't been a drug that targets a dangerous type of cholesterol in the blood known as lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a).

That's why a new study of an investigational drug called olpasiran, which blocks the production of apolipoprotein(a) — a key component of Lp(a) — is generating a l...

Folks suffering chest pain from clogged arteries appear to have some true flexibility in choosing the medical care that's right for them, researchers report.

That's because their overall risk of death is about the same whether they choose aggressive surgical treatment or a more conservative approach focused on medication and lifestyle changes, according to seven-year clinical trial result...

Experts are once again advising doctors and women against using menopausal hormone therapy to ward off chronic diseases -- 20 years after a landmark trial dashed those hopes.

In updated recommendations, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is reiterating its past advice on men...

Less than a year after the first-ever transplant of a pig heart into a human patient, doctors are reporting that the heart showed unexpected changes in its electrical system before the recipient ultimately died.

The changes are not believed to have contributed to the patient's death. But experts said that the observation will help in preparing for any such transplants in the future.

A vitamin D deficiency puts you at risk for more than just weakened bones, a major new study reports.

Too little vitamin D in your system can increase your overall risk of premature death, as well as your specific risk of dying from cancer, heart disease or lung disease, acco...

A person with advanced heart failure may often need a heart transplant or a mechanical heart pump to survive.

But white patients are twice as likely as Black patients to get this critically important care, a new study finds, and racial bias may be the reason why.

As men and women enter their golden years, those who regularly fail to get a good night's sleep face a higher risk for developing not one but two serious chronic illnesses at the same time, new research shows.

Researchers from France, Finland and United Kingdom tracked the self-reported sleep routines and health status of nearly 8,000 Britons from ages 50 to 70.

While the new analys...

While a common non-drug treatment called ablation exists for the heart rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation (a-fib), the procedure can be more problematic for women than for men.

A-fib, a chaotic electrical pattern in the upper chambers of the heart, affects up to 20% of Americans during their lifetimes. It can b...

Taking that often-cited 10,000 steps a day — or even slightly fewer — may indeed be enough to improve your health, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 6,000 middle-aged and older adults, those who got at least 8,000 to 9,000 steps daily had reduced risks of developing an array of conditions over seven years. The list included obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, slee...

The COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid has been a game-changer in the global pandemic, shielding high-risk patients from the coronavirus' most devastating effects.

But Paxlovid

That e-bike might make hilly rides a lot more fun, but it's not improving your fitness the way a good old-fashioned bicycle would, a new study shows.

People riding e-bikes are 44% less likely to reach weekly targets for physical activity than those on regular bicycles, according to a re...

Researchers studying fractures in older adults found a higher death rate when those fractures were closer to the center of the body and also when patients had particular underlying health issues.

This information coul...

Retirees, it's time to get up out of your easy chair and get moving.

That's the message from a Finnish study that used a wrist-based device to determine just how much retired adults were moving every day.

“Based on our research, people who are retiring should aim to increase the amou...

Many Americans with heart disease also have limited access to food, and this dangerous combination is growing rapidly, a new study finds.

"Food insecurity is a common problem...

Places of worship may provide respite for Black men that not only enhances their lives, but may extend them, new research suggests.

"Black men have been oppressed, commodified, surveilled and criminalized like no other group in U.S. history and they often experience disproportionately high levels of social and psychological stress from