High rate of unrecognized heart problems in apparently healthy people

Researchers from the UK have just reported in the Postgraduate Medical Journal that unrecognized heart problems are surprisingly common in apparently healthy middle-aged people. 

The study used standard heart scans by echocardiography to look at heart valves and heart muscle in 362

Echo machine with image of the heart

men and women in England aged 50 – 74 years without known heart disease. 178 -  almost half -  had abnormalities of a valve or muscle or irregular heart beat. Many had more than one cardiac abnormality.

Premature cardiovascular disease in a leading cause of death in the western world.   Despite the decline in the rates of mortality, largely due to reduction of deaths from ischaemic heart disease, cardiovascular disease remains an important cause of death. This is at least partly related to the fact that a number of patients with cardiac conditions remain largely undiagnosed and present late in the natural history, missing the window where maximum benefit could be offered with timely intervention.

Study author Cardiologist Constantinos Missouris said:

“Patterns of heart disease are changing, with rheumatic heart disease becoming less common but an increase in rates of degenerative valve disorders, heart failure and serious arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation. Our study shows that unrecognised cardiac abnormalities are very common in middle-aged men and women with no overt symptoms. Echo offers a simple way to identify the need for early medical intervention.”

Clinical Pharmacologist Donald Singer and co-author of the study added:

“Finding effective ways to identify and treat people with unrecognized heart problems is vital to reduce the risk and severity of preventable heart disease.  Our results point to the need for doctors and patients to be more aware of the risk of heart problems and how to detect and treat them

Notes for editors

This report refers to the paper entitled ”Registry report of structural and functional cardiac abnormalities diagnosed by echocardiography in an asymptomatic population” published on 19th February 2016 in the Postgraduate Medical Journal

Postgraduate Medical Journal is an international medical journal owned by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The PMJ has published papers and reviews on many of the important medical advances over the past 90 years. The PMJ publishes work on clinical medicine, with the aim of educating medical professionals, junior doctors, teachers and clinicians.

The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, founded in 1918, pioneered educational programmes in all branches of postgraduate medicine. The FPM publishes 2 international journals: the Postgraduate Medical Journal since 1925 and Health Policy and Technology since 2012.

Further information

Donald Singer
President, Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, London, UK
Tel. +44 7447 441 666
fpm.chandos@gmail.com

Research finds new target in search for why statin drugs may cause problems for some patients

10th February, 2016
Research by the University of Warwick, the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW), and Tangent Reprofiling Limited, has discovered that statin drugs interact with a gap junction protein called GJC3 that releases ATP, a major signaling molecule for inflammation in the body.  This discovery provides a significant new target in the search for why statin drugs can sometimes cause harmful effects such as muscle toxicity in some patients.

GJC3 gap junction proteins

Speaking on behalf of the team in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick, Dr Andrew Marsh said:

“Statins are powerful cholesterol-lowering medicines that are widely prescribed to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease. Gap junction proteins are important in forming communication channels between cells and organs in the body. In this new research, two clinically used statin therapeutics have been found to interact with an important part of GJC3, a gap junction protein which acts to release ATP, a signaling molecule that is key to the body’s response to injury and inflammation.

“Many people know ATP as the cell’s main energy transfer molecule, but when released outside cells, ATP coordinates how tissues including our liver and muscles deal with recovery from injury. These results may give us better understanding of how some of the harmful effects of statins in some patients, such as muscle toxicity, might come about”.

The new research paper entitled “Simvastatin sodium salt and fluvastatin interact with human gap junction gamma-3 protein” http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.pone.0148266 is published on Wednesday 10th February 2016 in the open access journal PLOS ONE. The study was a collaboration between scientists and clinicians at the University of Warwick, the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW) and Tangent Reprofiling Limited.

The researchers found that the statins simvastatin sodium salt and fluvastatin were found to interact with a peptide from the gap junction protein GJC3. In work which confirmed the observed interaction, the researchers also found that certain pharmacological probes of other gap junction proteins are also bound to the peptide sequence they had identified. The orange colour in the Figure highlights the important portions of GJC3 gap junction proteins.

University of Warwick research chemist Dr Andrew Marsh also said that

“GJC3 is present in many tissues in the body, but its role in cell signaling is poorly understood. Our work opens doors to its investigation”.

Professor Donald Singer, President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine and who was the lead investigator of the teams working on this study in Warwick Medical School and UHCW commented

“Finding additional ways in which statins act at the cellular and molecular level is important for giving clues to potential new medical applications for these drugs. 

"These results may also give us better understanding of how some of the harmful effects of statins in some patients might come about”.

Notes for editors:

The research refers to the open access journal PLOS ONE paper http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.pone.0148266, 10 Feb 2016 and the paper was entitled Simvastatin sodium salt and fluvastatin interact with human gap junction gamma-3 protein”. PLOS ONE publishes work from science and medicine and “facilitates the discovery of connections between research whether within or between disciplines”.

The work was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK), the University of Warwick and Tangent Reprofiling Limited. EPSRC’s vision is “for the UK to be the most dynamic and stimulating environment in which to engage in research and innovation.”

https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/facts/mission/

Equipment used in this research was obtained through Birmingham Science City: Innovative Uses for Advanced Materials in the Modern World with support from Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

For further information please contact:

Dr Andrew Marsh,

Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL. Tel. +44 24 7652 4565

a.marsh@warwick.ac.uk

 or

 Peter Dunn, Director of Press and Policy,

 University of Warwick, Tel UK: 024 76523708 office 07767 655860 mobile

 Tel Overseas: +44 (0)24 76523708 office +44 (0)7767 655860 mobile/cell

 Email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk

PR31 PJD 9^th February 2016

Enter for the £500 Young Poets award in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

There is still time if you wish to take part or to let young poet friends know about the award, entries close at 12 midnight GMT on 29^th February, 2016.

Visit here to find out how to enter for the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

The annual Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is a £500 award for a single unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme. 

The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is open to anyone in the world aged 14 – 18 years.

2015 Hippocrates Prize winners: From the USA - Maya Catharine Popa (Open Award) and Parisa Thepmankorn (Young Poets Award) and Kate Compston from the UK (NHS Award)

Winning and commended poems in the Young Poets Prize are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.

Shortlists for the Open, NHS and Young Poets awards in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine will be announced by the judges in early March.

Since it was founded in 2012, there has been interest in the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize from 15 countries, with winners and commended poets from the UK, USA and Canada.

The annual Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world with a prize fund of £500 for the Young Poets award and £5500 for winning poems in its Open International and  UK NHS Awards.

Awards will be presented in April 2016 at a ceremony in London. Winning and commended poems are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology. The awards have received widespread press and broadcast media coverage.

        Hippocrates Prize co-organiser Donald Singer said:
       "Engaging with health through poetry can provide valuable support for patients and their families."

        Poet and Hippocrates judge Wendy French said:
        "My experience as poet-in-residence at the MacMillan Cancer Centre shows how patients undergoing palliative care can find helpful support from engaging in poetry.”

Poet Wendy French, Harvard physician and poet Rafael Campo, and Gareth Powell, Secretary of the Methodist Church, are judges for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine international and UK NHS awards.
The Prize is run by the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine, which received the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts for its work on the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine nearing 2016 deadline

The annual Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world with a prize fund of £500 for the Young Poets Award and £5500 for winning poems in its Open International and  UK NHS Awards. Awards are for a single unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines on a medical theme. The awards include a 1st, 2nd and 3rd Prize and 20 commendations in each of the Open and NHS categories and further commendations in the Young Poets Award.

Deadlines Open and NHS entries closed on 1^st February 2016.

Young Poets entries (age 14-18) remain open to the end of 29th February 2016.

If you wish to take part or to let poet friends know about the Young Poet awards there is still  time: entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize International Young Poet Award close at the end of the day (midnight in your local time zone) on 29th February 2016. 

The Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is supported by healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust and run by the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine, which received the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts for its work on the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Awards will be presented on 15th April 2016 at a ceremony in London. Winning and commended poems are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.
 
The Hippocrates Prize is awarded in an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter; and an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff.

2015 Hippocrates Prize winners: Maya Catharine Popa and Parisa Thepmankorn from the USA and Kate Compston from the UK

Since it was founded in 2009 by clinical professor Donald Singer and poet Michael Hulse, there has been interest in the awards from over 60 countries and widespread press and broadcast media coverage. There have already been entries for the 2016 awards from 36 countries and territories from Australia to Zambia.

Poet Wendy French, Harvard physician and poet Rafael Campo, and Gareth Powell, Secretary of the Methodist Church, will judge the 2016 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine international and UK NHS awards.

Hippocrates Prize organiser and Clinical Pharmacologist Donald Singer said:

"Engaging with health through poetry can provide valuable support for patients and their families."

Poet and Hippocrates judge Wendy French said:

"My experience as poet-in-residence at the MacMillan Cancer Centre shows how patients undergoing palliative care can find helpful support from engaging in poetry.”

The Prize is run by the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine, which received the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts for its work on the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Still time to enter for Agincourt 600 Poetry Competition – deadline 31 Jan

There’s just under 1 week left to enter the Agincourt 600 Poetry Competition! The Young Poets Network is partnering with Agincourt 600 to get young poets grappling with the history of this fascinating battle, a landmark event in European history.

Judged by acclaimed poet Daljit Nagra, the competition is open to young writers aged 5-18 from the UK, and the deadline is 31 January 2016 – so there’s still time for young poets to enter and be in with the chance of winning some brilliant prizes, including a poet visit to their school.

There are currently four challenges live on the Young Poets Network to inspire entries. From taking on the voice of a common soldier, to following the story of a mysterious lost object, to rediscovering the history of an elusive saint, these challenges are full of ideas to inspire poetry about an extraordinary piece of history. 

For teachers, there are also four separate resources to help encourage entries from students at both primary and secondary level.

Find out more about the competition, the challenges, and how to enter here.

29th February deadline for the international Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine was launched on Thursday 17^th December at an event at the MacMillan Cancer Centre at University College Hospital in London.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world. The Prize is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme.

There is a  £500 Young Poets International Award in the international Hippocrates Prize Entries for this award are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. 

There is also a £5000 first prize both for its Open International and for its NHS Awards [deadline 31st January].  
All awards are for a single unpublished poem on a medical theme. 

Entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets international prize for Poetry and Medicine close at 12 midnight GMT on the 29th February, 2016. 

Awards will be presented at a ceremony in April 2016 in London.
 
2016 Hippocrates Prize judge Wendy French recently completed a year as poet in residence, working with adult and young patients attending the MacMillan Cancer Centre.

Click here to find out more about how to enter for the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Winning and commended poems are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.
 
Click here to order an Anthology of previous winning poems in the Hippocrates Prize.

2016 Hippocrates Prize Launch at the MacMillan Cancer Centre

Poet Siân Hughes (see below) will select the winner of the Hippocrates Young Poet Award for poetry and medicine.

The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize and the 2016 judges, contact 07447 441666 or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Hippocrates website: hippocrates-poetry.com

 

2016 Hippocrates Young Poets Judge

Siân Hughes' first collection "The Missing" (Salt, 2009) was long-listed for Guardian first book of the year, and won the Seamus Heaney prize for a first collection.  Her sequence of poems about her mother's breast cancer won second prize in the first Hippocrates awards, and she and her mother Eleanor Cooke continue to write a shared book about this illness as treatments continue today.   In 1998 she set up the Young National Poetry Competition when she was working for The Poetry Society and she continues to promote young writers and to work with the National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth to support the teaching of creative writing. Sian has been poet in residence in Youth and Community Centres, a Youth Theatre, a Health Centre, and is currently poet in residence in a Birmingham school when she is not teaching part time for Oxford University, working in a café or looking after her family.

The UCH MacMillan Cancer Centre
Macmillan and the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) have combined their expertise to build the UK’s most advanced cancer facility. The UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre supports the growing number of Londoners living with cancer. Over 27,000 people in London are currently living with cancer, and the number is growing. The UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre is the first of its kind in the NHS. It redefines the way cancer patients are treated, using the best diagnostic and treatment techniques to improve survival rates.  At its heart is the Macmillan Support and Information Service. A team of skilled Macmillan health professionals and volunteers, from benefits advisors to counsellors and complementary therapists, bringing the highest quality medical, emotional, practical and financial support.

Hippocrates Prize Organisers
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. He is also editor of The Warwick Review. His latest book of poems, Half-Life (2013), was named a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.


The 2016 Hippocrates Prize is supported by:
The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, a national medical society founded in 1918 and publisher of the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.
The Healthy Heart Charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust, founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation.

2016 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine launch at UCH MacMillan Cancer Centre in London

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine was launched at the MacMillan Cancer Centre at University College Hospital in London.

Entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize International and NHS awards close at

Deadline: End of the day on 1^st February 2016 

If you wish to take part or to let poet friends know about the awards there is still just time: entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize International and NHS awards close at the end of the day (midnight in your local time zone) on 1^st February 2016. The deadline has been extended for 24 hours in view of technical difficulties with online submission on some platforms. 
 
Entries for the 2016 Hippocrates Young Poets international prize for Poetry and Medicine close at 12 midnight GMT on the 29th February, 2016.  
 
There have already been entries for the 2016 awards from 37 countries and territories from throughout the UK and overseas, from Australia to Zambia.

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world with a £5000 first prize both for its Open International and for its NHS Awards.  

There is also a £500 prize for the best poem on a medical theme in the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets.

All awards are for a single unpublished poem on a medical theme. 

Awards will be presented at a ceremony in April 2016 in London.
 
2016 Hippocrates Prize judge Wendy French recently completed a year as poet in residence, working with adult and young patients attending the MacMillan Cancer Centre.

Click here to find out more about or to enter for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

Winning and commended poems are published in the annual Hippocrates Prize Anthology.
 
Click here to order an Anthology of previous winning poems in the Hippocrates Prize.

2016 Hippocrates Prize Launch at the MacMillan Cancer Centre

Poet Wendy French, Harvard physician and poet Rafael Campo, and Gareth Powell, Secretary of the Methodist Church, will judge the 2016 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine international and UK NHS awards. The judges are joined by poet Siân Hughes, who will select the winner of the Hippocrates Young Poet Award for poetry and medicine

Hippocrates Prize organiser and Clinical Pharmacologist Donald Singer said: "Providing psychological support is an important aspect of the new NHS guidelines for end-of-life care. Engaging with health through poetry can provide valuable support for patients and their families."

He added “We are delighted to have such a distinguished panel of judges for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize, which has since its launch attracted interest from over 60 countries."

Poet and Hippocrates judge Wendy French said: "My experience as poet in residence at the MacMillan Cancer Centre shows how patients undergoing palliative care can find helpful support from engaging in poetry. We are very grateful that the MacMillan Cancer Centre has agreed to host the launch of the 2016 Hippocrates.”

The Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts and health.

The International Hippocrates Prize is awarded in three categories:
- an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter;
- an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff;
- a Young Poets Award in the international Hippocrates Prize for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entries for this award are open to young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize and the 2016 judges, contact 07447 441666 or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Hippocrates website: hippocrates-poetry.com

 
2016 Hippocrates Judges

Rafael Campo is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He is the author of eight highly acclaimed books and the recipient of many honors and awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Amherst College, a National Poetry Series award, and a Lambda Literary Award for his poetry; his third collection of poetry, Diva (Duke University Press, 2000), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and his fourth, Landscape with Human Figure (Duke University Press, 2002), won the Gold Medal from ForeWord for the best book of poetry published by an independent press.
His work has also been selected for inclusion in the Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and has appeared in numerous prominent periodicals including American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Poetry, Salon.com, Slate.com, Threepenny Review, Washington Post Book World, Yale Review, and elsewhere; he has also been featured on National Public Radio and the National Endowment for the Arts website. He has lectured widely, with recent appearances at such venues as the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, and the 92^nd Street Y in New York.
His fifth book of poetry, The Enemy, was awarded the Sheila Motton Book Prize for the best collection of poetry published in 2007 by the New England Poetry Club, the nation’s oldest poetry organization. In 2009, he received the Nicholas E. Davies Memorial Scholar Award from the American College of Physicians, for outstanding humanism in medicine; he has also won the 2013 Hippocrates Open International Prize, one of the highest value awards for a single poem in the world, for original verse that addresses a medical theme. His newest collection of poems, Alternative Medicine, was the subject of feature stories on PBS NewsHour and the CBC’s Sunday Edition radio show. See more information at www.rafaelcampo.com.

   
Wendy French won the inaugural 2010 Hippocrates Poetry and Medicine prize for the NHS section in 2010 and was awarded second prize in 2011. She has two chapbooks and two collections of poetry published, Splintering the Dark, Rockingham press 2005, and surely you know this (the title was taken from a Sappho fragment) Tall lighthouse press 2009. Her collaboration with Jane Kirwan resulted in the book Born in the NHS which was published 2013 by Hippocrates press. She has worked for the past twenty years with children and adults with mental health problems and was head of the Maudsley and Bethlem Hospital School. She left this post to concentrate on working with people with aphasia/dysphasia helping them to recover their use of language through poetry. She was Poet in Residence at the Macmillan Centre UCLH from April 2014-2015.

Gareth Powell was appointed in September 2015 as Secretary of the Methodist Conference, one of the most senior positions of Church leadership in Methodism. He read theology at Westminster College, Oxford then undertook ministerial training at The Queen's College, Birmingham, obtaining an MA in Pastoral Theology before spending time at Graduate School at the University of Geneva. He as served in Coventry and Cardiff, where he was university chaplain. Since 2010 he has been a member of the Council of Cardiff University.
 

Siân Hughes' first collection "The Missing" (Salt, 2009) was long-listed for Guardian first book of the year, and won the Seamus Heaney prize for a first collection.  Her sequence of poems about her mother's breast cancer won second prize in the first Hippocrates awards, and she and her mother Eleanor Cooke continue to write a shared book about this illness as treatments continue today.   In 1998 she set up the Young National Poetry Competition when she was working for The Poetry Society and she continues to promote young writers and to work with the National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth to support the teaching of creative writing. Sian has been poet in residence in Youth and Community Centres, a Youth Theatre, a Health Centre, and is currently poet in residence in a Birmingham school when she is not teaching part time for Oxford University, working in a café or looking after her family.

The UCH MacMillan Cancer Centre
Macmillan and the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) have combined their expertise to build the UK’s most advanced cancer facility. The UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre supports the growing number of Londoners living with cancer. Over 27,000 people in London are currently living with cancer, and the number is growing. The UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre is the first of its kind in the NHS. It redefines the way cancer patients are treated, using the best diagnostic and treatment techniques to improve survival rates.  At its heart is the Macmillan Support and Information Service. A team of skilled Macmillan health professionals and volunteers, from benefits advisors to counsellors and complementary therapists, bringing the highest quality medical, emotional, practical and financial support.

Hippocrates Prize Organisers
Professor Donald Singer is a clinical pharmacologist and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. Professor Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and teaches creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. He is also editor of The Warwick Review. His latest book of poems, Half-Life (2013), was named a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.


The Hippocrates initiative has been supported by many organisations. These include the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, a national medical society founded in 1918 and publisher of the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology;
the Healthy Heart Charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust, founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation; the Wellcome Trust, the National Association of Writers in Education, the University of Warwick, and many other health professional, literary and cultural organisations.