Julián Pérez-Villacastín

Julián Pérez-Villacastín

Julián Pérez-Villacastín
Cargo

Head of the Cardiology Department at the Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid and former president of the Spanish Society of Cardiology

Spanish study claims that drinking up to 35 glasses of wine a month is associated with lower cardiovascular risk in some people

In a group of people at high cardiovascular risk, low to moderate wine consumption was associated with fewer cardiovascular events (cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke or heart failure), according to a study. The analysis uses urinary concentrations of tartaric acid, a substance found in grapes and grape derivatives, as a biomarker of wine consumption. It finds that consuming between three and 35 glasses per month was associated with fewer cardiovascular events than in people who consumed fewer than three or more than 35 glasses. The study, published in the European Heart Journal, included more than 1,200 participants from Spain's PREDIMED study with an average age of 68 years.

Study warns of cardiovascular risks of drinking alcohol and sleeping in conditions comparable to airplane flight

Drinking alcohol and sleeping in hypobaric conditions - such as those of an aircraft cabin - could be a risk to cardiovascular health, a study warns. Researchers compared a group of 23 people sleeping in a laboratory with another group of 17 people sleeping in a high-altitude chamber, replicating conditions at about 2,400 metres above sea level. The combination of alcohol consumption and hypobaric hypoxia during the simulation "reduced sleep quality, challenged the cardiovascular system and led to extended duration of hypoxaemia," the authors state in the journal Thorax.

Reaction: Human papillomavirus infection increases cardiovascular risk in women

A study in South Korea followed more than 160,000 women for more than eight years and concluded that infection with different strains of human papillomavirus is associated with a fourfold increase in the relative risk of dying from cardiovascular causes. According to the authors, "it could be that the virus causes inflammation in the blood vessels, contributing to blockage and damage to the arteries". The findings are published in the European Heart Journal.

Reaction: artificial intelligence outperforms imaging technicians in assessing cardiac function

The functioning of the heart can be studied by the percentage of blood it pumps with each beat, deduced by imaging techniques. Based on analyses by cardiologists, a US clinical trial concludes that an artificial intelligence model outperforms examinations initially performed by imaging technicians in terms of accuracy. According to the authors, the tool could "save physicians time and minimise the most tedious parts of the process".