heart failure

His voice was deep; his soul was too. His humor made you rock with laughter; his insight rocked your world. I never got to squeeze Al Martinez’s hand or give him a hug, though I often wanted to. We lived six hours apart, but when we talked by phone, Al, who died Jan. 12, was in my living room,…

What medical innovations will have the biggest impact in 2015?

I have just returned from an all-night study of my sleep habits that should have been called an all-night study of my awake habits, because all during the study there's no getting any sleep.

A new study of 34 million Medicare patients has found what one prominent heart researcher calls "jaw-dropping" reductions in hospitalizations and deaths from heart attacks and strokes over the past decade.

After deliberating for a decade, Medicare recently announced that it will now cover cardiac rehab for some patients who suffer from stable but chronic heart failure, a costly, debilitating disease that could be improved with supervised exercise and counseling.

A major new study finds that exercise is as good - or in some cases better - than prescription drugs in protecting against future heart attacks, stroke and diabetes.

For older patients with advanced  heart failure, heart devices are not always the best answer.