Stories

The progress made with heart disease over the past 50 years in New Zealand appears to be coming to an end, as the decline in heart disease plateaus for the first time in decades. Three researchers have been awarded funding by the Heart Foundation to investigate the impact of food on heart health and will dig deeper into the impact of different types of foods and diets and what can be done to reverse this unfavourable trend.

Heart Foundation funding for a new tissue culture system will allow researchers to study beating human heart samples in the laboratory. The system will be used to investigate the underlying mechanisms of heart disease and safely test the effects of drugs on the human heart.

Heart Foundation-funded research is investigating the role of oxytocin in leading to chronic heart failure after a heart attack and also studying the potential of an oxytocin blocker to prevent heart damage.

New Zealand cardiologists are once again heading overseas to gain experience and skills at world-leading international hospitals, with the support of the Heart Foundation. Closed borders over the past few years interrupted travel but these training positions are now being keenly sought after again.

New research is investigating if some antidepressants affect blood cholesterol and blood clotting, which could inform treatments for people with both depression and heart disease.

Dr Pritika Narayan will investigate a striking pattern of premature heart disease across consecutive generations of selected families with ancestry linked to the Fiji Islands and explore a possible genetic cause, as part of a three-year research project and fellowship awarded by the Heart Foundation.

The Heart Foundation has awarded Wellington doctor Allan Plant an Overseas Training and Research Fellowship to work in France where he will learn the latest technology with the team who developed catheter ablation treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), a common heart rhythm problem.

Father and grandfather, Shayne Cunis, never felt ill but when he had a regular heart check-up one month before he was supposed to compete in another Ironman competition, the result changed his life forever.

The next generation of cardiologists want to impact heart health on multiple levels – in both clinical cardiology practice and the research field – and ideally at the same time.

Casper, 8, never met his grandfather who passed away one year before his birth aged 64 from heart disease. Now he’s raising funds along with his schoolmates by skipping during Jumping June to increase awareness of how to keep a healthy heart.

When Simon Goss was growing up on his family’s farm in Mangamahu, he had an amazing team to help him learn how to shear. Now he’s set a new world record for a two-stand eight-hour lamb shear.

At 31 years old, travel blogger Liz Carlson had a clean bill of health and an appetite for adventure. But on Valentine’s Day 2020, she experienced a heart attack.