The Canadian Diabetes Association recommends statin therapy for patients with diabetes mellitus who are 40 years old or older in its 2013 Clinical Practice Guidelines.

James Chen-tson Fang, M.D., has been named chief of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine and director of the cardiovascular service line at University of Utah Health Care.

A Q&A posted on CNN’s website featured John P. Reilly, MD, editor-in-chief of the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions’ secondscount.org and a vice chairman and cardiology fellowship program director at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans.

Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE:MDT) today announced market release of the CardioGuide™ Implant System, a novel real-time navigation system for cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemakers and defibrillators (CRT-P and CRT-D), in the United States and Canada. The system helps physicians determine the most appropriate location for left-ventricular lead placement by generating 3-D images of the cardiac veins; enhanced software for the system will be commercially available later this year that also analyzes the motion of select cardiac vessels on the left side of the heart. Clinical studies have shown that appropriate left-ventricular lead placement may improve CRT response in heart failure patients (1,2,3).

Researchers at Imperial College London have designed a microchip technology that they say may help curb the obesity problem in developed nations. The chip, which presently is being tested in animals, is implanted in the gut, where it sends satiation signals to the brain. The researchers project that they will begin tests in patients in three to four years.

scPharmaceuticals LLC today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership and product development agreement with Sensile Medical Holding AG of Zug, Switzerland to develop an innovative new therapeutic option for patients with heart failure.  The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Bayer HealthCare announced today that the New Drug Application (NDA) for its oral investigational compound riociguat has been accepted for filing and granted priority review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of inoperable chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) or with persistent or recurrent CTEPH after pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

Of mice and men. A team from the Cleveland Clinic used animal and human studies to accumulate evidence that challenges conventional wisdom on red meat and cardiovascular disease. Red meat is still on the hook, but the culprit appears to be a byproduct of bacteria involved in the digestion of red meat. The New York Times describes the multiyear effort, including results published in Nature Medicine.