An official website of the United States government
Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
- Publications
- Account settings
- Advanced Search
- Journal List
Heart Best Paper Award 2023
Catherine m otto.
- Author information
- Article notes
- Copyright and License information
Correspondence to Professor Catherine M Otto, Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; [email protected]
Corresponding author.
Issue date 2023 Nov.
Keywords: aortic diseases
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .
Each year, the Heart editorial team selects the most meritorious research paper from the preceding year to receive the Heart Best Research Paper Award. Our initial considerations are the number of citations, number of readers and Altmetric Score for each paper. Then the editorial team selects the winner and finalists based on the relevance of the clinical question addressed by the research, the quality of the research study design and data presentation, and potential long-term impact of the research findings.
Among the many outstanding research papers in Heart published online first in 2022, we selected one winner and two finalists for the 2023 Heart Best Paper Award . We sincerely congratulate the first author and entire research team for each of these publications ( table 1 ). The winner and finalists provided their professional background and summarised the research goals and the key findings of these studies in the text below.
Heart best paper award 2023
Claudio Barbiellini Amidei, MD ( figure 1 ) became interested in epidemiological studies of non-communicable diseases early in his medical education. During his specialisation in public health at the University of Padua, Italy, he had the opportunity to conduct research abroad to further refine his epidemiological knowledge by collaborating with expert epidemiologists at the University of San Francisco, USA, as well as at the Inserm and the Université de Paris, France. Currently, he is working at the Epidemiological Department of Veneto Region in Italy, where he continues to conduct studies to examine associations between specific modifiable and non-modifiable exposures and relevant health outcomes, with the aim of supporting the promotion of targeted public health interventions.
Claudio Barbiellini Amidei.
Although the cardiovascular benefits of exercise are well known in young and middle-aged adults, the potential benefit of exercise in late life is less clear. In this study, a 20-year follow-up of a large cohort of older people suggests that the greatest risk reduction for incident cardiovascular diseases is achieved with at least 20 min per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity at around 70 years. Engaging in increasingly physically active trajectories early (at 70 years and 75 years) rather than later, in late life is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular outcomes. These results suggest that public health policies should aim at promoting physical activity in mid and early late life, rather than late in late life, given a probable greater effectiveness in reducing cardiovascular risks.
Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, MD, PhD ( figure 2 ) is an academic cardiologist based at Queen Mary University of London and Barts Health NHS Trust in the UK. Her research interests are centred on big data cardiovascular epidemiology, multiorgan health, and development of novel cardiovascular imaging biomarkers. She has extensive experience with the UK Biobank and other large research data sets from the UK and USA. Her work spans a diverse range of topics with the common theme of integrating large-scale imaging and non-imaging data to answer important population health questions. Her clinical work is focused on cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging and cardio-oncology.
Zahra Raisi-Estabragh.
Her research team focused on the long-term cardiovascular consequence of COVID-19 given the important public health implications. A large prospective analysis of the UK Biobank, demonstrated elevated risk of a range of incident cardiovascular events after COVID-19 infection over an average of 141 days follow-up. The heightened cardiovascular risk was almost entirely confined to those requiring hospitalisation. Most events occurred in the first 30 days after infection, but cardiovascular risk remained greater than matched uninfected controls throughout the study duration. Increased risk of venous thromboembolism was associated with COVID-19 infection regardless of need for hospitalisation. These findings highlight cardiovascular vulnerability after COVID-19 infection, particularly in those requiring hospitalisation and in the early postinfection period.
Nicholas Kassis, MD ( figure 3 ) is a Fellow in Cardiovascular Medicine at the Rhode Island Hospital of Brown University. His research focuses on Interventional and Structural Cardiology where he aims to develop novel approaches to manage advanced disease and to shift focus upstream towards prevention. The present paper illustrates the importance of engaging in individualised and informed shared decision-making with patients by identifying potential relationships between well-intentioned therapies (eg, supplements) and chronic diseases (eg, aortic stenosis).
Nicolas Kassis.
Calcium metabolism has long been implicated in aortic stenosis, yet the long-term safety and haemodynamic impact of calcium and vitamin D supplementation are poorly defined. This study demonstrated that supplemental calcium with or without vitamin D is associated with lower survival and greater aortic valve replacement in elderly patients with mild to moderate aortic valve stenosis. These findings suggest that supplemental calcium in this population does not confer any cardiovascular benefit, and instead, healthcare practitioners should thoughtfully consider these relationships given the growing concern for cardiovascular harm particularly with unnecessary supplementation.
Join me in congratulating the Best Research Paper winner and finalists for their excellent contributions to clinical cardiology!
Twitter: @ottoecho
Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests: None declared.
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Ethics statements
Patient consent for publication.
Consent obtained directly from patient(s).
Ethics approval
Not applicable.
- View on publisher site
- PDF (574.4 KB)
- Collections
Similar articles
Cited by other articles, links to ncbi databases.
- Download .nbib .nbib
- Format: AMA APA MLA NLM
Add to Collections
IMAGES
VIDEO