WEDNESDAY, Oct. 1 (HealthDay News) -- The largest observational study of hormone replacement therapy since the landmark Women's Health Initiative finds that how and when women take hormone replacement therapy affects their heart attack risk.

Younger women had a higher risk of heart attacks, especially younger women who took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for a long time, Danish researchers found. Certain formulations also lead to different results.

FRIDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- A physical exam and patient history may still be one of the most accurate and cost-effective ways of assessing patients with congestive heart failure, even though doctors have come to rely on high-tech diagnostic methods such as imaging and measuring biomarkers, a new study says.

The largest alternative medicine study the government has ever launched has stopped enrolling people while officials investigate whether participants were fully informed of the risks and are being adequately protected, The Associated Press has learned.

More than 1,500 heart attack survivors are involved in the research, which tests a controversial treatment called chelation. It is mainly used to treat lead poisoning.

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(HealthDay News) -- In patients with coronary artery disease, angioplasty isn't a cost-effective treatment, according to a U.S. study that assessed the costs of hospitalization and medication among 2,287 patients treated between 1999 and 2004.

The researchers analyzed data from the COURAGE trial and concluded that angioplasty may add $10,000 to treatment costs "without significant gain in life years or quality-adjusted life years."

TUESDAY, Sept. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Canadian researchers say that three-dimensional MRI may prove to be a useful screening tool for patients at high risk for stroke, a new report suggests.

In a study, published in the October issue of Radiology, researchers at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto found 3-D MRI accurately detected bleeding within the walls of diseased carotid arteries.

TUESDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in plastics that include baby bottles and packaging for food and beverages, may put people at risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes, a new study concludes.

Adding to the controversy surrounding this ubiquitous chemical, this study fuels the fears of those who want it banned. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in April that BPA was "safe and that exposure levels to BPA from food contact materials, including for infants and children, are below those that may cause health effects."

THURSDAY, Sept. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Irish researchers are trying to develop a new way of attacking heart disease -- through the mouth.

"We are trying to understand the mechanisms by which oral bacteria colonies can lead to cardiovascular disease," said Steve Kerrigan of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, and the principal investigator in a group that will report on the effort Thursday at the Society for General Microbiology meeting in Dublin.

THURSDAY, Sept. 11 (HealthDay News) -- A newly developed molecule holds the promise of reducing the damage done by heart attacks and a number of diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, researchers report.

Oh, it might cure hangovers, too, but the scientists working on it prefer to downplay that aspect of their research.

MUNICH, Germany - Women typically get heart disease much later than men, but not if they smoke, researchers said Tuesday.

In fact, women who smoke have heart attacks more than a dozen years earlier than women who don't smoke, Norwegian doctors reported in a study presented to the European Society of Cardiology. For men, the gap is not so dramatic; male smokers have heart attacks about six years earlier than men who don't smoke.

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MONDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- One of a "new generation" of artery-opening, drug-eluting stents appears equally effective as older models in boosting outcomes for heart patients, a new head-to-head study shows.

Stents are tiny mesh tubes inserted into arteries to keep blood flowing. Drug-eluting stents emit medicines that help prevent reclosure. The latest form of drug-eluting stents releases the drugs from a biodegradable polymer coating.