(HealthDay News) -- A new statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) emphasizes the need to screen heart patients for depression.

Depressed people with heart disease have at least twice the risk of second cardiac events in the one to two years following a heart attack. And more severe depression is associated with more severe second events.

The new statement, published in the current issue of Circulation, includes the following recommendations, which are endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association:

* Early and repeated screening for depression in heart patients.

TUESDAY, Sept. 9 (HealthDay News) -- It's safe to give the clot-dissolving drug tPA to people with very high blood pressure after they have suffered a stroke, a new study indicates.

The American Heart Association recently updated its stroke treatment guidelines to recommend use of tPA, tissue plasminogen activator, in such cases, "but there was no evidence to support that," said study leader Dr. Sean I. Savitz, co-director of the stroke center at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. "This is the first evidence," Savitz said.

THURSDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Dawn Marie Perkins wasn't even seven months pregnant with her twin boys when she knew something had gone terribly wrong.

After numerous tests and evaluations, Perkins quickly learned that strokes aren't something that just happens in the elderly; they can even strike an infant still in the womb.

THURSDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- A series of genes linked to acute aortic dissection could lead to a rapid diagnostic test for this often fatal problem, German researchers report.

Acute aortic dissection is a tear in the lining of the aorta, the artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. About 2,000 people a year in North America suffer an acute aortic dissection, according to the American Heart Association.

WEDNESDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- A mesh patch designed to regenerate cardiac muscle damaged by a heart attack or heart failure has done well in animal studies and preliminary human trials.

The patch is made of vicryl, a material used for suturing injured tissue that is later absorbed by the body, explained Jordan J. Lancaster, a predoctoral fellow at the Southern Arizona VA Medical Center in Tucson, who reported on the animal studies Wednesday at an American Heart Association meeting in Keystone, Colo.

MONDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- Large-scale studies should be conducted to determine the exact link between sleep apnea and heart disease, says a joint statement from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.

The statement was published in the journal Circulation.

"There have been a number of studies on sleep apnea in the last decade, and those looking at cardiovascular diseases and their associations with sleep apnea are especially compelling," Dr. Virend K. Somers, chairman of the joint statement writing committee, said in an AHA/ACC news release.

First it was MRSA – known to the medical world as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus that had outwitted modern medicine by creeping through hospitals and other healthcare settings, claiming the lives of those with compromised immune systems.

Well, now high blood pressure – the underlying cause of strokes, heart attacks, kidney disease and heart failure has apparently learned how to circumvent some powerful medications as well.

According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the number one killer of people in our country. The group estimates that for the 2.3 million people who will die this year, an astonishing 41 percent will be from heart conditions.

Isn’t that one of the most sobering things you’ve ever read? I mean, I realize that heart disease claims many lives every year—but almost half of those who die?

In addition, the association’s website: www.americanheart.org states that 59 million Americans are currently living with some form of heart disease.