TUESDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Inexpensive ultrasound imaging may be a simple way to help determine who's at high risk for a heart attack or other cardiovascular issues, a new study says.

Researchers conducted ultrasound imaging on the carotid arteries -- the two vessels that supply blood to the head and neck -- of 1,268 patients who were asymptomatic but at high risk for cardiovascular disease. They found that nearly half the patients had carotid artery disease.

The findings are published in the September issue of the journal Radiology.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Air pollution has short-term and long-term toxic effects on the heart and blood vessels, causing increased hospitalization for cardiac illness, and even cause death, a new report says.

TUESDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Despite high levels of smoking, Japanese men are far less likely to have dangerous plaque build-up in their blood vessels than white or Japanese-American men, a difference that researchers believe stems from a lifelong, near-daily consumption of fish.

FRIDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) -- New research shows that people with chronically high blood pressure in the blood vessels of the lungs and low serum sodium levels have a very high mortality rate.

Low blood sodium -- called hyponatremia, or HN -- is a known indicator of advanced left heart failure, but the new study from the University of Pennsylvania researchers now connects it with right heart failure in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

WEDNESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- The prescription drug naftidrofuryl eases leg cramps caused by narrowing blood vessels and enables patients to walk farther, according to Belgian researchers.

WEDNESDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- New treatments for a type of depression in the elderly related to blood vessels -- called vascular depression -- are under development, and researchers have discovered why some patients with this condition fail to respond to current medications.

Details of the findings were to be presented Wednesday during a news conference by researchers taking part in U.S. National Institute of Mental Health symposiums at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, in Washington, D.C.

WEDNESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- A radically different concept of how the brain's blood supply develops is outlined in a study led by Massachusetts General Hospital researchers.

In experiments with mice, the researchers found that blood vessels in the brain grow according to their own agenda beginning early in fetal development. They also found that the vasculature of an embryo's brain may actually guide later development of brain cells and their connections.

The findings were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Bruises occur when small blood vessels break and bleed beneath the skin.

If you bruise easily, here are possible reasons why, courtesy of the University of Cincinnati's Net Wellness program: