7320 Greenville Avenue
Dallas TX 75231
(214) 373-6300)

The AHA Web site is a gold mine of references, information, and news about heart disease. There is a questionnaire that will calculate your risk for heart disease, a section on family heart health, information about research and new professional publications on heart disease, as well as an A to Z listing of pamphlets or fact sheets on the different types of heart disease. They will also mail this information to you if you call them.

PO Box 30105
Bethesda MD 20824-0105
(301) 251-1222

The NHLBI is the institute in the National Institutes of Health that deals with cardiovascular, pulmonary, and blood diseases and disorders. They plan and support education, prevention and treatment of diseases in these areas. They also develop basic research, clinical trials of drugs and devices, and rehabilitation programs. The NHLBI offers publications for consumers and health care professionals covering recent research, clinical trials and their findings, prevention information, and other areas. Many of these can be found on their web site.

9500 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland OH 44106
(216) 444-3690

This group is made up of patients, physicians, and other health care professionals concerned with coronary care. They publish a monthly newsletter, Heartline, which aims to keep readers up to date on issues such as medications, surgery, diet, exercise, psychosocial factors, and new research.

The ACC offers consumer level publications on different types of heart disease, news and updates from their journal The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, as well as descriptions of the roles of different types of physicians that a heart patient will see. On this site, you'll also find a database of web site links and resources.

This site contains material written by the doctors at the Cardiovascular Institute of the South. Through their practice, they identified some common information deficits with their patients, and wrote the information that they felt was missing in the traditional patient education materials. The site starts the user off with a search box on the home page. There is also an index of articles, a list of the categories, biographies of the doctors, and other information. The information is set up in several different categories including disease states, prevention, treatment, FAQs, and issues for women with heart disease.

The Heart Preview allows the user to take a walking tour of the heart. The tour consists of different pages of information that textually describe features and functions of different parts of the cardiovascular system. There are also some accompanying graphics and sounds. Topics they cover include heart development, structure, monitoring, and how the heart interacts with other body systems. This is a really nice example of the potential uses of the World Wide Web. The site consists of many interlinked pages that keep the user "flowing" through the heart and circulatory system.

This site is an independent educational site about heart disease designed to be used by all levels of readers. Their mission is to empower heart patients by opening the lines of communication between patients and doctors. They offer news, FAQs, articles about different types of heart disease and treatments, and several different directories for clinics, products, and other cardiology web sites that they have reviewed.

The Medical Matrix is an ever-growing index of reviewed health and medical web sites. They organize their sites by type of information, format, and reading level. This is a very exhaustive list: it can point users to very specific pages within a large web site, or to entire web sites dedicated to a single topic. Because of its size and scope it can be a bit overwhelming. It provides a good view of the scope of cardiovascular information available on the Internet, and with some careful selection, you can probably find what you're looking for. Start by registering (it's free), and then click on "cardiology."

9140 W. Dodge Road
Omaha NE 68114
(402) 398-1993

This is a non-profit organization fully funded by a heart attack survivor. The NHSA will send out, free of charge, an information packet containing information on heart disease, cholesterol, exercise, diet, and substitution suggestions for recipes.

PO Box 28876
San Diego CA 92198
(619) 673-9043

This is an organization for the families of the chronically ill. They offer an emotional support network and work to increase public consciousness about the role and issues of well family members. They establish local support groups, and offer a variety of information and materials. Their publications include two newsletters that are free with membership.