As middle-aged men’s weight goes up, so do their monthly costs for prescription drugs to treat heart disease risk factors and weight-related conditions, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2004. In a study of 328 men who participated in a health screening, normal-weight men spent an average of $22.84 per month at the pharmacy. Overweight men averaged $39.27 per month, and obese men spent $80.31 per month – about 3.5 times what their n
While the placement of stents in newly reopened coronary arteries has been shown to reduce the need for repeat angioplasty procedures, researchers from the Duke Clinical Research Institute have found that stents have no impact on mortality over the long term.
In the largest such analysis of its kind, the Duke researchers said their findings have important economic and clinical implications for physicians who are deciding whether their heart patients should receive coronary arte
Gaining 15 pounds or more over several years is the major contributor to progression of risk factors for heart disease and development of metabolic syndrome, while maintaining a stable weight — even in individuals considered obese – significantly reduces those risks, according to a study led by a Northwestern University researcher.
Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D., assistant professor of preventive medicine and of medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, pr
A new study finds tobacco may act as an environmental trigger for patients with an inherited genetic predisposition to pancreatic cancer. The authors of the report say the findings underscore the importance of strongly counseling patients with a family history of pancreatic cancer to avoid smoking. The study will be published in the December 15, 2004 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. A free abstract of this study will be available via the CANCER News Room
A new study gives people in their 50s and 60s another reason to get off the couch and be physically active — especially if they have conditions or habits that endanger their hearts, like diabetes, high blood pressure or smoking.
The study, based on data from 9,611 older adults, shows that those who were regularly active in their 50s and early 60s were about 35 percent less likely to die in the next eight years than those who were sedentary. For those who had a high heart risk be
Patients who undergo coronary artery bypass surgery are prescribed life-saving medications at discharge significantly less frequently than heart attack patients who receive less invasive angioplasty procedures, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
These findings are important, the researchers said, because the drugs in question — aspirin, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers and statins — have been proven effective by multi-center clinical
A Penn State study has shown that a diet rich in alpha-linolenic acid from walnuts, walnut oil and flaxseed oil not only lowered bad cholesterol but also decreased markers for blood vessel inflammation in men and women representative of typical Americans at cardiovascular risk.
While previous studies have shown that walnut supplementation favorably affects cholesterol and other lipids that are signs of cardiovascular risk, this new study is the first to demonstrate that a diet
Cath lab procedure could replace major heart surgery in some patients
The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) is participating in a nationwide clinical trial of a new valve repair device that could replace major heart surgery in some patients. A tiny clip – delivered by a catheter and deployed in the heart to repair a malfunctioning and leaking mitral valve – is building a favorable safety and feasibility profile as the EVEREST Phase I clinical trial nears completion.
A new magnetic navigation system shows promise for use during percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2004.
“The computer-controlled magnetic system is useful to steer guide wires and navigate turns in tortuous coronary arteries that would otherwise be impossible to negotiate,” said study co-author Neal S. Kleiman, M.D., director of cardiac catheterization laboratories at the Methodist DeBakey
Editorial: Betting your life on it BMJ Volume 329 pp 1055-6
Problem gambling is a health issue that needs to be taken seriously by all within the medical profession, argues a researcher in this week’s BMJ. The United Kingdom is just about to undergo one of the most radical changes of gambling legislation in its history. The new gambling bill will provide the British public with increased opportunities and access to gambling like they have never seen before.
The health an
In relieving overactive bladder as standard treatment alone
Combination therapy with Pfizer Inc’s DETROL® LA (tolterodine tartrate extended release capsules) and an alpha blocker, a standard treatment for enlarged prostate, was twice as effective in relieving overactive bladder (OAB) symptoms as the alpha blocker alone in men with both bladder obstruction and OAB, according to a study published in the October issue of the British Journal of Urology. Six million American men su
The University of Rochester Medical Center has a new tool to assess whether a medication might be harmful to the heart. The technology addresses a major health issue – drug toxicity – illustrated most recently by Merck’s voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx from the market after concerns that it may cause heart attacks and strokes.
Jean-Philippe Couderc, a biomedical engineer, developed a software program that provides a simpler, more accurate way to analyze the electrocardiograms (EK
Some allergic conditions could increase your risk of suffering from blood cancer as an adult, according to a new study published this week in BMC Public Health. This is important news for the increasingly large numbers of allergy sufferers worldwide.
“In our study, people with hives showed an increased risk of leukaemia,” said Dr. Karin Söderberg, who carried out the research with her colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. “We also found an increased risk of non-Hodgki
A patient at Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust has become the first in the UK to receive an artificial heart pump inserted without the need for surgery. Doctors at Hammersmith Hospital successfully placed the world’s smallest heart support system, a 4mm-wide device, into the patient’s heart, by inserting it into an artery in the groin and passing it up into the heart. The pump, implanted on Thursday (November 28) and removed a day later, assisted the patient’s heart in the crucial few hours aft
Illnesses and injuries leading to hospitalization or restricted activity are key sources of disability for independent older persons, regardless of physical frailty, Yale researchers report in the November 3 issue of JAMA.
“The risk of developing disability within a month of hospitalization was elevated more than 60-fold, while the risk of developing disability within a month of restricted activity was elevated nearly six-fold,” said principal investigator Thomas M. Gill, M.D.,
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA), the use of electrodes to heat and destroy abnormal tissue, is a safe and effective treatment for eradicating liver tumors that are in contact with the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, says one study in the November 2004 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, while a separate study in that same issue says that RFA becomes even more effective when alcohol is injected into a liver tumor before an RFA procedure.
In the first study, researchers from
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