Heart disease a threat to older diabetics-study
Elderly people with diabetes are twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease than non-diabetics, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Dr. Joshua Barzilay of Kaiser Permanente in Tucker, Georgia, and colleagues studied a group of about 6,000 people older than 65 for 11 years. During that period, more than 40 percent of the people died, and about 50 percent to 60 percent of the deaths were attributed to heart-related problems, they wrote in a report in the online journal Public Library of Science.
Researchers step toward therapy for respiratory syncytial virus
When a child under the age of 2 contracts a respiratory tract infection requiring hospitalization, odds are that the cause is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
One of the world’s most common and dangerous early-childhood infections, RSV puts more than 100,000 children a year in the hospital in the U.S. alone; the infection may also increase the chances that a child will develop asthma.
Currently, neither a safe vaccine nor an effective therapy for RSV exists. Now, however, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) researchers have taken an important step toward developing a therapy for RSV.
U.S. Medical School Enrollment Continues to Climb
The number of U. S. medical students rose for the second year in a row, according to new data released today by the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges). First-time enrollees in the 2006 entering class totaled almost 17,400, a 2.2 percent increase over last year.
The number of applications also increased for the fourth consecutive year. More than 39,000 individuals applied to attend medical school this fall, a 4.6 percent increase over last year’s total of 37,373. The grade point averages and MCAT scores of this year’s applicant pool were the highest in more than a decade.
