Test may identify heart attack, stroke risk-study
An inexpensive blood test may identify which heart disease patients are at the highest risk of a stroke or heart attack, allowing doctors to move more aggressively to help them, a study said on Tuesday.
“We are very good in this country at diagnosing heart disease,” said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, of the University of California-San Francisco, lead author of the study.
“But we’re not very good at distinguishing who’s at high risk for future problems and starting them on preventive therapies. This test could make all the difference,” she added.
Black men in focus in U.S. HIV drug trial
Much of the early AIDS research in the United States focused on gay white men because they were the first group affected and subsequently developed an effective lobbying voice.
Now a clinical trial by the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta is focusing on gay black men, who are not as well organized but who have a higher incidence of the disease.
The trial aims to determine whether an AIDS drug is safe for people who are negative for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It has stirred debate among participants and researchers about gay sexuality within the black community and its attitude to safe sex.
Dental X-rays may help detect osteoporosis
A computer program that analyzes routine dental X-rays could offer a simple, cheap way to detect the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, new research suggests.
British researchers found that a software program they developed was able to spot signs of declining bone density in dental X-rays of the lower jaw—a potential sign of osteoporosis.
