Cholesterol decline may signal early dementia
A decline in total cholesterol levels may precede the diagnosis of dementia by at least 15 years, according to a study reported in the Archives of Neurology.
“Studies like this are extremely valuable because they can provide a ‘window’ on to processes going on early in dementia, allowing researchers to look back in time at people’s health and other characteristics and compare these between people who develop dementia and those who do not,” Dr. Robert Stewart from King’s College London, told Reuters Health.
Can’t Cure Common Cold, But Coffee Benefits Perk
Its caffeine can bring jitters and its color can stain teeth, yet moderate consumption of coffee—an all-world beverage if ever there was one—is being shown to have generally positive and protective effects on the emergence of disease conditions according to this month’s issue of Food Technology magazine.
In its regular Food, Medicine & Health column, Food Technology reports that recent studies of coffee in combination with reviews of research gathered over the past 30 years reveal that consumption improves glucose regulation and lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, among other favorable effects.
Radiation Therapy Reduces Cancer Recurrence in Older Women
Radiation therapy after lumpectomy and five years of treatment with the drug tamoxifen can dramatically reduce the risk of both cancer recurrence and new tumors in older women with early breast cancer, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.
“While these treatments are standard care for younger patients, it is has been shown that older women are less likely to receive them,” said lead author Ann M. Geiger, M.P.H., Ph.D., an associate professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest and formerly of Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “Our results provide strong evidence of the importance of providing high quality care to all patients, regardless of age.”
Birth defects big cause of infant death
Birth defects, including heart problems, rather than illnesses associated with premature births are a leading cause of death in very young babies in the United States, according to a report issued on Thursday.
Birth defects, such as a heart condition called pulmonary valve stenosis, are also the most common reason babies are hospitalized, said study researchers, from the University of Arkansas, who examined data on babies under 10 days old.
Newer blood-pressure drugs pose less diabetes risk
More recent blood pressure treatments are less likely to be associated with diabetes than are older medicines, researchers said on Friday.
Their conclusions are based on a systematic review of 22 clinical trials involving 143,000 patients who did not have diabetes when they were started on the different high blood pressure medicines.
World’s oldest woman dies in Canada -media reports
Julie Winnefred Bertrand, the world’s oldest woman, died early on Thursday at the age of 115 in a Montreal nursing home, CanWest News Service reported.
Bertrand, who was born on Sept. 16, 1891, in the Quebec town of Coaticook, passed away in her sleep, CanWest reported, citing Bertrand’s 73-year-old nephew, Andre.
Last month, Bertrand was proclaimed the world’s oldest living woman and its second oldest person by Guinness World Records after the death of Tennessee woman Elizabeth Bolden, who was born Aug. 15, 1890.
Texas study finds link between pollution, cancer
A University of Texas study found a possible link between childhood leukemia and living close to the city’s refinery row along the Houston Ship Channel, one of the study’s co-authors said on Thursday.
The study found that living within two miles of elevated levels of 1,3-butadiene around the ship channel’s petrochemical complex was associated with a 56 percent increased incidence of childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia compared with those living more than 10 miles away, according to a statement from the city of Houston, which financed the study.
