Can Blindness be Prevented Through Diet?
Increasing intake of the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, found in popular fish-oil supplements, may protect against blindness resulting from abnormal blood vessel growth in the eye, according to a study published online by the journal Nature Medicine on June 24.
The study was done in mice, but a clinical trial at Children’s Hospital Boston will soon begin testing the effects of omega-3 supplementation in premature babies, who are at risk for vision loss.
Type 1 diabetes and heart disease—Heavier may mean healthier
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences studying links between an early sign of heart disease called coronary artery calcification and body fat have found that, paradoxically, more fat may have some advantages, at least for people – particularly women – who have type 1 diabetes. Cardiovascular complications, including heart disease, are a leading cause of death for people with diabetes, who tend to suffer cardiovascular disease decades earlier than non-diabetics.
“Gaining weight may reflect good or better treatment with insulin therapy, which may partly explain why participants who gained weight over time had lower mortality rates,” said Trevor Orchard, M.D., professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), who is presenting the findings during the 67th annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association. Scientific sessions take place June 22-26 at the McCormick Place Convention Center, Chicago.
Women’s mortality rates for cardiovascular disease differ widely among hospitals
Women treated for cardiovascular disease at the nation’s best- performing hospitals have a 39 percent lower risk-adjusted mortality rate when compared with women at the nation’s poorest-performing hospitals, according to the fourth annual HealthGrades Women’s Health Outcomes in U.S. Hospitals study, released today.
The study also found that, for women, the largest quality gaps between the best-performing and poorest-performing hospitals were in heart failure and interventional cardiology procedures. Compared to poorly performing hospitals, the best-performing hospitals had a 46 percent lower risk-adjusted mortality for heart failure and a 44 percent lower risk-adjusted mortality for interventional cardiology procedures.
Addiction experts say video games not an addiction
Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more.
Addiction experts also strongly opposed the idea at a debate at the American Medical Association’s annual meeting.
Obese people appear better protected from TB
Elderly people who are obese appear to have a lower risk of falling ill with tuberculosis compared with those who are underweight or of average weight, according to an extensive geriatric study in Hong Kong.
Although obesity has been linked to health problems such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, experts notice that among people suffering from the same ailments, those who are overweight tend to outlive those who are thin.
IVF pregnancies may be happier than natural ones
Women who conceive through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are just as happy in late pregnancy as women who conceive naturally—maybe even more so, new research from Israel suggests.
It had been thought that IVF moms were more stressed than those who conceived naturally. “A lot of studies have come out and said that they were indeed more anxious and they were having a worse time of it,” Dr. Marsha Kaitz of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. “My paper says that that isn’t necessarily the case. The women that I interviewed were really quite positive.”
