Heart failure quadruples risk of fractures
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People newly diagnosed with heart failure have a four-fold higher risk of breaking a bone than people with other types of heart disease, according to a Canadian study.
The risk of hip fractures is increased even more, the investigators report in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
Dr. Justin A. Ezekowitz and associates at the University of Alberta in Edmonton identified 2041 patients with a new diagnosis of heart failure and 14,253 patients with other heart-related diagnoses such as a heart attack, erratic heart beat, or chest pain.
Physical activity may lessen stroke severity
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How active a person is before having a stroke predicts how severe the stroke will be and how well he or she recovers, Danish researchers have found.
Dr. Lars-Henrik Krarup, from Copenhagen University Hospital, and colleagues looked at 265 people who had suffered a first stroke. After factoring in age, history of diabetes and other conditions, those patients with high pre-stroke physical activity scores were more likely to have a less severe stroke, the team reports in the medical journal Neurology.
Likewise, the outcome after two years was substantially better in patients in the highest ranking for physical activity.
Gastric bypass cuts heart risks
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The risk faced by obese people of having a heart attack or other cardiovascular “events” is reduced substantially after they undergo gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, according to a recent study.
The take-home message is that “bariatric surgery can be considered as a means to reduce cardiovascular risk (in obese patients) after conservative treatment options have failed,” Dr. John A. Batsis told Reuters Health.
Batsis, at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire and his colleagues identified six studies that looked at cardiovascular risk after bariatric surgery for obesity. The risk was estimated from standard tables that assigned a score for factors such as weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Junk food causes a third of heart attacks
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Diets heavy in fried foods, salty snacks and meat account for about 35 percent of heart attacks globally, researchers reported on Monday.
Their study of 52 countries showed that people who ate a “Western” diet based on meat, eggs and junk food were more likely to have heart attacks, while those who ate more fruits and vegetables had a lower risk.
The study supports previous findings that show junk food and animal fats can cause heart disease, and especially heart attacks.
International pact sought on cigarette smuggling
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Delegates from more than 150 countries met Monday to push for a wide-ranging pact to curb the booming trade in cigarette smuggling.
The week-long conference in Geneva is being held under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), which estimates 5 million people die each year from diseases related to smoking.
“Illicit trade in tobacco products contributes to the rise in tobacco consumption and poses a serious threat to health,” the WHO said.
Woman in Berlin gives birth to sextuplets
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A woman who had been struggling to conceive ended up giving birth to six healthy babies in a German hospital, the medical director of Berlin’s Charite hospital said Monday.
Ulrich Frei said the woman had given birth to four boys and two girls—each weighing between 800 and 900 grams (about 2 pounds)—after 27 weeks of gestation Thursday.
The woman had undergone a standard fertility treatment after unsuccessful attempts to become pregnant, Wolfgang Henrich, a doctor who assisted the delivery, told a news conference.
Two lasers no better than one for hair removal
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Combining two different types of lasers to remove unwanted hair is no more effective than using either laser alone, and may result in more adverse effects, new research shows.
Laser hair removal, first described in 1996, works by destroying the hair follicle, Dr. Alireza Firooz, of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, and colleagues explain in the Archives of Dermatology.
Various wavelengths of laser light are in use, they add, while some “controversial” ideas have been put forth about the effectiveness of using more than one type of laser in combination.
Breast cancer awareness month spotlights oral mucositis: Side effect of anticancer therapy
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As millions of Americans participate in educational initiatives as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, they should keep in mind an important yet under-recognized consequence of breast cancer therapy: oral mucositis, one of the most common and debilitating side effects of cancer treatment.
Oral mucositis (OM) is a painful inflammation/ulceration of the mucous membranes in the mouth. It results from erosion of epithelial cells in the oral cavity (cells lining the surface of the throat and esophagus) during cancer treatment. In addition to severe pain, patients with OM often have difficulty eating and swallowing, as well as greater susceptibility to infection. Needless to say, the effects of OM can have a profoundly negative effect on cancer patients’ quality of life.
Never heard of oral mucositis? You might be surprised to learn that the condition is estimated to affect more than 400,000 cancer patients each year. OM affects approximately 40 percent of cancer patients who receive chemotherapy, more than 70 percent of those undergoing conditioning therapy for bone marrow transplantation, and virtually all patients receiving radiation therapy for head and neck cancer.
Racial disparities in cardiovascular health linked to birth weight, slavery
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Two new articles examine the theory of “fetal programming” and their effect on racial health disparities. The studies, published in American Journal of Human Biology, suggest that the higher rates of hypertension and cardiovascular disease present in African Americans may be a consequence of low birth weights, and that these low birth weights may be a result of social rather than genetic factors.
It is well-established that the nutritional and psychological state of a pregnant mother can influence whether her child will later develop cardiovascular disease as an adult. Nutrients and hormones present in the womb shape a fetus’s development, in part by silencing certain genes in the body. These influences can persist into later life to impact adult health. Researchers from Northwestern University argue that such intergenerational impacts of environmental factors could help explain black-white differences in cardiovascular health in the U.S.
“A pregnant African American mother’s experience of well documented stressors, including social forces such as discrimination and racism, could have lingering effects on diseases like hypertension, diabetes and heart attacks in her children,” says Christopher Kuzawa and Elizabeth Sweet, who co-authored this piece. By synthesizing this new evidence, they argue that social forces, rather than genes, may underlie the problem of racial inequity in heart attacks and strokes in the U.S.
Early exposure to drugs, alcohol creates lifetime of health risk
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People who began drinking and using marijuana regularly prior to their 15th birthday face a higher risk of early pregnancy, as well as a pattern of school failure, substance dependence, sexually-transmitted disease and criminal convictions that lasts into their 30s.
A study published online by the journal Psychological Science has been able to sort out for the first time the difficult question of whether it’s bad kids who do drugs, or doing drugs that makes kids bad.
The answer is both, said Duke University psychologist Avshalom Caspi, who co-authored the report with his wife and colleague Terrie Moffitt. They are part of a team of researchers from the U.S., Britain and New Zealand that analyzed data tracking the health of nearly 1,000 New Zealand residents from birth through age 32.
Nearby tissue reveals liver cancer recurrence risk
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The key to whether liver cancer is curable may lie not with the tumor, but in the apparently healthy liver cells surrounding it, scientists said on Wednesday.
An international research team reported that it has identified 186 bits of genetic material whose activity levels in surrounding tissue predict whether hepatocellular carcinoma, a form of liver cancer, is likely to reappear.
“What we found was that the information to predict future recurrence wasn’t in the primary tumor itself, but was in the surrounding non-tumor liver tissue, which suggests that the so-called recurrences aren’t really recurrences,” Dr. Todd Golub, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.
Doctors warn of rash from mobile phone use
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Doctors baffled by an unexplained rash on people’s ears or cheeks should be on alert for a skin allergy caused by too much mobile phone use, the British Association of Dermatologists said on Thursday.
Citing published studies, the group said a red or itchy rash, known as “mobile phone dermatitis,” affects people who develop an allergic reaction to the nickel surface on mobile phones after spending long periods of time on the devices.
“It is worth doctors bearing this condition in mind if they see a patient with a rash on the cheek or ear that cannot otherwise be explained,” it said.
Disease Leads to Vision Loss More Often in Men
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A new study shows that men are more likely to lose vision as a result of a particular cause of intracranial hypertension, or increased pressure in the brain, than women with the condition. The research is published in the October 15, 2008, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) is a neurological disorder involving too much cerebrospinal fluid pressure, resulting in severe headaches, swelling of the optic nerves, vision loss, double vision, and a whooshing noise in the ears. The disease affects about one in 5,000 people, and is more common in women.
Researchers reviewed the medical records of 721 people with this kind of intracranial hypertension. Only nine percent of the group was male. Participants underwent eyesight exams and brain scans.
Rutgers researchers identify new antibiotic target and new antibiotic mechanism
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A team of Rutgers University scientists led by Richard H. Ebright and Eddy Arnold has identified a new antibiotic target and a new antibiotic mechanism that may enable the development of broad-spectrum antibacterial agents effective against bacterial pathogens resistant to current antibiotics. In particular, the results could lead the way to new treatments for tuberculosis (TB) that involve shorter courses of therapy and are effective against drug-resistant TB.
The researchers showed how three antibiotics – myxopyronin, corallopyronin and ripostatin – block the action of bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP). RNAP is the enzyme that transcribes genetic information from DNA into RNA, which, in turn, directs the assembly of proteins, the building blocks of all biological systems. Blocking bacterial RNAP kills bacterial cells.
The research findings are reported in the journal Cell, published online Oct. 16 and in the Oct. 17 print issue of the journal.
Fasting may cut risks of heart disease, diabetes
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Routine periodic fasting, which is practiced by some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), may reduce the risks of heart disease and diabetes, according to findings from the Intermountain Heart Collaborative Study conducted in Utah.
The Utah population has one of the lowest rates of death from cardiovascular disease in the U.S., likely due to the lifestyle of members of the LDS—particularly low rates of smoking—lead investigator Dr. Benjamin D. Horne told Reuters Health.
However, as smoking rates have dropped in other states, Utah still has one of the lowest heart disease death rates, Horne said. “There should have been some convergence of disease rates because Utah’s smoking prevalence can’t decline as much as other states,’ but that is not what we have observed.”
