Risk factors of cardiovascular disease rising in poor, young
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Cardiovascular disease is increasing in adults under 50 and those of lower socioeconomic status, despite recent trends which show that cardiovascular disease is declining in Canada overall, say researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. Untreated cardiovascular disease can lead to heart failure, coronary artery disease and death, and is the most common cause of hospitalization in North America.
By exploring national trends in heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and smoking prevalence from 1994-2005, researchers found that cardiovascular disease is on the rise in adults under 50 and those of lower socioeconomic status according to a study published in the July edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
“Our results indicate that young people are increasingly bearing the burden of cardiovascular risk factors,” says Dr. Douglas Lee, cardiologist and scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). “This is an important group because they are the ones who will predict future heart disease, and earlier onset of cardiovascular disease means potentially longer and more intense treatment over their lifetime.”
Studies shed light on preserving fertility among cancer patients
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Cancer treatment has come a long way, leading to a multitude of therapy options and improved survival rates. These successes, however, have created a challenge for young cancer patients since chemotherapy and radiation treatments that often save lives threaten fertility. Techniques available to safeguard fertility, such as freezing eggs for later embryo development, have poor odds of success, leaving patients with very limited options for the future. But that is beginning to change as researchers improve current techniques, mature human eggs in the laboratory, and discover cellular mechanisms that could help preserve and even restore fertility. Researchers will report on these and other findings at the 42nd annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR), July 18 to 22, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
Summaries of the findings are as follows:
Growing Egg Cells in the Lab
Researchers at Northwestern University are developing a method they hope will help preserve a woman’s fertility after radiation and chemotherapy treatment. Led by Teresa K. Woodruff, Ph.D., the team has grown undeveloped human eggs to near maturity in laboratory cultures. During a 30-day experiment, they grew human follicles―tiny sacs that contain immature eggs―in the lab until the eggs they contained were nearly mature. According to Dr. Woodruff, this is the first step in developing a new fertility option for young cancer patients.
Obama tries to regain momentum in healthcare debate
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President Barack Obama appealed to Americans on Saturday to back his ambitious revamp of the U.S. health care system, seeking to regain momentum amid growing worries among lawmakers over how to pay for it.
Trading on his personal popularity, Obama has gone on the offensive to try to persuade doubters and face down critics of his more than $1 trillion plan to set up a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
The Democratic president used his weekly radio address to again call upon lawmakers, including skeptics within his own party, to “seize this opportunity—one we might not have again for generations—and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009.”
Sinai Physiatrist Enthusiatic About Word Addition
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It’s a word that’s been around since the days of the Truman presidency. But a patient looking up “physiatry” would find nothing in the dictionary.
Until now.
Last week, Merriam-Webster Inc. released its list of the more than 100 entries now included in the latest edition of its Collegiate Dictionary. Physiatry, a synonym for physical medicine and rehabilitation, made the cut, along with locavore, fan fiction and earmark.
The physiatrists at Sinai Hospital couldn’t be happier about the linguistic recognition of their field.
Study singles out pesticide in Parkinson’s risk
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New research provides more evidence for a link between pesticide exposure and Parkinson’s disease and pinpoints a specific risky chemical.
Dr. Jason R. Richardson of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey, and his colleagues found that Parkinson’s disease patients were more likely to have detectable levels of beta-hexachlorocyclohexane (beta-HCH) in their blood, and also had higher average levels, than healthy individuals or Alzheimer’s disease patients.
The first evidence suggesting an association between pesticides and the degenerative brain disease Parkinson’s came out in the 1990s, but the current findings are the first to finger a specific chemical, Richardson told Reuters Health.
CBO says costs will rise as healthcare expanded
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Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf told lawmakers on Thursday legislation to expand health care coverage would increase federal healthcare costs “to a significant degree” and revenue will need to be found to keep from increasing the deficit.
Asked by the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee about his remarks to a Senate committee earlier Thursday that the legislation would not hold down healthcare costs, he said, “The point I made earlier this morning is that it raises future federal outlays more than it reduces future federal outlays.”
Elmendorf told the panel, “The coverage proposals in this legislation would expand federal spending on health care to a significant degree and in our analysis so far we don’t see other provisions in this legislation reducing federal health spending by a corresponding degree.”
Psoriasis treatment may up cancer risk
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Patients with moderate to severe psoriasis may need life-long treatment with a variety of therapies to relieve symptoms of the scaly skin condition and research has shown that both traditional and newer therapies for psoriasis can increase patients’ risk of certain cancers.
Long-term treatment with so-called PUVA therapy, they note, is associated with increased risks of deadly malignant melanoma as well as a less deadly non-melanoma skin cancer called cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, Dr. Jeffrey M. Weinberg, of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, and colleagues note in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
During PUVA therapy, patients are given the photosensitizing drug psoralen and exposed to ultraviolet A light.
Prepared Patient: Seeking a Second …or Third …Opinion
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Is it OK to seek a second (or a third, or a fourth) opinion on your diagnosis? Many people feel uncomfortable with the idea that they are questioning the authority or expertise of their physician. Some fear that they will receive worse care if they appear to be pushy or difficult patients. Gathering multiple opinions on your medical condition can be one of the most emotionally fraught decisions that a patient has to make.
When Chip Wells visited a hematologist after learning he had leukemia, the doctor’s attitude struck him as more cavalier than low-key. Wells asked him to recommend another specialist although it wasn’t an easy request to make.
But patients do have to make this decision. Research confirms what most people already feel in their gut: not all doctors are alike. Physicians vary in how they were trained, what they specialize in and where they practice. A decade-long Dartmouth project has documented significant differences in treatment between regions of the country. Major studies suggest that doctors deliver the best, evidence-backed care only half of the time. And it’s a rare medical condition that responds to only one treatment or therapy.
Type 1 diabetic youth often overweight: study
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Children and youth with type 1 diabetes are more likely to be overweight than their counterparts without type 1 diabetes, researchers have found.
Ties between type 2 diabetes and excess weight are well documented, but are less clear in type 1 diabetes, which affects less than 10% of people with diabetes but is more common in children and young people, the researchers explain.
“Traditional teaching in the past has been that youth with type 1 diabetes often present at diagnosis having lost weight or underweight,” Dr. Lenna L. Liu, from Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute told Reuters Health. “However, with the rise in childhood obesity, even some youth with type 1 diabetes may be overweight at diagnosis and/or afterwards.”
Doctors probed by state in Michael Jackson’s death
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California’s attorney general said on Wednesday his office has run several doctors’ names and several potential aliases through its prescription drug database to aid police investigating the death of Michael Jackson.
Attorney General Jerry Brown said his office was not the lead agency in probing Jackson’s sudden death—a role it took in the fatal overdose of Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith in 2007—but was assisting other agencies as they try to track down prescription drugs that may have killed the King of Pop.
“We’ve found some things, but this is early on” to provide details, Brown told Reuters.
Kids up to age 12 at risk of car-crash spine injury
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Children younger than 12 are at heightened risk of suffering a spinal injury during a car accident—possibly because standard seat belts often do not fit them properly, researchers report.
In a study of children treated for car accident injuries at two Australian hospitals, researchers found that those younger than 12 were seven times more likely than their older counterparts to sustain a serious spine injury. [abs]
All of the 72 children and teenagers in the study had been restrained at the time of the accident. The higher spine-injury risk before age 12 “may reflect the adequacy of seat belt fit,” the researchers report in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Most take news of genetic Alzheimer’s risk well
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Adult children who have a parent with Alzheimer’s disease may want to know if they carry a gene that raises their risk of getting the mind-robbing disease. But can they handle the test result, psychologically? Findings from a study released today hint that most can handle the information.
The e4 version of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as impaired memory in people without dementia and with progression to Alzheimer’s disease in people with mild thinking impairment.
In the REVEAL study, researchers found that disclosing APOE test results to adult children of patients with Alzheimer’s disease “did not result in significant short-term psychological risks.”
Muscle, bone problems more common in heavy kids
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Overweight and obese children have more aches and pains in their muscles and bones than their normal-weight peers, Dutch researchers report.
Such musculoskeletal problems may lead normal-weight kids to be less active and put on weight, while such problems can make it more difficult for heavy kids to exercise to trim down, Dr. Marjolein Krul of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam and her colleagues suggest. “We hypothesize that a vicious circle results wherein being overweight, musculoskeletal problems, and a low fitness level reinforce each other,” they write.
In adults, being overweight or obese is known to contribute to musculoskeletal problems, especially in the legs and feet, Krul and her team note in the Annals of Family Medicine, but less is known about how excess weight might affect children’s muscles and bones.
Bottle-feeding moms lack info, may overfeed kids
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Many moms who bottle-feed lack important information on how to feed their infants safely, which could lead to overfeeding and heavy kids, new research from the UK shows
Formula-fed kids are more likely to be too heavy, Dr. Rajalakshmi Lakshman of the University of Cambridge, a researcher on the study, told Reuters Health, so she and her colleagues set out to investigate why.
They reviewed 23 studies involving 13,263 people. What they found surprised them, the researcher said. Many mothers who used formula felt “guilt, anger, worry, uncertainty and a sense of failure,” she and her colleagues note in the Archives of Diseases in Childhood.
Weak Support for Workplace Hearing Loss Programs
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A new review of existing research says there is little evidence to support mandatory hearing-loss prevention programs at the workplace.
Workers could simply wear earplugs and other devices that protect hearing, but even those are not always effective, the review authors found.
In the big picture, “We still rely too much on hearing protection, which is not sufficient,” said review lead author Jos Verbeek, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Kuopio, Finland.
