Previous Medical News
2009/07/18
1. Drug Has Potential to Slow Aging: Rapamycin (Nature, 7/8/09)
Rapamycin is an immunosuppressant drug used in transplant patients to prevent organ rejection. It's also being studied as a potential anticancer drug. New research shows rapamycin extended the life expectancy of middle-aged mice by 28%-38%. This is the first convincing evidence that the aging process can be slowed and life span can be extended by a drug therapy starting at an advanced age.
2. Legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite dies at 92
Walter Cronkite died of cerebrovascular disease on July, 17 2009. Cerebrovascular disease is hardening (atherosclerosis) of the carotid arteries, which supply the brain with blood. It is treated with blood thinners and by controlling blood pressure. Ultimately cerebrovascular disease causes coma or stroke.
3. British girl's heart heals itself after transplant (Lancet, 7/14/09)
After 10 years with two blood pumping organs, Hannah Clark's faulty one did what many thought impossible: it healed itself enough so that doctors could remove the donated heart. But she also had a price to pay: the drugs Clark took to prevent her body from rejecting the donated heart led to malignant cancer that required chemotherapy. This shows that the heart can indeed repair itself if given the opportunity.
In 1994, when Clark was eight months old, she developed severe heart failure and doctors put her on a waiting list to get a new heart. But Clark's heart difficulties caused problems with her lungs, meaning she also needed a lung transplant. To avoid doing a risky heart and lung transplant, doctors decided to try something completely different. Dr. Magdi Yacoub of Imperial College London felt that if Clark's heart was given a time-out, it might be able to recover on its own. So in 1995 Dr. Yacoub and others grafted a donor heart from a 5-month-old directly onto Clark's own heart.
4. Study finds risk from popular heart bypass method (New England Journal of Medicine, 7/16/09)
A common method used in heart bypass surgery spares patients pain and problems upfront but seems to raise their risk of dying or suffering a heart attack over the next three years. It involves the way doctors remove a leg vein that is cut up and moved to the chest to create detours around clogged heart arteries. For decades, this was done with a long incision — sometimes groin to toe. That was painful, left a big scar and often led to infections and longer time in the hospital. About 13 years ago, doctors started trying a new way: making small "porthole" cuts and using a tiny scope and tools to tunnel along the vein and pull it out through the small openings. This quickly became popular as part of a big push toward less invasive surgery. However, people who had the small-incision method were significantly more likely to die, suffer a heart attack or need another artery-opening procedure in the following three years. The likely reason is that the vein suffers damage from being pulled out and doesn't hold up well over time.
5. Condoms offer partial protection against herpes (Archives of Internal Medicine, 7/13/09)
Using condoms consistently can help prevent people from contracting genital herpes. People who reported always using condoms were 30 percent less likely to contract the infection than people who didn't use condoms.
6. Alzheimer's gene speeds memory declines before 60 (New England Journal of Medicine, 7/16/09)
People with the "Alzheimer's gene" begin to have memory declines tied to aging before they reach 60, even if they have no clinical symptoms of dementia. People who learned they had the gene were not emotionally scarred by it. Lab tests now allow people to learn if they have inherited the ApoE4 gene variant, which raises the risk of Alzheimer's by more than 50 percent.
7. Moderate Drinking May Cut Dementia Risk (Alzheimer's Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, Vienna, Austria, 7/11-16/09)
A drink or two a day may help to protect older people from developing dementia. But once people 75 and older already have mild cognitive impairment, or have been diagnosed with memory loss, any amount of alcohol accelerates the rate of memory decline.
8. Naproxen May Help Prevent Alzheimer's (Alzheimer's Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, Vienna, Austria, 7/11-16/09)
NSAIDs -- nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs -- include ibuprofen (brands include Advil and Motrin), naproxen (brands include Aleve), and Celebrex. Studies that compare people with Alzheimer's disease to people who don't have Alzheimer's disease have often shown that those without Alzheimer's are more likely to be long-term NSAID users.
9. Spouse Has Dementia? You're at Risk, Too (Alzheimer's Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, Vienna, Austria, 7/11-16/09)
Spouses of people with dementia are at substantially increased risk of developing dementia themselves. Researchers followed more than 1,200 couples for 10 years. They found that wives who cared for husbands with dementia were nearly four times more likely to develop dementia than wives of men who didn't have dementia. Husband caregivers were almost 12 times more likely to develop dementia than husbands of women who were cognitively healthy. Dementia isn't contagious, of course. But the amount of stress involved in caring for a spouse with dementia is tremendous, and stress is a known risk factor for dementia.
10. Balance training may help prevent ankle sprains (British Medical Journal, 7/10/09)
Athletes who have suffered an ankle sprain can significantly cut their chances of spraining their ankle again by doing balance exercises.
11. Swearing can make you feel better, lessen pain (NeuroReport, 7/14/09)
Swearing can make you feel better because it can have a pain-lessening effect.
12. Heavy drinking may boost prostate cancer risk (Cancer, 7/13/09)
Men who drink heavily may be raising their risk of developing prostate cancer.
13. Heart problems linked to asthma drug: Xolair (FDA, 7/16/09)
The FDA is reviewing data that suggest the asthma medication Xolair can cause heart attacks, strokes and other potentially deadly problems. Preliminary results from a study of 5,000 patients taking the drug suggest an increased risk of heart problems and stroke. Because of the preliminary nature of the data, the FDA said patients should continue taking the drug as directed. The injectable drug is approved for adults and children older than 12 with moderate to severe asthma that cannot be controlled with inhalable treatments.
14. Bathtub Accidents Injure 43,000 U.S. Kids Each Year (Pediatrics, 7/13/09)
More than 43,000 children are injured in slips and falls in bathtubs each year in the United States.
15. 'Thin' Kids Get Better Grades in School (New York City Department of Health, 7/14/09)
Physically fit elementary- and middle-school students perform better academically than their out-of-shape classmates.
16. Kids' chronic headaches often improve with time (Neurology, 7/15/09)
Many teenagers with chronic headaches may see the problem wane as they get older. Between 1 percent and 2 percent of middle-school-age children suffer chronic daily headaches -- meaning they have headaches on at least 15 days out of the month. The head pain may come in the form of migraines, less-severe tension-type headaches or some combination of headache types. Among 103 12- to 14- year-olds with chronic daily headaches, most saw their symptoms improve over the next eight years.
