Popular drug for chest pain may promote blood vessel damage
...block ALDH-2 activity had little effect. As ALDH-2 declined with nitroglycerin treatment, mitochondria in the heart cells of rats greatly increased the production of free radicals over control animals, the team found. Treatment with antioxidants reduced the production of free radicals by mitochondria and rest...Lifetime stroke risk higher for women, those with high blood pressure
...y the same at ages 65 and 75," she said. But risk declined slightly to 9 percent for men and 16 percent for women at age 85, which reflects the "decrease in life expectancy in this oldest group." The relationship between blood pressure and stroke risk was also striking: At every age the risk of stroke was...Malnutrition and misery will be 'unimaginable' by 2054
...ation. Pimentel noted that per-capita cropland has declined 20 percent worldwide in the past decade. "The only way to reverse the growing imbalance between human population numbers and food supply is to actively conserve cropland, fresh water, energy and other environmental resources," Pimentel said. "We m...Women who were sexually abused as children more likely to smoke
...tress of abuse." While overall smoking rates have declined significantly over recent decades, smoking rates for teen and adult women recently have increased. The conclusions of this research are limited by the small number of participants. "But the findings do support a compelling argument that sexual abuse...Thursday, March 4, 2004 news tips
...istics show that overall CHD mortality per 100,000 declined from 345 in 1980 to 187 in 2000. In men, the decrease in rates slowed for age groups 35-44 and 45-54, and the numbers of deaths were constant or increased. But for women ages 35-44 and 45-54, CHD death rates actually increased or decreased more slo...Study looks at cost of high blood pressure therapy
... from 1990 to 2002, "the prescription of diuretics declined by about 50 percent during the same period," he said. Daniel Jones, M.D., a spokesperson for the American Heart Association, agrees that diuretics are underused. "However, the selection of antihypertensive agents by health providers is based on man...Folic acid fortification may have lowered stroke deaths
...said. Before 1997, overall stroke mortality rates declined by about 1 percent per year, compared with 4.5 per...ng black men ages 40-59, death rates due to stroke declined by 1.2 percent per year before 1997, compared with 7.4 percent per year after 1997. Among black wom...Questions raised on DNR orders and shorter hospital stays
Over the past decade, time spent in-hospital has declined dramatically, even for patients with serious illnesses. This trend raises concern that increasing numbers of patients may be discharged before their conditions are stable, particularly if a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order has been written. A Northwe...UCSF/Baylor team uses new method to measure bone loss in astronauts flying long mission
.... They found that on average the hip bone strength declined by 2.5 percent for each month of flight. Because the amount of bone loss increases with mission length, said Lang, astronauts on multi-year explorations may face increased risk of fracture upon return to gravity. In addition, those who do not recover...Progenitor cells predict heart disease severity
...l, a patient's likelihood for multi-vessel disease declined by 20 percent." While the EPC levels did not vary significantly by age, gender or other risk factors, the researchers found that the levels were lower for diabetics (19 CFU vs. 36 CFU) and for patients who had suffered a recent heart attack (23 CFU v...National study: Health care access for poor children improves, but gap in care for uninsured grows
...ercentage of children uninsured for an entire year declined from 10.4 percent in 1996 to 7.7 percent in 1999 (from 7 million to 5.3 million). The percentage of children hospitalized dropped 45 percent between 1987 and 1999. The gap between publicly and privately insured children who did notreport a proble...Treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ varies widely in United States
...y. The proportion of patients who had a mastectomy declined from 43% to 28% during the study period. Overall, 64% of women with DCIS had breast-conserving surgery. In 1992, 45% of the patients who had breast-conserving surgery received radiation therapy, compared with 54% in 1999. The use of axillary dissect...Smoking linked to accelerated cognitive decline in the elderly
...hose who never smoked (41 percent), the MMSE score declined .03 points per year. The score for current smokers (22 percent) declined .16 points per year, about five times more. Former smokers (37 percent) dropped .06 points per year....Exercise improves cancer survival, reduces cancer risk, scientists say
...r higher," Ulrich reported, "concentrations of CRP declined steadily over the course of the year from a baseline of 0.40 milligrams per deciliter to 0.32 milligrams. This effect of exercise on inflammatory markers may help to explain in part the associations observed between increased physical activity and re...Gaining health while giving back to the community
...nsidered the "most common low intensity activity," declined by 4 percent in volunteers and increased by 18 percent in the control group. "In contrast to other programs that target health care beneficiaries, the Experience Corps program is designed to attract all adults, including those less likely to partici...Duration of hospital stay has shortened for patients with heart attack
...ce as likely to die). "The average length of stay declined from approximately 12 days in the 1986-1988 period to six days in the 1997-1999 period," the authors write. "However, we found no negative association between declining length of stay and short-term mortality after hospital discharge for AMI." "Much...'Use it or lose it' warning rings true when it comes to exercise
...and physical function," Emery said. "Some may have declined below where they originally started, as people with COPD tend to decline faster in these areas of functioning than healthy older adults." He admits that while the declines may be more severe in people with COPD, healthy adults who stop exercising...Study finds few new antibiotics are in the pipeline
.... They found that FDA approvals of new antibiotics declined 56 percent during the past 20 years (1998-2002 versus 1983-1987). Looking to the future, the researchers found only six new antibiotics in the R&D pipeline out of 506 drugs being developed. One of those drugs, telithromycin, was approved by FDA this ...Researchers compare drugs used to prevent osteoporosis
...ree years. The researchers found that bone density declined by two percent in the placebo group, was stable in the two raloxifene groups, and increased by 4.6 percent in the CEE group. At three years, total cholesterol levels were not different compared to the beginning of the study for the placebo group and......3 of them remained stable. The remaining 24 people declined to Alzheimer's disease. Two brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, were performed on the participants to measure their brain volumes and rates of brain atrophy, or shrinkage. Researchers found the rate of total brain volume loss was "s...