The developmental oral therapy FTY720 (fingolimod) has demonstrated sustained benefits over two years in patients suffering from relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS), indicating that it could provide an important new option for treating this disabling neurological disease estimated to affect more than 2.5 million people worldwide.
A researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health has discovered a new part of the complicated mechanism that governs the formation of blood vessels, or angiogenesis.
Children who are overweight as toddlers or preschoolers are more likely to be overweight or obese in early adolescence, report researchers in a collaborative study by the NIH and several academic institutions. The researchers periodically collected height and weight measurements of a sample of children, beginning at age 2 and continuing until age 12. Their analysis, appearing in the September Pediatrics, provides some of the strongest evidence to date that overweight in early childhood increase the chances for overweight in later life.
New data suggests that women who have undergone a successful surgery to repair congenital heart defects can become pregnant, but they may have clinically significant complications. Until recently, pregnancy was discouraged in women who have undergone the so-called “Fontan operation” to correct complex birth defects of the heart. However, case reports and one clinical study suggest that women can become pregnant and deliver healthy infants.
Exercise can help people with large waistlines reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, Finnish researchers said. Type 2 diabetes, the more common form of the illness caused by an inability to make or properly use insulin, is linked to being overweight or obese.
Are your pressure and cholesterol levels within normal range?
In people who have experienced a stroke, but who have no known history of coronary heart disease, beginning regular treatment with the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin soon after the stroke can reduce the risk of recurrent stroke by 16 percent, according to a five-year study led by an international team that includes a researcher at Duke University Medical Center.
For people with diabetes who also have abnormal levels of blood fats, or lipids, the combination of two types of cholesterol-lowering drugs seems to work better than either one alone, researchers report.
You can take every pill and rue your parents for passing on their genes, but if you want to live long and well there are two things you must do — eat right and exercise.
High night-time blood pressure may be linked to an increased risk for congestive heart failure, according to a study conducted by the Uppsala University, Sweden.