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.
In elderly patients with type 2 or non-insulin dependent diabetes, treatment with the short-acting drug repaglinide (NovoNorm) may be safer than that with the longer-acting drug, glibenclamide (glyburide), Italian researchers report.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded the approved use of Oncaspar to include treating children and adults with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as part of a multiple drug chemotherapy regimen. FDA previously approved Oncaspar in 1994 only for patients with ALL who were unable to receive the cancer drug L-asparaginase because they were allergic to that drug.
Fatty acids, which are found in fish, can help in weight loss when combined with moderate exercise, an Australian study found.
A new study on mice by researchers in the US has found that stimulating a protein on the surface of the brain’s stem cells helps the rodents recover after a stroke, thus suggesting that the same could be possible in humans as well, and that it may be an alternative to growing and transplanting new cells.
The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes in U.S. adults age 20 and older has risen from about 5.1 percent to 6.5 percent, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who analyzed national survey data from two periods ? 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2002. However, the percentage of adults with undiagnosed diabetes did not change significantly over the years studied. About 2.8 percent of U.S. adults ? one-third of those with diabetes ? still don?t know they have it.
High doses of older painkiller drugs may pose the same cardiac risk as newer medications such as Vioxx and other cox-2 inhibitor drugs, according to a British study that looked at what is regarded as the best evidence from randomized, controlled trials.
A major international trial has been set up to see whether a treatment to increase so-called “good” cholesterol can prevent heart attacks and strokes.
To keep your arteries healthy, a regular exercise program is essential, reports the June issue of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch.
Tomatoes, earlier known to protect against various cancers, could also prevent heart attacks and strokes, say scientists.