Intensively targeting blood sugar to near-normal levels in adults with type 2 diabetes at especially high risk for heart attack and stroke does not significantly reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events, such as fatal or nonfatal heart attacks or stroke, but increases risk of death, compared to standard treatment. FULL STORY »

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has launched Time to Talk, an educational campaign to encourage –particularly seniors–and their health care providers to openly discuss the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM ). CAM is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine, such as herbal supplements, meditation, naturopathy, and acupuncture.

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In many poor countries, mothers with HIV face a stark choice: to nurse their infants, and risk passing on HIV through their breast milk—or to formula feed, and deprive their infants of much of the natural immunity needed to protect against fatal diseases of early infancy. Now, two studies supported by the National Institutes of Health offer insights into preventing early death and HIV infection among breastfeeding infants of mothers with HIV in these countries. FULL STORY »

Licensed pesticide applicators who used chlorinated pesticides on more than 100 days in their lifetime were at greater risk of diabetes, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The associations between specific pesticides and incident diabetes ranged from a 20 percent to a 200 percent increase in risk, said the scientists with the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). FULL STORY »

Genetic variation in the DNA of mitochondria – the “power plants” of cells – contributes to a person’s risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The study is the first to examine the mitochondrial genome for changes associated with AMD, the leading cause of blindness in Caucasians over age 50. FULL STORY »

Every year, an estimated 700,000 Americans have a first heart attack, with another 500,000 suffering a recurrent attack. About 40 percent of these people die as a result. However, many of these individuals might live if heart attack victims and bystanders recognize symptoms and call 911, said lead author Henraya McGruder, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). FULL STORY »

The developing nervous system makes far more nerve cells than are needed to ensure target organs and tissues are properly connected to the nervous system. As nerves connect to target organs, they somehow compete with each other resulting in some living and some dying.

Now, using a combination of computer modeling and molecular biology, neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered how the target tissue helps newly connected peripheral nerve cells strengthen their connections and kill neighboring nerves. FULL STORY »

A recent international study of heart attacks and gender finds women differing from men on everything from symptoms to treatment in both heart attack and severe chest pain.

One of the most striking findings was that women were twice as likely as men to have “normal” or “mild” results on an exam of their heart’s blood vessels, with no single blockage taking up more than 50 percent of any one blood vessel.  This was despite the fact that their other test results showed they were definitely having a heart attack, or a form of chest pain called unstable angina. FULL STORY »

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Amitiza (lubiprostone) for the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Constipation (IBS-C) in adult women aged 18 and over. There is currently no prescription drug therapy for IBS-C. With this approval, Amitiza becomes the only FDA-approved medical treatment for IBS-C available in the United States. FULL STORY »

Being resistant to aspirin makes patients four times more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or even die from a pre-existing heart condition, according to a recent study. The study relates to patients who are prescribed aspirin long term as a way of preventing clots from forming in the blood.

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