Press Release

Press Release

PRESS RELEASES AND CURRENT MEDICAL INFORMATION

FRIDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) –When it comes to weight-loss patterns, the old adage proclaims that “slow and steady” wins the race, but recent research suggests otherwise.

A new study found that obese women who started out losing 1.5 pounds a week or more on average and kept it up lost more weight over time than women who lost more slowly. They also maintained the loss longer and were no more likely to put it back on than the slowest losers.

May 10, 2010 — More evidence reveals that short- and long-term exposure to air pollution directly increases the likelihood of heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular problems, leading physicians to issue new recommendations to help people reduce their risk.

The new recommendations were released Monday by the American Heart Association (AHA) and singled out fine particulate matter as a cardiovascular risk factor.

Fine particulate matter becomes suspended in the air as a result of various human activities, including burning fossil fuels, cooking, and other indoor activities. Forest fires and biomass burning can also result in increased concentrations of fine particulate matter in the air. Of the different sizes of particles that can become suspended in air, fine particulate matter appears to be most strongly associated with adverse effects.

May 11, 2010 — Spearheaded by Michelle Obama, a new presidential initiative would reverse the child obesity epidemic.

The goal, as set out in a report from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, is to reduce childhood obesity from 20% to 5% by 2030.

To accomplish this, the plan makes 70 recommendations for early childhood, for parents and caregivers, for school meals and nutrition education, for access to healthy food, and for increasing physical activity.

March 21, 2010 –  President Barack Obama  is preparing to sign a transformative health care bill ushering in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in the nation’s history. House Democrats voted 219-212 late Sunday to send the landmark legislation to Obama. The 10-year, $938 billion bill would extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, reduce deficits and ban insurance company practices  such as charging more to women and denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. A companion package making a series of changes sought by House Democrats to the larger bill, which already passed the Senate, was approved 220-211. The fix-it bill will now go to the Senate, where debate is expected to begin as early as Tuesday. Senate Democrats hope to approve it unchanged and send it directly to Obama, though Republicans intend to attempt parliamentary objections that could change the bill and require it to go back to the House.    

(CBS)   Mike Dello Stritto with CBS13 in Sacramento tells the story of how a spider bite helped a man walk again after 20 years in a wheelchair.

David Blancarte, of Manteca, has been in a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident at age 21. Eight months ago he was bitten by a deadly Brown Recluse spider, which put him in the hospital for eight months. A nurse noticed David’s leg spasm and ran a test on him. Five days later David was walking.

March 17, 2010 – The FDA has approved Medtronic’s new diabetes management system, which takes patients one step closer to the elusive goal of an artificial pancreas.

The new MiniMed Paradigm REAL-Time Revel System does not entirely close the loop between glucose monitoring and insulin treatment. Patients still have to confirm the device’s warning with a finger-stick blood sugar measurement.

But the monitor predicts dangerously low or high blood sugar levels. And the pump allows patients to administer insulin in very low increments — as low as 1/40 of a unit per hour — a useful feature for children or other people who are sensitive to insulin.

Moreover, the system comes with a device that plugs into a computer’s USB port and wirelessly uploads information from the insulin pump and glucose monitor. Web-based software helps patients keep close track of their blood sugar control.

In a recent Medtronic study, the new system improved detection of low-blood-sugar events by nearly 36%, while only very slightly decreasing (by 4%) detection of high-blood-sugar events.

In a Medtronic news release, William Tamborlane, MD, chief of pediatric endocrinology at Yale Medical School, says that linking an insulin pump to a continuous glucose monitor improves diabetes patients’ blood sugar control while reducing the risk of blood sugar crashes.

“Advances such as predictive alerts and smaller [insulin] delivery rates can help physicians and patients customize therapy to meet individual needs. This ultimately simplifies some of the complexity of daily diabetes management.”

Medtronic says the system is immediately available to patients.

The retail price of the system is $6,500, but Medtronic says some 90% of type 1 diabetes patients with commercial insurance coverage who have a medical indication for the device will be reimbursed. A Medtronic spokesperson tells WebMD that the out-of-pocket costs for such patients is between $500 and $1,200

March 15, 2010 — A common pain reliever may help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar levels.

A preliminary study shows salsalate reduced blood sugar levels and helped with glycemic control at a variety of doses in people with type 2 diabetes. However, it also has been shown to increase protein in the urine and its long-term safety will need further investigation.

Like aspirin, salsalate is an anti-inflammatory drug derived from salicylate and is often used to treat arthritis. Researchers say the first reports of salicylate-based drugs aiding in the treatment of diabetes were published more than a century ago.

Feb. 22, 2010 — Women who gain more weight than is recommended early in pregnancy have an increased risk for developing gestational diabetes later on, a study shows.

Excess weight gain, especially in the first trimester, increased gestational diabetes risk by about 50% among the women included in the study.

And overweight women who gained the most weight in their first and second trimesters were twice as likely to develop gestational diabetes later in pregnancy as overweight women who gained the least weight

Jan. 18,2010  (HealthDay News) — Erectile dysfunction is a strong warning sign that a man might be at increased risk for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems, a long-running study indicates.

Though adding erectile dysfunction to the list of known risk factors determined by the Framingham Heart Study — cholesterol, smoking, high blood pressure — doesn’t improve the prediction of future cardiovascular trouble, it can be a quick, free addition to risk assessment.

The study is the latest of several that have linked erectile dysfunction to cardiovascular disease. That is to be expected because the same artery-blocking conditions that reduce blood flow to the heart and brain can also reduce flow to the penis.

Jan. 15, 2010 — Untreated obstructive sleep apnea may affect the health of people with type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a treatable disorder that results in episodes of stopped breathing due to blockages in the airway during sleep.

The sleeping disorder may adversely affect glucose control, making the health problems associated with type 2 diabetes even worse, University of Chicago scientists report in theAmerican Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.

The study also shows:

  • Undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea is very common among people with type 2 diabetes.
  • Sleep apnea is a largely undiagnosed additional medical risk factor for people with diabetes.
  • Sleep apnea is associated with poorer glucose control and could lead to even more health complications for diabetes patients.

Jan. 4, 2010 (HealthDay News) — Inherited genetic variations could explain why blacks develop type 2 diabetes at a higher rate than whites, new research suggests.

“We found gene expression profiles that suggest that carbohydrate metabolism should be different in the African-Americans in our population compared to Caucasians,” Dr. Cam Patterson, chief of cardiology and director of the McAllister Heart Institute at the University of North Carolina, said in a university news release.

That, in turn, could lead to higher rates of diabetes in blacks.

The authors of the new study discovered their findings while analyzing RNA and DNA from heart patients. Black people may have developed a different way of metabolizing glucose — sugars — long ago in history, Patterson noted, perhaps when they were living in an environment where there was little food or when diets were very different than they are now.

“In essence, although African populations moved geographically as they came to the United States, their genes retained a pattern more suited to their ancestor’s home, becoming maladaptive as African populations adopted a Western diet,” he said.

Dec. 30, 2010 (HealthDay News) — You probably know from experience that winter brings a surge in colds and flu. But did you know winter is also the season for heart attacks?

Frigid air causes blood vessels to constrict as the body tries to prevent heat loss, said Dr. Holly Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

“This is a natural response that can also put people with heart conditions and those involved in strenuous exercise at greater risk of having a heart attack,” Anderson said.

The narrowing raises blood pressure and can reduce oxygen flow to the heart. Combined with a strenuous activity, such as shoveling snow, this can strain the heart, triggering a heart attack in those at risk.

Nov. 9,2010 (HealthDay News) — Obesity is a major risk factor for left atrial enlargement, which increases the risk of atrial fibrillation, stroke and death, a new study shows.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of arrhythmia (an irregular heart rhythm or heartbeat). The study authors concluded that obesity and hypertension cause structural and functional changes in the heart and are independent predictors of left atrial enlargement (LAE) .

The findings, published in the Nov. 17 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, confirm the strong association between obesity and LAE reported in previous research. Some of those studies found that excess weight may affect left atrial size at an early age, potentially predisposing young obese people to future heart problems.