Month: July 2007

WASHINGTON: Lowering cholesterol as much as possible may reduce the risk of heart disease, but with a price: taking it too low could raise the risk of cancer, US researchers reported on Tuesday.

Patients who took statin drugs to lower their cholesterol had a slightly higher risk of cancer, although the study did not show that the statin drugs themselves caused the cancer.

The researchers found one extra case of cancer per 1,000 patients with the lowest levels of LDL — low density lipoprotein or so-called bad cholesterol — when compared to patients with higher LDL levels.

Dr Richard Karas of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and colleagues did not look directly at patients for their study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Instead, they did what is known as a meta-analysis, looking at the records of 41,173 patients in 23 different trials of statins

Click to read more :Low cholesterol raises cancer risk

Source: The Times Of India

Study says: Drinking as little as one can of soda per day – either regular or diet- is associated with a 48% increased risk of “metabolic syndrome” a key predecessor of heart disease and diabetes, according to the new results re leased on 23rd. July”07. Researchers previously had known that drinking regular sodas contributed to the risk of metabolic syndrome, but this is the first finding implicating diet sodas, according to the results published on line in circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The researchers were uncertain why diet soda had such a large effect. Dr. Vasan S. Ramachandran of Boston University School of Medicine, the lead author of the study, said it is unlukely that an ingredient in soda causes the effect.More likely is the consuming sweet sodas changes dietary patters or that soda is simply a marker for the poor eating habits of the participants.

” The part about diet soda is more intriguing,” Dr. Vasan said. He said people who drink soda,whether diet or sugar-sweetened, tend to have similar dietary patterns.

“On avarage, soda drinkers tend to eat more calories, consume more saturated fat and trans frat, eat less fiber, exercise less, and be more sedentary.”Dr. Vasan said.

The researchers adjusted for those factors and still observed a significant link between soft drink consumption and the risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

Dr.Vasan said there are several theories about how diet sodas could increase a person’s metabolic risk. “One possibility is that diet soda is sweet. Maybe drinking something sweet conditions you in such a way that you develop a preference for sweet things.” he said.

“Also diet soda is a liquid. When you take liquids at a meal, they don’t satiate you as much as solids” he said.

Dr. Meir Stamfer of Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study, said the findings were not unexpected, although he added , “I’m surised by the magnitude of the association.”

Dr. Stampfer previously had reported that diet sodas increases the risk of obesity and high blood pressure.

Soda makers, however, rejected the study outright.

Susan K. Neely, President and chief executive of the American Beverage Association, said that “the assertions defy the existing body of scientific evidence. as well as common sense… it is scienticically impossible to suggest that diet soft drinks- a beverage that 99 % water – cause weight gain or elevated blood pressure.”

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms that includes excessive abdominal fat, high blood -glucose levels, high blood pressure, high blood triglyceride, and low levels of high density lipoprotein, the “good” cholesterol.

People with three or more of these symptoms have double the normal risk of heart disease and diabetes.

In the study, sponsored by the National heart , Lung and Blood Institute, Dr. Vasan and his colegues studed more than 2,400 middle aged ,white redidents of Framingham, Mass.

At the begining of the study , those who had consumed more than one soda per day –either regular or diet — had 48% higher risk of having metabolic syndrome.

The team then focused on the more than 1,600 people who did not have metabolic syndrome at the start of the study and following them for at least four years.Those who drink at least one soda per day had a 44% higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome during the four years of study.

Those who drank at least one soda per day also had:

* a 31% greater risk of becoming obese;

*a 30% higher risk of having large waist line;

* a 25% higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar.

* a 32% greater risk of low levels of good cholesterol;

* a trend towards an increase risk of high blood pressure.

The percentages were were the same whether a subject drank regular or diet soda.

The authors tried to control for all those factors in the diet. but ” even after all that, we still found an increased risk , Dr. Vasan said. “May be it is very difficult to adjust for lifestyle.”

Source: The Blade(Toledo, Ohio)

Indian scientists have developed a device that takes an ECG of the user when needed and transmits the information to the doctor, all on its own.
Here’s good news for the weak hearted. A tiny device — which can either be dangled from the neck or strapped to the abdomen — may monitor the health of your heart and despatch the information using your mobile phone to your cardiologist in real time, without you even getting to know about it.

Two independent research groups in India are currently working on such cardiac monitoring devices which, the scientists claim, may usher in a revolution in remote cardiac diagnosis.

These gadgets are capable of recording the heart’s signature — in the form of an electro cardio gram (ECG) — and transmitting it to a neighbourhood doctor’s mobile phone or desktop at a clinic for routine viewing. Better still, soon they may even be able to locate the patient in case of an emergency.

While the toffee-sized silicon locket — developed by a team at the microelectronics laboratory of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai — is currently undergoing evaluation, a similar effort by Thulasi Bai, a doctoral fellow at Sathyabama University in Tamil Nadu, has progressed beyond the conceptual stage. “We have shown that when there is an abnormal heartbeat, the patient’s phone can automatically send the ECG to the doctor’s phone as an SMS,” Bai told KnowHow.

The IIT research, which commenced a few years ago, however, is at a very advanced stage. Developed as part of a project funded by software company Tata Consultancy Services, the silicon locket — which is no heavier than a mobile battery — is being evaluated for efficiency at the Electronic Regional Test Laboratory at Thiruvananthapuram. The locket, which has a 2-gigabyte memory, can either store the ECG data or send it over a telephone line or the Internet to the hospital in real time.

Another significant feature of the gadget is that it does not raise false alarms — a major issue in remote cardiac monitoring. Any sort of physical exertion like running, walking or climbing stairs would mean blood being pumped. Such accelerated heartbeats may give out a misleading warning, says Sudip Nag, an IIT researcher who along with his guide, Dinesh Sharma, designed the tool. To avoid this, the IIT scientists have designed very tiny sensors that will detect such physical activities. Placing them along with the ECG electrodes — which are glued to body parts such as the chest, hands and legs — would help the microcomputer in the locket to make allowance for such physical exertion and thereby be prudent in pressing the panic button, says Nag.

The wearable cardiac telemedicine system being designed by Bai, however, lacks this capability at present, as it sends out an alarm whenever the heart rate either drops to below 60 beats per minute (bradycardia) or shoots to above 100 beats per minute (tachycardia).

Source: Tjhe Telegraph (Kolkata, India)