The risk of stroke may be much higher in people with insomnia compared to those who don't have trouble sleeping, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
The risk also seems to be far greater when insomnia occurs as a young adult compared to those who are older, said researchers who reviewed the randomly-selected health records of more than 21,000 people with insomnia and 64,000 non-insomniacs in Taiwan.
They found:
BOSTON (April 4, 2014) — Exfoliation glaucoma (EG), caused by exfoliation syndrome, a condition in which white clumps of fibrillar material form in the eye, is the most common cause of secondary open-angle glaucoma and a leading cause of blindness and visual impairment. Effective strategies for preventing this disease are lacking.
The mammalian heart has generally been considered to lack the ability to repair itself after injury, but a 2011 study in newborn mice challenged this view, providing evidence for complete regeneration after resection of 10% of the apex, the lowest part of the heart. In a study published by Cell Press in Stem Cell Reports on April 3, 2014, researchers attempted to replicate these recent findings but failed to uncover any evidence of complete heart regeneration in newborn mice that underwent apex resection.
Harvard stem cell scientists have discovered that a recently approved medication for epilepsy may possibly be a meaningful treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—Lou Gehrig's disease, a uniformly fatal neurodegenerative disorder. The researchers are now collaborating with Massachusetts General Hospital to design an initial clinical trial testing the safety of the treatment in ALS patients.
The investigators all caution that a great deal needs to be done to assure the safety and efficacy of the treatment in ALS patients, before physicians should start offering it.
ANN ARBOR—Someone's drilling an icicle into your temple, you're throwing up, and light and sound are unbearable.
Yes, it's another migraine attack. But now in 140 characters on Twitter, you can share your agony with other sufferers. It indicates a trend toward the cathartic sharing of physical pain, as well as emotional pain on social media.
Deaths from pulmonary hypertension have increased over the past decade, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In the study, published online in CHEST, researchers analyzed death rates from the National Vital Statistics System and data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey between 2001 and 2010 to analyze trends in hospitalizations and death rates related to pulmonary hypertension.
Twenty percent of adults who have tonsillectomies will have a complication, which is significantly higher than previously shown, according to a team of researchers. The team also found that these complications substantially increase health care expenditures.
Radium-223 dichloride (radium-223 for short, trade name: Xofigo) has been approved since November 2013 for men with advanced prostate cancer, in whom hormone blockade is no longer effective, and symptomatic bone metastases, but without visceral metastases. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy specified by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA).
A new report from the European Science Foundation, 'Media in Europe: New Questions for Research and Policy', examines the field of media studies and proposes an agenda for research for the next decade
With one of the world's longest coastlines, spanning 17 states, and very high marine and coastal biodiversity, Brazil owes much of its prosperity to the ocean. For that reason, Brazil was the site of the first Ocean Health Index regional assessment designed to evaluate the economic, social and ecological uses and benefits that people derive from the ocean. Brazil's overall score in the national study was 60 out of 100.
In new research presented at the World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases today, investigators showed that an osteoporosis screening strategy using FRAX as a pre-screening tool is cost-effective if the follow up of the screening and medication adherence are optimized. FRAX (WHO Fracture Risk Assessment Tool) is a widely used algorithm to determine 10-year risk of fracture based on an individual's risk factors.
[EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, APRIL 3] Patients' risk of stroke significantly increased following the first signs of shingles, but antiviral drugs appeared to offer some protection, according to a new study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. People with shingles, an often painful skin rash caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, had a higher stroke risk in the first 6 months after shingles symptoms appeared; this risk was particularly increased in patients with a rash near their eyes, the study found.
The first UK study of the use of ketamine intravenous infusions in people with treatment-resistant depression has been carried out in an NHS clinic by researchers at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Oxford.
Many research studies have shown that lifestyle interventions, such as exercise programmes or weight loss, in people with impaired glucose tolerance (those at high risk of diabetes) can prevent progression to overt type 2 diabetes. However, until now, there has been a lack of high quality, randomized controlled trial evidence to prove that lifestyle interventions prevent deaths from cardiovascular disease, such as heart attacks and stroke, in these people.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A researcher at the Cardiovascular Institute (CVI) at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Newport hospitals has found that a simple blood test can predict a person's risk for sudden cardiac death, enabling physicians to more quickly and accurately assess a patient's need for an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD). That paper by Samuel C. Dudley, M.D., Ph.D, chief of cardiology at the CVI, is published online in advance of print in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.