A study conducted among cyclists in Copenhagen, Denmark1 showed that it is the relative intensity and not the duration of cycling which is of most importance in relation to all-cause mortality and even more pronounced for coronary heart disease mortality. The study presented today at the ESC Congress 2011, concluded that men with fast intensity cycling survived 5.3 years longer, and men with average intensity 2.9 years longer than men with slow cycling intensity. For women the figures were 3.9 and 2.2 years longer, respectively (see Figures below).
Culture
In this prospective cohort study, presented today at the ESC Congress 2011, discontinuation of smokeless tobacco after a myocardial infarction (MI) is associated with a lower risk of subsequent mortality. Investigators found that post MI snus quitters had a 44 % lower risk of total mortality.
The association seems to be independent of smoking habits, but partly explained by concomitant changes in other lifestyle variables.
In spite of an increased attention to gender differences in treatment of myocardial infarctions, focus on adherence to guidelines and a change in predominant therapy, the gender difference in treatment and mortality regarding the big infarctions – STEMI – has not diminished from 1998-2000 to 2004-2006. For some therapies, it has actually increased.
Montreal, August 29, 2011 – As guest speaker at the European Society of Cardiology's Congress currently under way in Paris, Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Montreal Heart Institute's Research Centre and professor of medicine at the Université de Montréal, today presented the results of an analysis demonstrating that ivabradine, a medication used to reduce heart rate, also reduces heart volume (left ventricle) among patients with cardiac insufficiency.
A Norwegian survey carried out between 1974 and 2003 showed that there was a graded independent increase in the risk of AF with increasing levels of physical activity in a population-based study among men with ostensibly no other heart disease. In women the data were inconclusive.
New research from the University of Montreal shows that inattention, rather than hyperactivity, is the most important indicator when it comes to finishing a high school education. "Children with attention problems need preventative intervention early in their development," explained lead author Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pingault, who is also affiliated with Sainte-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital. The researchers came to their conclusion after looking at data collected from the parents and teachers of 2000 children over a period of almost twenty years.
The premise behind a symposium occurring today at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society is the lack of charm, charisma, people skills and communication skills among the 20 million science and engineering people in the US alone.
Called "Empowering Tomorrow's Science Super Heroes", it opens a discussion on how to give scientists a touch of the panache of the stock comic book and Hollywood characters who worked for the public good.
DURHAM, N.C.—A large-scale trial finds that apixaban, a new anticoagulant drug, is superior to the standard drug warfarin for preventing stroke and systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation. Moreover, apixaban results in substantially less bleeding and also results in lower mortality.
The results were presented by Duke University Medical Center researchers at the European Society of Cardiology in Paris, France, today, and published simultaneously online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The rising prevalence of obesity around the globe places an increasing burden on the health of populations, on health care systems and on overall economies.
Using a simulation model to project the probable health and economic consequences from rising obesity rates in the United States and the United Kingdom, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Oxford University forecast 65 million more obese adults in the U. S. and 11 million more in the U.K. by 2030, leading to millions of additional cases of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
Acorn woodpeckers are cooperative breeders, meaning adult birds often join breeding groups and help raise young that are not their own.
Scientists have long thought that communal breeding may have evolved to help birds deal with food shortages and other difficult times, but a study by researchers from Cornell and Gonzaga shows that for acorn woodpeckers, the opposite seems to be true: Help contributed by other family members is beneficial only when the acorn crop is large.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — People with lower socioeconomic status are much more likely to develop heart disease than those who are wealthier or better educated, according to a recent UC Davis study. Published online in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, the outcomes also show that this risk persists even with long-term progress in addressing traditional risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.
It has long been known that hereditary factors play a role in coronary heart disease. However, it has been unclear whether the increased risk is transferred through the genes or through an unhealthy lifestyle in the family. A new study from the Center for Primary Health Care Research in Sweden, published in the American Heart Journal, shows that genes appear to be most important.
"It's not that the salmon are biting less, there are less of them," explained Eva García Vázquez, lead author and Functional Biology researcher at the University of Oviedo (Spain).
The study, published in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, shows a "very marked" decline in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations in the Narcea, Sella and Cares rivers (Asturias, northern Spain), especially during the last decade, almost simultaneously with the reduction in the amount caught by recreational fishermen.
Providing access to an outpatient clinic isn't enough to keep some trauma patients who have been discharged from the hospital from returning to the emergency department (ED) for follow-up care, even for such minor needs as pain medication refills and dressing changes, according to new Johns Hopkins research.
Believe it or not, one thing that predicts how well a CEO's company performs is the width of his face, according to Elaine M. Wong at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her colleagues.