Body

An exercise program that burns a lot of calories reduced cardiac risk factors better than standard cardiac rehabilitation in overweight coronary patients, researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Comparative effectiveness research should inform clinical decision making and enhance value for patients and the healthcare delivery system, according to an American Heart Association policy statement published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The new statement builds on the association's overall recommendations for healthcare reform, which include emphasizing research that addresses gaps in knowledge to improve patient outcomes.

LOS ANGELES (EMBARGOED UNTIL MAY 11, 2009; 3 pm Central Daylight Time) – Many physicians are presented with the following scenario: a woman comes into the office complaining of chest pain, undergoes a stress test to evaluate the chest pain, and the stress test results suggest coronary artery disease, a condition in which plaque builds up inside the coronary arteries.

Like tiny Jedi knights, tunable fluidic micro lenses can focus and direct light at will to count cells, evaluate molecules or create on-chip optical tweezers, according to a team of Penn State engineers. They may also provide imaging in medical devices, eliminating the necessity and discomfort of moving the tip of a probe.

Rochester, Minn. - May 11, 2009 – Iron chelating drugs have been heavily promoted for use in patients with primary myelofibrosis (PMF), a form of blood cancer often treated with blood transfusion. These drugs, however, which withhold available iron in the body, are highly expensive and potentially toxic. A new study published in American Journal of Hematology finds that their increased use has been propagated by non-evidence based, and often industry-sponsored, statements and opinions, rather than original research, and that the conclusions are often based on poor data.

The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology are calling on doctors to enroll more patients in clinical trials for catheter-based closure of patent foramen ovale (PFO), a condition caused when an opening between the two chambers of the heart fails to close at birth. Due to a lack of conclusive research on the management of PFO after stroke or transient ischemic attack, there is currently no clearly established treatment for this condition.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – New evidence of how the elevated glucose levels that occur in diabetes damage blood vessels may lead to novel strategies for blocking the destruction, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.

They found a decreased ability of blood vessels to relax resulted from increased activity of a natural mechanism for altering protein form and function, says Dr. Rita C.Tostes, physiologist in the MCG School of Medicine.

Scientists have documented the first known migration of blue whales from the coast of California to areas off British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska since the end of commercial whaling in 1965.

The American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) has issued a new Position Statement on the Importance of ResidualNewborn Screening Dried Blood Spots. In May 2006, ACMG recommended that all newborns in the United States beuniformly screened for 29 conditions. Tremendous progress has been made inimplementing broader and more consistent newborn screening since then andit is estimated that thousands of babies' lives have been saved or have beenspared from serious disease as a result of the expanded NBS.

Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have found a traditional extract of Kava, a medicinal plant from the South Pacific, to be safe and effective in reducing anxiety.

To be published online this week in the Springer journal Psychopharmacology, the results of a world-first clinical trial which found that a water-soluble extract of Kava was effective in treating anxiety and improving mood. The Kava was prescribed in the form of tablets.

Spending more time in the sunshine could help older people to reduce their risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.

Exposure to sunlight stimulates vitamin D in the skin and older people are more likely to have a vitamin D deficiency due to the natural aging process and changes in lifestyle.

Researchers at the University of Warwick have shown vitamin D deficiency is significantly associated with metabolic syndrome, a combination of medical and metabolic disorders that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Boys show signs of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) for 2 ½ years before they obtain a diagnosis and disease-specific treatment, about the same length of delay children have endured for the past 20 years despite advances in genetic testing and treatment. A simple and inexpensive blood test for any boy with symptoms and signs of motor delays and abnormalities could speed up the process while pilot studies on newborn screening are conducted.

For men younger than 50 with prostate cancer, undergoing a radical prostatectomy can greatly increase their chances for long-term survival, according to a new study from Henry Ford Hospital.

Results from the study done on the National SEER database show that the surgical procedure improves the 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year survival for younger patients, when compared with other standard treatments such as radiotherapy or watchful waiting.

Irvine, CA (May 11, 2009) – New research presented at the 17th European Congress on Obesity (ECO) suggests that exercise done on Power Plate® vibration plate exercise machines in conjunction with a healthy diet may help people lose weight and trim harmful belly fat.

BOSTON (May 11, 2009) — In a study led by Akiko Hata, PhD, of Tufts University School of Medicine, researchers have shown that a protein expressed in the heart, FHL2, inhibits the genes necessary for the quiescence of vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMCs), which line blood vessels. Vascular smooth muscle cells undergo a process in diseases such as atherosclerosis or normal tissue damage caused by balloon angioplasty where they transition between a resting and proliferative state.