Culture

Results from CREDO-Kyoto PCI/CABG Registry Cohort-2 show that percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was associated with significantly higher risk for serious adverse events in patients with triple vessel disease than coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). The protective effect of CABG for myocardial infarction was described as "especially remarkable".

Results from the EVATEL (EVAluation of TELe follow-up) trial are the first in Europe to demonstrate potential safety and efficacy benefits from the remote follow-up of ICD patients. The trial was conducted in France, with the financial support of the French Ministry for Health and independent of any manufacturer grants.

The second generation drug-eluting stent, everolimus-eluting stent (EES), has consistently demonstrated superior clinical outcomes in randomised controlled trials over the first generation drug-eluting stent, paclitaxel-eluting stent. However, other earlier studies comparing EES with another first generation drug-eluting stent, sirolimus-eluting stent (SES), have only demonstrated the non-inferiority of EES; the superiority of EES relative to SES in terms of target-lesion revascularisation has not yet been investigated in adequately powered randomised controlled trials.

Lifestyle interventions, including stopping smoking, improving diet, exercising sufficiently and moderate alcohol consumption, should be the crucial first step for managing lipids in all patients. High risk patients should receive specialist advice to encourage adherence. If lipid targets are not met with lifestyle alone, statins are the treatment of choice for lowering LDL cholesterol.

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).

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.

The gift of "seeing ourselves as others see us" is particularly beneficial when we judge how we've made a first impression — in a job interview, during a sales pitch or on a first date.

Yet, many come away from these situations with at best a vague notion of how that first impression was perceived or at worst no clue at all.

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.

When sports stories become linked with other social and business issues, professional journalists tend to offer deeper and broader coverage than sports bloggers, according to Penn State researchers.