Results tagged “heart protection” from Drugs & Medicaments

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Common pain relievers may increase the risk of high blood pressure in men.

Acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin are among the most commonly used drugs in the United States. Two recent large studies have suggested a link between pain relievers and an increased risk of high blood pressure in women. But the association has not been studied extensively in men.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston followed 16,031 male health professionals who did not have a history of high blood pressure (hypertension). The average age of participants was about 65.

The American Heart Association says nearly all US women are in danger of heart disease or stroke and should be more aggressive about lowering their risk.

The Dallas-based association says the steps women need to take include asking their doctors about daily aspirin use.

It's the first time guidelines have urged all women to consider aspirin for preventing strokes, although specialists warn that it can cause ulcers and dangerous bleeding.

The guidelines also advise daily exercise and less fat and declare vitamins C and E, beta-carotene and folic acid supplements worthless for preventing heart disease.

CHICAGO - A drug widely used to prevent excessive bleeding during heart surgery appears to raise the risk of dying in the five years afterward by nearly 50 percent, an international study found.

The researchers said replacing the drug -- aprotinin, sold by Bayer AG under the brand name Trasylol -- with other, cheaper medications for a year would prevent 10,000 deaths worldwide over the next five years.

The findings were more bad news for Trasylol: The same scientists found the drug raised the risk of kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes in a study published last year. Most of the deaths in the new study were related to those problems.

People taking two drugs to treat symptoms of Parkinson's disease may be at risk of heart valve damage, a potentially life-threatening side-effect, two studies on European patients suggest.

The drugs are pergolide, sold as Permax, and cabergoline, sold as Dostinex. The medications are not the main treatment for the disease, which affects about six million people worldwide.

In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Italian researchers said about one-quarter of 155 patients taking pergolide or cabergoline had moderate to severe heart valve problems compared with a control group.

It's a sure bet drug developer Liponex Inc. will be feeling one of those things at the end of February when it reports do-or-die clinical results for a new treatment to raise levels of "good" cholesterol and reduce heart disease.

"This is the Holy Grail of cardiovascular R&D," claims Duncan Emerton, an analyst with British market research firm Datamonitor PLC, referring to the link between raising good cholesterol, or HDL, and melting plaque buildup in arteries that can cause heart attacks and stroke.

On the other hand, statin drugs, of which Lipitor is the best known, have created a $32-billion-a-year (U.S.) market by lowering "bad" cholesterol, or LDL. But they only halt the buildup of additional plaque. Studies have shown that a 1-per-cent drop in LDL can reduce the risk of developing heart disease by 1 per cent, but a 1-per-cent increase in HDL can reduce the risk by 3 per cent.

BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- More than 6 million people worldwide -- a modern record for any medical device -- were relieved of chest pain or heart attack risk by the insertion of drug-coated stents in their arteries the last few years, but now doctors say their long-term safety is in question.

Unless their patients remain on Plavix, a 4-U.S.-dollar-a-day anti-clotting drug whose long-term safety has not been proven, doctors are worried these stents may raise the risk of life-threatening blood clots months and even years later.

And thousands of others each day who develop new blockages are being treated by doctors no longer sure of what to do. Many are returning to the old metal stents, and some are fundamentally rethinking when to use stents at all and are considering alternatives like bypass surgery or medications.

The quality of cardiac care for Medicaid patients lags behind the care given to those with HMOs and private insurance according to a new study. The study by Dr. James Calvin, lead study author and director of cardiology at Rush University Medical Center, found Medicaid patients were less likely to receive short term medications and to undergo invasive cardiac procedures. They also had higher in-hospital mortality rates and were less likely to receive recommended discharge care. Differences were fewer and smaller for Medicare patients.

The study is published in the November 21st issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. In addition to Rush, study participants included Duke University Medical Center, New York University School of Medicine, Northwestern University School of Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

LONDON - Can taking folic acid supplements reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke? British researchers believe it can.

After analysing evidence from earlier studies, a team of scientists in Britain said on Friday there is enough research that shows folic acid lowers levels of the amino acid homocysteine and reduces the odds of cardiovacular disease.

"The evidence is very persuasive that lowering homocysteine with folic acid will lower your risk of heart attack and stroke by about 10-20 percent," David Wald, of the Wolfson Institute for Preventive Medicine, Barts and the London, Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, said in an interview.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have found that dark chocolate thins blood and protects the heart in the same way as aspirin. The key is a compound in chocolate called flavanol, which slows down platelet clumping that can block off blood vessels and lead to a heart attack or stroke.

You have to eat at least a couple of tablespoons of dark chocolate a day to see some benefit - and it's still not as effective as a single baby aspirin, which is usually prescribed to heart patients.

Matching aspirin would require eating several bars of chocolate a day, which could lead to other problems, such as obesity and diabetes - to say nothing of tooth decay.

CHICAGO, Nov. 12 -- Cardiologists may be overselling the life-saving ability of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) to the point that many heart failure patients refuse to let the devices be turned off, even if it would be better to do so.

In a survey at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, 36% of patients with ICDs said they would never agree to turn off the defibrillator function under any circumstance, reported Garrick C. Stewart, M.D., at the American Heart Association meeting here today.

More than half would want the device kept on even if they were receiving daily shocks. Most would keep the device on if they were dying of cancer, and every single one would keep it on even if they were struggling to breathe.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite some evidence that the mineral selenium might protect against heart disease, clinical trials have so far failed to prove the case, according to a new research review.

The findings suggest that people should hold off on taking selenium supplements for the sake of their hearts, say researchers.

A number of studies have found that people with higher body stores of selenium might have a lower risk of heart disease. But such studies, known as observational studies, are not enough to prove cause-and-effect.

For that, researchers have to conduct clinical trials where participants are randomly assigned to take a supplement or a placebo and then have their heart health followed over time.

Cholesterol lowering 'statin' drugs are cost effective in far more people than current guidelines recommend and should be considered for a wider range of people, say researchers in a study published online by the BMJ today.

Large trials have shown that lowering blood cholesterol levels with statins greatly reduces major vascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, in people at high risk.

And research published in 2005 from the largest of those trials (the heart protection study) showed that when cheaper generic versions are used, several years of statin treatment is cost effective for a wide range of people with vascular disease or diabetes.