milsonyan's Blog

    One Sentence Information: 

    The role of triglycerides in the risk of ischemic stroke remains controversial. Recently, a strong association was found between elevated levels of nonfasting triglycerides, which indicate the presence of remnant lipoproteins, and increased risk of ischemic heart disease.(Jacob J. Freiberg, MD; JAMA.November 12, 2008)

    An American Dietetic Association survey of 783 U.S. adults found people are becoming more health savvy, with 43% saying they eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, up from 38% in 2002. Researchers also found more people -- 38%, compared to 30% in 2002 -- said they understand a healthy lifestyle is important, even if they haven't taken steps to achieve it yet.(

Source:Los Angeles Times

    Two studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association show low-dose aspirin and vitamins E and C don't significantly protect certain patients from cardiac events. A study of more than 2,500 Japanese diabetics shows a daily aspirin regimen resulted in only a slight reduction in risk but did reduce combined fatal coronary and cerebrovascular events. A separate, eight-year study of more than 14,000 U.S. male physicians found vitamins E and C had no affect on the incidence of major cardiovascular events or death.

(Source:http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/nbocscwDvNsCdACibSiVuXGu?format=standard)

    One Sentence News   

    U.S. primary care is in crisis. Primary care physicians must care for more and more patients, with more and more chronic conditions, in less and less time, for which they are compensated far less than subspecialists. They must absorb increasing volumes of medical information and complete more paperwork than ever, as they try to function in a poorly coordinated health care system. As a result, their ranks are thinning, with practicing physicians burning out and trainees shunning primary care fields.In a roundtable discussion moderated by Dr. Thomas Lee, four experts — Drs. Thomas Bodenheimer, Allan Goroll, Barbara Starfield, and Katharine Treadway — explore the crisis, as well as possible solutions for training, practice, compensation, and systemic change.

(Source:http://content.nejm.org/content/vol359/issue20/index.shtml)

    Previous studies have relied predominantly on the body-mass index (BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) to assess the association of adiposity with the risk of death, but few have examined whether the distribution of body fat contributes to the prediction of death.   

     A new study was performed. The researchers examined the association of BMI, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio with the risk of death among 359,387 participants from nine countries in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). During a mean follow-up of 9.7 years, 14,723 participants died. The lowest risks of death related to BMI were observed at a BMI of 25.3 for men and 24.3 for women. After adjustment for BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio were strongly associated with the risk of death. Relative risks among men and women in the highest quintile of waist circumference were 2.05 and 1.78 ), respectively, and in the highest quintile of waist-to-hip ratio, the relative risks were 1.68 and 1.51 ), respectively. BMI remained significantly associated with the risk of death in models that included waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio .

    These data suggest that both general adiposity and abdominal adiposity are associated with the risk of death and support the use of waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio in addition to BMI in assessing the risk of death.

(The author: Dr. Tobias Pischon, Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition, Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Arthur-Scheunert-Allee 114-116, 14558 Nuthetal, Germany)

(NEJM)