Author: SupremeCmdr

High Noise Levels and CHD

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Medical News: Noise on the Job Linked to CHD – in Cardiovascular, Myocardial Infarction from MedPage Today

There are several ways in which noise could contribute to cardiovascular events, according to the researchers. One is through the development of isolated diastolic hypertension, which has been shown to independently predict CHD and is more common among younger individuals.

The stress caused by loud noise also might lead to activation of the endocrine and sympathetic nervous systems, resulting in vasoconstriction, occlusion, and plaque disruption, they explained.

A limitation of the study was the possibility of selection bias. Workers who don’t tolerate noise or who have cardiovascular disease could have moved to other, less stressful jobs — or could have died while still in their noisy jobs.

Hypoglycemia in DM2 = Higher Mortality Risk

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Medical News: Hypoglycemia a Marker of Poor Diabetes Outcomes – in Endocrinology, Diabetes from MedPage Today

Type 2 diabetes patients who experienced these serious drops in blood glucose had nearly three times the risk of death and twice the risk of a major macrovascular event compared with those who didn’t experience hypoglycemia, Sophia Zoungas, MD, PhD, of the University of Sydney in Australia, and colleagues reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Read a Book a Week – 3Q 2010 Update

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Life has been rich, full, and busy.  Thankfully, business for me has been good.

These are my excuses for not reading a book a week.

I’ve managed to read about half a book a week this year through the end of September.  The 4Q has traditionally been a low reading period due to football, hockey, basketball, and baseball playoffs.  The number of RSS feeds I have decided to follow have increased.  This website is taking more time to maintain.

What to do…what to do?

Memantine for PDD or DLB

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Underwriting Quick Notes:

  • PDD = Parkinson’s Disease Dementia
  • DLB = Dementia with Lewy Bodies
  • Memantine = Namenda

Memantine for patients with Parkinson’s disease dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial : The Lancet Neurology

Memantine seems to improve global clinical status and behavioural symptoms of patients with mild to moderate DLB, and might be an option for treatment of these patients.

Emphysema on CT Significantly Correlated With Mortality

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Click through for the abstract.  There is a link on the page for a PDF version.

CT Scan Findings of Emphysema Predict Mortality in COPD — CHEST

Results: Of the 251 patients, 79 died, with 40 classified as respiratory deaths not involving lung cancer. Univariate Cox analysis revealed that emphysematous change as assessed by CT scan, lung function, age, or BMI were significantly correlated with mortality. Multivariate analysis revealed that emphysematous change as assessed by CT scan had the best association with mortality.

Conclusions: Emphysematous change as assessed by CT scan predicts respiratory mortality in outpatients with various stages of COPD.

Train Your Brain

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Underwriters love stuff like this!

How Your Brain Connects the Future to the Past – Jeff Brown and Mark Fenske – Your Health at Work – Harvard Business Review

In the business world, it’s a distinct advantage to have a brain that anticipates future demands and negotiates them well. Accurate predictions typically translate to success. Being able to envision future scenarios helps foster strategic planning and resist immediate rewards in favor of longer-term gains. The proactive brain flexibly recombines details from past experiences that, by analogy with your current surroundings, help you make sense of where you are, anticipate what will come next, and successfully navigate the transition.

Depression + CHD = Bad

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Medical News: Depression Plus Heart Disease Equal Lethal Combo – in Psychiatry, Depression from MedPage Today

The risk of all-cause mortality was elevated 67% for patients with coronary heart disease (P<0.05) and 2.10 times for those with depressive symptoms (P<0.001) in the long-running Whitehall II study of British civil servants.

But patients who had both conditions had a nearly five-fold risk compared with those who had neither (hazard ratio 4.99, P<0.001), Hermann Nabi, PhD, of the University of Versailles, France, and colleagues reported online in Heart.