The diabetes warning has been rumored as a possibility since the findings from the JUPITER trial of rosuvastatin revealed an unexpected 27% increase in new onset diabetes among patients randomized to the statin.That finding was especially perplexing because JUPITER was a study of statins in patients who had no history of cardiovascular disease, the so-called healthy patient trial. Moreover, based on the JUPITER results, the FDA approved rosuvastatin for primary prevention.The FDA said hyperglycemia was also observed among patients treated with 40-mg atorvastatin in a substudy of PROVE-IT TIMI 22, and a meta-analysis of data from 13 statin trials “reported that statin therapy was associated with a 9% increased risk for incident diabetes.”
Medical News
Inhaled Steroids Lower Pneumonia Mortality in COPD Patients
Of 15,768 eligible patients with COPD who were hospitalized for pneumonia, 8271 had prior ICS use and 7497 had no ICS use. Compared with patients with no prior ICS use, those with prior ICS use had a lower 90-day mortality rate 17.3% vs 22.8%; P < .001.
via Inhaled Steroids Lower Pneumonia Mortality in COPD Patients.
No Age Limit on Benefits of Eating Well
Older people who eat properly are likely to live longer.
That’s the implication of a study looking at mortality and eating habits among a cohort of nearly 4,000 people 65 and older, according to Luis Afonso, MD, of Wayne State University in Detroit, and colleagues.
After an average follow-up of 13 years, participants with a good diet had lower rates of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, compared with those who had a poor diet, Afonso and colleagues reported in the Feb. 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
I’ll take fries with that.
Biomarkers May Help Heart Failure Risk Prediction
After accounting for the clinical risk score, several echocardiographic findings were independently associated with incident heart failure HRs 1.11 to 2.91, P≤0.001 for all:
- Reduced left ventricular ejection fraction
- Abnormal mitral inflow E/A peak velocity ratio a measure of diastolic function
- Enlarged left atrium Increased left ventricular mass
These variables were used to create an echocardiographic score.Elevated levels of NT-proBNP also were independently associated with heart failure risk HR 1.61 as a continuous variable and HR 2.7 for values greater than 190 pg/mL, P
Cardiovascular Mortality in Women With OSA
Conclusion: Severe OSA is associated with cardiovascular death in women, and adequate CPAP treatment may reduce this risk.
Richard Lehman’s Journal Review – January 2012
BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 9 January 2012.
BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 16 January 2012.
BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 23 January 2012.
BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal review – 30 January 2012.
Patient Access to Core Attributes of Primary Care Linked to Lower Mortality
Specifically, authors of “Primary Care Attributes and Mortality: A National Person-Level Study” found that patients who reported three attributes in their usual source of care — comprehensiveness, patient-centeredness and enhanced access — had lower mortality during up to six years follow-up than patients reporting less access to those three attributes.
50-Year-Olds Get New Knees in Record Numbers
During the past three decades there has been a dramatic, 130-fold increase in knee replacement surgeries, particularly among individuals in their 50s, a Finnish study found.
Knee replacement cost – cost of knee replacement surgery.
After reading about the dramatic increase in the number of knee replacements I did a Google search for “average cost knee replacement” without the quotation marks in the search string. At the top of page one was the second link above.
Taiwan anyone?
Medical News: Death Rate High Long After VTE – in Cardiovascular, Venous Thrombosis from MedPage Today
The risk of death for patients with thrombosis was highest in the first year after the event, with a hazard ratio of 14.4 95% CI 7.1 to 29.2, according to Frits R. Rosendaal, MD, PhD, and colleagues from Leiden University in the Netherlands.But the risk remained elevated eight years later HR 3.8, 95% CI 0.5 to 30.8, the researchers reported in PLoS Medicine.
“Remarkably,” the mortality rate was five times higher among patients with malignancy and thrombosis than among those who had a malignancy without thrombosis (SMR 5.5, 95% CI 5 to 6.1), the researchers observed.
Do Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction?
The answer is yes and they do it by building resilience. University of North Carolina professor Barbara Fredrickson has spent the past two decades looking into why we have positive emotions and what we do with them. She even has her own term for her work: positivity.
via Do positive emotions increase life satisfaction?.
As a general rule try to avoid overly negative people.
lifeunderwriter.net 
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