Edmund's Newsletter November 18, 2008 Issue: #47 Volume 8 Join Our List In This Issue Sex Differences Narrow In Death After Heart Attack, Study Shows A Large Waist Can Almost Double Your Risk Of Premature Death The Relative Risk of Brain Cancer Past Gains in Reducing Risk of Heart Disease Have Flattened; Women Especially Affected Heating Heart With Cargeter Better Thn Drugs For Common Heart Rhythm Disorder Hope for Treating Relapse to Methamphetamine Abuse Joyful Music May Promote Hearth Health Believe It Or Not News From MedWatch Recently Approved Drugs/Indications FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days Drug Shortages Quick Links Edmund's Blog Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Web Page Past Issues SPECIAL THANKS TO Michael R. Cohen President The Institute for Safe Medication Practices and Dr. Stephen Barrett Quackwatch Some links in Edmund's Newsletter will point to a page that requires registration.  In all cases the most you will have to do is fill out a simple form to enroll as a member.  In no case will I point you to a site that requires payment to view the page. PRAY FOR PEACE © 2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Join Our List Sex Differences Narrow In Death After Heart Attack, Study Shows In recent years, women, particularly younger women, experienced larger improvements in hospital mortality after myocardial infarction than men, according to a new study. Over the last decade some studies showed that younger women, but not older ones, are more likely to die in the hospital after MI than age-matched men. A team of researchers led by Emory University examined whether such mortality differences have declined in recent years. "We found that the number of younger women who die in the hospital after a heart attack, compared with men has narrowed over the last few years," says study leader Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, professor of medicine (cardiology), Emory University School of Medicine. Vaccarino says changes in patient characteristics and treatments over time accounted in part for the changing mortality trends. The findings were presented Nov. 12 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in New Orleans. Read more..... A Large Waist Can Almost Double Your Risk Of Premature Death Having a large waistline can almost double your risk of dying prematurely even if your body mass index is within the 'normal' range, according to a new study of over 350,000 people across Europe, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study provides strong evidence that storing excess fat around the waist poses a significant health risk, even in people not considered to be overweight or obese. It suggests that doctors should measure a patient's waistline and their hips as well as their body mass index as part of standard health checks, according to the researchers, from Imperial College London, the German Institute of Human Nutrition, and other research institutions across Europe. Comparing subjects with the same body mass index, the risk of premature death increased in a linear fashion as the waist circumference increased. The risk of premature death was around double for subjects with a larger waist (more than 120cm or 47.2in for men and more than 100cm or 39.4in for women) compared to subjects with a smaller waist (less than 80cm or 31.5in for men and less than 65cm or 25.6in for women). Body mass index is commonly used to assess if a person is of 'normal' weight. Read more..... The Relative Risk of Brain Cancer Doctors know that you're at a higher risk for breast, colon and prostate cancers if they've been found in your family. Brain cancer can now be placed on that same list, says a new study by Tel Aviv University and the University of Utah. Dr. Deborah Blumenthal, co-director of Tel Aviv University's Neuro-oncology Service at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, says that a family history of brain cancer, like those of other cancers, should be reported to the family doctor during a routine medical checkup. The new study, using data from the Utah Population Data Base (UPDB) at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, was unique in the large number of cases examined, which tracked back at least three generations and as far as ten generations in some families. The brain tumors studied by the researchers include glioblastoma, the same tumor afflicting Sen. Edward Kennedy, who has been undergoing treatment since June. Read more..... Past Gains in Reducing Risk of Heart Disease Have Flattened; Women Especially Affected The positive U.S. health trend documented over the past 30 years of reduction in risk for heart disease is not as strong as is widely perceived - and, in fact, the trend has flattened, according to a new analysis of national data by Mayo Clinic. This suggests that the public health challenge of curbing heart disease may be greater than is commonly thought, says Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, M.D., cardiologist and lead researcher. "This study may surprise people because the data show that the risk of heart disease is not going down as we expected," he says. "The estimated risk in our nation was coming down nicely in the 1980s. Then around 2000 it began changing - the trend lines flattened. While we had done a nice job with lowering cholesterol, blood pressure and stopping smoking, over time the improvement in these risk factors slowed and others like diabetes and obesity emerged, threatening to undo the early progress we made in reducing risk of heart disease. Most of the gains in reducing heart disease risk have been offset by the increased prevalence of diabetes and obesity." Read more..... Heating Heart With Cargeter Better Thn Drugs For Common Heart Rhythm Disorder Treating a common heart rhythm disorder by burning heart tissue with a catheter works dramatically better than drug treatments, a major international study has found. One year after undergoing a treatment called catheter ablation, 75 percent of patients with an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation were free of symptoms. By comparison, only 21 percent of those treated with drugs were symptom-free. Results were so convincing the trial was halted early. The ablation group also scored significantly higher on a quality-of-life scale The study included 159 patients at 19 centers, including 15 centers in the United States. Results were presented at the American Heart Association 2008 Scientific Sessions in New Orleans by lead researcher Dr. David Wilber, director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. Read more..... Hope for Treating Relapse to Methamphetamine Abuse A new study at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory suggests that vigabatrin (a.k.a. gamma vinyl-GABA, or GVG) blocks drug-seeking behavior in animals previously trained to associate methamphetamine with a particular environment. Specifically, animals pre-treated with vigabatrin lost interest in spending time in a location where they had previously been given methamphetamine. The results will appear in the February 2009 issue of Synapse, now available online. "Reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior after an extended period of abstinence is the number-one cause of drug-addiction relapse," said Brookhaven neuroanatomist Stephen Dewey, who led the research team. "This animal study suggests that vigabatrin could potentially prevent human methamphetamine addicts from relapsing." According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, methamphetamine is a very addictive stimulant that is quickly becoming an American public health epidemic. There is currently no effective treatment for methamphetamine addiction. Read more..... Joyful Music May Promote Hearth Health Listening to your favorite music may be good for your cardiovascular system. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore have shown for the first time that the emotions aroused by joyful music have a healthy effect on blood vessel function. Music, selected by study participants because it made them feel good and brought them a sense of joy, caused tissue in the inner lining of blood vessels to dilate (or expand) in order to increase blood flow. This healthy response matches what the same researchers found in a 2005 study of laughter. On the other hand, when study volunteers listened to music they perceived as stressful, their blood vessels narrowed, producing a potentially unhealthy response that reduces blood flow. The results of the study, conducted at the University of Maryland Medical Center, will be presented at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association, on November 11, 2008, in New Orleans. Read more..... Believe it or not Plagued by fungus? Bacteria? Try copper socks Copper socks? Copper towels? How about copper subway poles? These are only a few of the ways Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, is utilizing the red metal which is more commonly found in the construction and auto sectors. Used since ancient times to make tools, weapons and plumbing systems, Chilean innovators are experimenting with ways to exploit copper's bacteria- and fungus-fighting characteristics. "Public transport systems, where germs can be transmitted and there are large numbers of people, are a potential market for applications for surface-metal copper," said Jurgen Leibbrandt, head of market development for the Chilean state copper giant Codelco. "In clothes there is another venue ... where it has excellent anti-fungus qualities," he said. Scientists say the power of copper to fight germs lies in the fact that copper ions separate on contact with bacteria and cause irreversible damage to the bacteria's cells. Codelco is already working with the private sector to market socks, towels, pillow cases and underwear sewn with copper fibresthat fight fungi and even help combat acne. And the private sector is in a drive to join Chile's leading export, copper, with another major exporter, the salmon industry, to cut disease in fish stocks. Chile is the world's second largest salmon producer after Norway, but the industry has high costs because of expensive solutions to controlling infections. "Joining these two industries to finding a solution that is economically viable is certainly viable," said Leibbrandt. One Chilean entrepreneur, Joaquin Ruiz, has invented copper sponge filters to purify water on salmon farms, eliminating disease and fungi and reducing the large amounts of costly antibiotics currently employed to do the same job. "That means huge savings. Instead of using large quantities of antibiotics and germ killing agents, with this you are just putting up a simple sanitary barrier," Ruiz, the developer of the Metal Foam sponges, told Reuters. Codelco is experimenting with bacteria-repellent cages for the industry. Investigators are also looking into where they can use the metal to reduce levels of infection in hospitals. They have found the metal helps to kill Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat infections in humans. "If you prevent one MRSA infection, you save $21,000, so your return on investment will be very very short, perhaps one patient," said Michael Schmidt, of the University of South Carolina medical school. "So this is going to be a fairly efficient and inexpensive solution to combat infections." Some hospitals in the United States are testing copper as a germ-resistant surface material in place of stainless steel. A British study several years ago showed that drug-resistant staph germs survived for three days on stainless steel surfaces but were not detectable on copper surfaces after 90 minutes. 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