Study Compares Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair Methods

(HealthDay News) -- A less-invasive method of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair reduces the short-term risk of death, according to a new U.S. study.

The interim findings are from a nine-year multicenter trial comparing patient outcomes after endovascular and open surgical repair of AAA. The report included postoperative outcomes of up to two years (average 1.8 years of follow-up) for 881 patients, aged 49 or older, who had endovascular repair (444) or open repair (437).

Endovascular repair is performed through a catheter inserted into an artery. Open repair involves an abdominal incision. Of the 45,000 patients in the United States who undergo elective repair of an unruptured AAA each year, more than 1,400 die in the perioperative period -- the first 30 days after surgery or inpatient status. There's limited data available about whether short-term survival is better after endovascular repair compared to open repair. Read more...


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Depression drugs linked to falls in elderly

by Mike Adams Falls are the leading cause of accidental death in the elderly population of adults over 65 years of age. A recent study found that elderly people who suffer from dementia are more likely to suffer falls if they are given anti-depressants. Selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently prescribed to dementia patients, who often also experience depression. The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reported that the risk of elderly injuring themselves from falls was TRIPLED after they were given SSRIs. This class of drugs includes the popular depression drugs Prozac and Paxil, which have long been considered first-line therapy for treatment of depression in older adults. The high risk of falls following treatment with older anti-depressant medications is well established, as these drugs have long been shown to cause unpleasant and dangerous side effects in elderly such as dizziness and unsteadiness. Although the medical industry and Big Pharma made claims that the newer SSRI-type anti-depressant drugs would likely reduce these dangerous consequences, the latest research from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam appears to show the reverse. Read more... 

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Barry Callebaut investigates Acticoa for ageing, longevity

Barry Callebaut is venturing down avenues of research that would allow it to market its Acticoa chocolate on an ant-ageing and longevity platform. Dark chocolate has been much on the news lately thanks to research on the healthy potential of its high antioxidant content. Barry Callebaut has devised a process with which it says it can preserve more of the natural polyphenols than is possible through conventional methods. So far chocolate produced using this process, called Acticoa, has been marketed mainly on the basis of its high polyphenol content and health benefits associated with polyphenols. But with positive results from a pre-clinical trial in which rats that suffered oxidative stress and were fed the chocolate were seen to live considerably longer than rats that received a placebo, the company is paving the way to market it to the burgeoning anti-ageing market. Read more...

Immunice for Immune Support

Understanding the science of cannabis is integral to appropriate regulation and use

by: Raw Michelle

Cannabis is a plant with demonstrable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, both aspects that point to its potential to be used as an anti-cancer drug. Cannabinoids have been used in tentative studies, demonstrating their ability to greatly reduce tumours, and cure cancer, in mice.

A controlled substance

The medical establishment continues to reinvent their justification for the demonization of marijuana as more and more of the claims made against cannabis are disproven. The justification currently holding the most ground is that cannabis is a plant, and cannot be carefully regulated because of the great chemical variability that is found between individual plants. Read more...

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Obesity Surgery Complications on the Decline

(HealthDay News) -- Obesity surgery-related complications in the United States declined 21 percent between 2001 and 2006, and payments to hospitals for obesity surgery decreased by as much as 13 percent, partly because there were fewer patient readmissions due to complications, a new study reports.

The findings from a study by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality are based on an analysis of more than 9,500 patients under age 65 who had obesity surgery, also known as bariatric surgery, at 652 hospitals between 2001 and 2002 and between 2005 and 2006.

The researchers found that the complication rate among obesity surgery patients dropped from 24 percent to about 15 percent. Contributing to that decrease were declines in post-surgical infection rates (58 percent lower), abdominal hernias, staple leakage, respiratory failure and pneumonia (29 percent to 50 percent lower).

There was little change in rates of other complications such as ulcers, dumping (involuntary vomiting or defecation), hemorrhage, wound re-opening, deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke, the researchers noted. Read more...

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Study Reports Progress Against Fatal Brain Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- A new method to prevent recurrence of deadly glioblastoma brain cancer shows promise, say U.S. scientists.

Radiation can temporarily shrink a glioblastoma tumor, but the cancer nearly always recurs within weeks or months. Few people with this type of brain cancer survive more than two years after diagnosis.

In a study on mice, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers found that blocking access to oxygen and nutrients prevents tumor recurrence.

The first step, they said, was discovering that tumors blasted with radiation use a secondary pathway to generate blood vessels needed for regrowth.

"Under normal circumstances, this pathway is not important for growth of most tumors," senior author Martin Brown, a professor of radiology, said in a Stanford news release. "What we hadn't realized until recently is that radiation meant to kill the cancer cells also destroys the existing blood vessels that nourish the tumor. As a result, it has to rely on a backup blood delivery pathway."

The Stanford team used a molecule called AMD3100 to block the secondary glioblastoma tumor growth process in mice.

The study was published online Feb. 22 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Read more...

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Drinking More Fluids Could Lower Men's Bladder Cancer Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Men who drink plenty of low-sugar fluids may reduce their risk for bladder cancer, new research suggests.

Although the reason for the association between fluid intake and protection against cancer remains unknown, researchers theorize the fluids may flush out potential cancer-causing agents before they have a chance to cause any damage.

In conducting the study, Jiachen Zhou, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at Brown University, and colleagues evaluated the fluid intake of nearly 48,000 men who were part of a long-term study. The men, who were aged 40 to 75 when they enrolled in the study in 1986, answered a questionnaire about their fluid intake every four years for more than two decades. Read more...

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Coriander oil (cilantro) can be used to treat food poisoning and drug-resistant infections

By Jonathan Benson

Food-borne illness outbreaks and the growing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" are two very serious societal problems for which researchers say they are actively looking for viable solutions. But one such solution found right in nature is coriander oil, which has been found to kill a number of different bacterial strains, as well as aid in digestion and treat the symptoms of food poisoning.

Dr. Fernanda Domingues and her colleagues from the University of Beira Interior in Portugal tested the effects of coriander oil, an essential oil extracted from the seeds of the coriander plant, also known as cilantro, on twelve different bacterial strains, including Escherichia coli (E. coli), Salmonella enterica, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the infamous hospital superbug. Read more...

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BPA may cause arrhythmia, heart attacks in women

by: Tara Green

Bisphenol A overrides the natural heartbeat signal causing female heart cells to misfire, according to a recent study. Given how pervasive BPA is these days, this could mean heart problems, possibly even fatal ones, for millions of women.

BPA is everywhere

BPA is ubiquitous in the industrial world: in clear plastic containers, in the epoxy lining of canned foods, in dental sealants, and even coating many store receipts. Studies in the past five years have shown that nearly everyone living in the industrial world encounters at least trace amounts of this compound.

Yet industries using plastics for packaging, as well as some mainstream medical experts, have long assured the public that small concentrations of BPA do not pose a serious health hazard. FDA efforts in reference to BPA have so far been limited to supporting industry self-limitation such as eliminating the compound from products specifically designed for infants and children. Read more...

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Regular vitamin and mineral supplementation lowers colon can

by: John Phillip

Researchers publishing in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology (CJPP) have found that a diet enhanced with vitamin and mineral supplementation can lower the risk of developing precancerous colon cancer lesions by up to 84%. Colon cancer is the second most common form of the disease affecting men and women in the US, with nearly 150,000 new diagnoses each year.

Nutrition experts and alternative practitioners understand that cancer is largely a disease caused by poor lifestyle behaviors including a diet lacking an optimal intake of vitamins and minerals. Chronic illnesses including colon cancer are the result of many years and decades of low nutritional status, as support for a healthy immune response is suppressed. Scientists now provide compelling evidence in support of whole-food based vitamin and mineral supplementation to dramatically lower the risk of colorectal cancer. Read more...

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