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One in 10 men aged 50 'have the heart of a 60-year-old'
"One-tenth of 50-year-old men have a heart age 10 years older than they are," BBC News reports. This is the finding of an analysis of 1.2 million people who used the NHS Heart Age Test. The principle behind the test is that you can "age" your heart through unhealthy behaviour such as smoking and being obese. Underlying conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which often have no noticeable symptoms, can also age the heart. An obese smoker in their 50s who has high blood pressure and high cholesterol could have the heart of a 60- or 70-year-old. The quick and simple test tells you the...
Source: NHS News Feed - September 4, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Anti-inflammatory drug may help prevent heart attacks
Conclusion This well-conducted study shows promising signs that canakinumab may reduce the risk of future heart attacks and other cardiovascular events in people who've had them in the past. But before any changes are made to the current licensing of this drug, further research is needed to confirm the beneficial effects and the optimal dose. Most importantly, researchers will need to focus on the observation that the drug lowered white blood cell counts and increased the risk of fatal infection. They estimated around 1 in every 300 people taking canakinumab would die of a fatal infection. This number, while low, is sti...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 30, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Gum disease bug linked to rheumatoid arthritis
Conclusions This research aimed to investigate a possible bacterial origin of rheumatoid arthritis and found one potential candidate – Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Aα). It seems these bacteria could cause the high levels of citrullinated proteins which are known to trigger an immune reaction in people with rheumatoid arthritis. However, it's important to put these findings into the right context. Though antibodies against citrullinated proteins, anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP), are one of the possible diagnostic findings in people with rheumatoid arthritis – not everyone with rheumatoid arthri...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 19, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medical practice Source Type: news

Painkiller use linked to irregular heartbeat
ConclusionThis prospective cohort study claims an association between NSAIDs usage and developing atrial fibrillation. However, there are many limitations to this research.Despite this being a large prospective cohort study that followed people over a period of time, the assessments within it were predominantly cross-sectional. That means it assessed the person’s current or recent prescription of NSAIDs at the time they were diagnosed, but this cannot prove that using NSAIDs caused atrial fibrillation. A better method may have been to assess the use of NSAIDs in people without atrial fibrillation at the start of the stud...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 9, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Older people Source Type: news

High-dose painkiller heart risk: small but significant
Conclusion This large review adds to, and expands on, the current evidence on the risks of vascular disease and gastrointestinal complications for different NSAIDs. It largely concentrates on trials of high doses of NSAIDs that can only be prescribed by a doctor. It is unclear from this study whether there is any risk from taking lower doses available over the counter. While most experts advise that low-dose NSAIDs, taken occasionally, are safe for most people, an accompanying editorial points out that there are still “large gaps” in evidence on the risks with lower doses of NSAIDs. While the risk to individuals is sma...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 30, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Even 'light' smoking may raise women's arthritis risk
Conclusion This research indicates that a relatively low level of smoking (one to seven cigarettes per day) is associated with an increased risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis compared with women who had never smoked. This adds further knowledge to previous research that has suggested that cigarette smoking is directly linked to a higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. While this study is relatively robust and its results believable, it does have limitations that should be considered. It was not clear how many women dropped out of the study. If this was a large proportion of the women who started, it could si...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 23, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news