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Total 273 results found since Jan 2013.

New drug 'effective' for those with intolerable statin side effects
Conclusion The main results of this study relate to the lipid-lowering effects of two alternative non-statin medications. However, it highlights the muscle-related adverse effects that can occur with statins. The study is carefully designed and has many strengths, including: a washout period between drugs to remove any residual effects double-blind design throughout so people didn't know what they were taking sufficient duration for each phase of the study (10 and 24 weeks) to allow effects to develop a good sample size – the researchers calculated beforehand how many people would need to be recruited to ena...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 4, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Older people Source Type: news

Can HRT in early menopause cut heart disease risk?
ConclusionThis double-blind RCT found that women taking HRT less than six years after the menopause had slower artery wall thickening than those taking a placebo. This represented the main measure of atherosclerosis progression tested; other measures showed no difference, so the results were not as conclusive as they could have been. Women taking HRT 10 or more years after menopause also showed no difference in atherosclerosis progression compared with a placebo, further complicating the picture.An important limitation of this study is the lack of a patient relevant endpoint, such as cardiovascular events or mortality. Pre...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 1, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Source Type: news

Can concussion be tested for with a 'simple' blood test?
Conclusion This study is a prospective cohort study that aimed to investigate the use of two proteins in the blood – GFAP and UCH-L1 – as markers for detecting mild to moderate traumatic brain injury. The study found both proteins could be present in the blood after a head injury, with higher levels of UCH-L1 in the early stages after injury, while GFAP seemed to be a good marker for up to a week after injury. But both biomarkers were not found in all cases. One in five people with a brain injury did not have detectable levels of GFAP, and 1 in 10 did not have UCH-L1. This substantially reduces their ability to be us...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 29, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medical practice Neurology Source Type: news

Can chocolate make you smarter?
ConclusionStudies suggesting that chocolate is good for us always grab the headlines. However, as is so often the case, the reality is less clear than the headlines suggest.The current study adds to information about the links between diet and brain function – the way our brain processes and manages information. It found that people who scored better than average on these tests said they ate chocolate more often than people who scored worse than average on the tests. But we don't know why that is.There are quite a few limitations to the study. It's cross-sectional, which means we don't know which came first: the chocol...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 9, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Mental health Source Type: news

Link between indigestion drugs and dementia 'inconclusive'
Conclusion This study found people taking PPIs had a 44% higher risk of developing dementia in a seven-year period compared with those not taking the drugs. However, it's not accurate to say this was down to the PPIs – the study couldn't prove this, and there are many possible explanations. For a start, the groups weren't very similar. Those taking PPIs had poorer health, and were more likely to be taking a number of medicines and have conditions linked to a higher risk of dementia, such as diabetes and heart disease. After taking these factors into account in the analysis, the link between PPIs and dementia reduc...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 16, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Neurology Older people Source Type: news

Smoking bans linked to fewer heart attacks and strokes
ConclusionThere is no doubt that tobacco smoking harms health and causes a great deal of disease and death. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that tobacco is responsible for one in 10 adult deaths worldwide.The question is whether smoking bans can help reduce the harm caused by tobacco. This summary of research suggests they can, particularly for people who are non-smokers. While it's hard to get good-quality evidence about the effects of smoking bans, comparisons of data from hospitals and national registries before and after a ban is helpful. However, we can't be sure the effects being measured are solely dow...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 4, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Young women with high-fibre diet may have lower breast cancer risk
ConclusionThis large and long-term cohort study showed that women with the top fifth highest average fibre intake during adolescence and early adulthood were around 25% less likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer decades later than those in the bottom fifth.This raises the suggestion that young women might be able to significantly lower their risk of breast cancer – the most common cancer in the UK – simply through eating more high-fibre foods such as fruits and vegetables.However, it’s worth noting a few points before accepting these promising results at face value. Total dietary fibre intake in adolescen...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 2, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Food/diet Source Type: news

NHS Health Checks 'prevented thousands of heart attacks'
ConclusionThis descriptive study has provided information about how many people took part in the NHS Health Check programme in the first four years it was available. While the uptake was initially relatively low, it is increasing. It is also encouraging that some of the more vulnerable groups – those who are older and those in the most deprived social group – are most likely to attend the checks. There were limitations to the data available. For example, it was not possible to directly assess whether all new prescriptions and treatments after the checks were as a direct result of the checks. The proportion of people wh...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 15, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Neurology Medical practice Source Type: news

Sugary drinks linked to increased fat levels around vital organs
Conclusion This US cohort study found drinking sugar-sweetened beverages on a daily basis is associated with the highest increase in fat accumulation around the abdominal organs, compared with people who do not consume them. But there was an average increase in the amount of this fat in all people who took part in the study, although this was lowest in people who never consumed sugar-sweetened beverages. The study was prospective, which limits some sources of bias, but it has some limitations. For example, the food frequency questionnaire was only conducted once, at baseline. The results are therefore reliant on the p...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 12, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Diabetes Heart/lungs Obesity Source Type: news

The idea you can be fat but fit is 'a myth' study argues
ConclusionThis was a large prospective cohort study from Sweden, which was carried out in young adult males who were then followed for a period of around 29 years. The study found that lower levels of aerobic fitness were associated with risk of early death, but that this risk of death was greater for those with a high BMI, even if they had a high level of aerobic fitness. This study has a number of strengths and limitations. The limitations are that a large number of participants had missing smoking data and therefore it was not possible to control for the confounding effect of smoking. The lower fitness level group with...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 21, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Obesity Source Type: news

Being happy 'won't help you live longer' survey finds
ConclusionThis large prospective study aimed to assess whether happiness or related measures of wellbeing are associated with risk of death, after allowing for the influence of the poor health and lifestyles of people who are unhappy.The study found poor health was linked with unhappiness in middle-aged women. However, after allowing for this association and adjusting for the influence of other factors that may be associated, such as smoking and poor socioeconomic status, happiness and related measures of wellbeing do not appear to have any direct effect on death. This suggests that, as has sometimes previously been specu...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 11, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Mental health Source Type: news

Will a cholesterol-busting vaccine work for humans?
Conclusion The first thing to keep in mind is this is an early-stage study in the development of a vaccine to lower cholesterol. The study found some of the experimental vaccines the researchers developed had an effect on the cholesterol levels of mice and monkeys to varying degrees. They now need to do further work to show the vaccine is effective and can be used safely in humans. Many drugs have very different effects in humans than they do in other animals. The use of statins to lower cholesterol and reduce the chances of a heart attack or stroke is well established and effective for many people. Although there is ongo...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 12, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Source Type: news

Sugary drinks linked to increased heart failure risk in men
Conclusion This observational study found an association between the consumption of sweetened drinks and risk of heart failure. The study has some strengths, such as the large population size and long follow-up period. However, it has several limitations, which are acknowledged by the researchers. These include the following: The study included middle-aged and elderly men, so the results cannot be generalised to all age groups and genders. The men were all from Sweden, where there is a different typical diet to that of the UK. Researchers collected data on the daily and weekly intake of sweetened drinks in the pa...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 4, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Food/diet Source Type: news

Warning about middle-aged drinking and dementia
"Middle-aged people should curb their drinking to reduce their risk of developing dementia, new guidance suggests," reports the Daily Mirror. The new guidance highlights that people aged 40 to 64 who regularly drink alcohol have an increased risk of dementia. Who produced the guidance?The guidance was produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). NICE is a government body that provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care. What issues does the guidance look at?The guidance is based on the well-established principle that positive lifestyle changes tha...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 21, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet QA articles Older people Neurology Source Type: news

Living near an airport 'may be bad for your health'
Conclusion This study aimed to assess the link between pollution from air traffic and health outcomes. Researchers used a number of data sources, finding an association between levels of carbon monoxide and hospitalisation rates for respiratory and heart-related issues. Perhaps worryingly, these effects were observed at lower levels of carbon monoxide exposure than the allowed amounts found in Environmental Protection Agency mandates. However, this study does have a number of limitations: Air traffic data was only from passenger aircrafts. The focus was only on the population within 10km of the airport. We don't k...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 21, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news