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Blood-thinning drugs may reduce dementia risk in people with irregular heartbeats
Conclusion If you’ve been diagnosed with AF and you have been prescribed anticoagulant treatments such as warfarin or clopidogrel, we already know they protect you against having a stroke. This study suggests they may also help to protect you against dementia. Cutting the risk of dementia for people who have a raised risk because of AF would be an exciting step forward. Unfortunately, we can’t tell from this study whether the protection against dementia was down to the anticoagulants, because of the possible effect of unmeasured confounding factors. Usually, we would want to see a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to f...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 25, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Source Type: news

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

'Fat but fit' people may still be at risk of heart disease
Conclusion This large, valuable study confirms that – as has long been thought – an increased BMI is linked with an increased risk of heart disease. It shows that people with an obese BMI had a higher risk of heart disease, even if they didn't have other risk factors like high cholesterol and high blood pressure, proving that body fat is an independent risk factor. That said, this study does have some limitations. For example, definitions of being metabolically unhealthy aren't entirely consistent with other definitions of metabolic syndrome. This was also only assessed at the start of the study, and risk factors may...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 15, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Obesity Source Type: news

Benefits of artificial sweeteners unclear
Conclusion The study authors suggest artificial sweeteners may not aid weight loss, despite marketing claims to the contrary, and could actually increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, the results need to be treated with caution, as this review had numerous limitations: The randomised controlled trials had great variability and few participants, increasing the possibility of the results occurring by chance. They were also judged to be at a high risk of bias – for example, the participants could not be blinded to the intervention, and adherence (drop-out) rates were not provided. We do not know whether there w...
Source: NHS News Feed - July 19, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Obesity Source Type: news

Daily diet of fresh fruit linked to lower diabetes risk
Conclusion The study findings – that eating fresh fruit every day does not raise the risk of diabetes, and may reduce it – are reassuring and in line with dietary advice in the UK. It's also helpful to see evidence that people who already have diabetes are likely to benefit from fresh fruit as well, because there has not been much research into fruit-eating for people with diabetes. However, it's a step too far to say that fresh fruit prevents diabetes or diabetes complications. Fresh fruit is just one part of a healthy diet, and diet is just one of the things that may affect someone's risk of getting diabetes. This ty...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 12, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Diabetes Food/diet Source Type: news

Substance found in red wine 'helps fight ageing'
Conclusion Resveratrol has been of interest to anti-ageing scientists for many years and researchers have previously shown it may be linked to a slowing of the decline in thinking and movement, at least in rodents. This study suggests a possible way this might happen. But the results don't tell us anything about what happens in humans. They suggest this substance may be useful for further research in humans at some point. They certainly don't provide a reason to drink gallons of red wine, in the hope of seeing an anti-ageing effect. Drinking too much alcohol is a sure-fire way to speed up deterioration of thinking skills,...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 8, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Source Type: news

Regular activity may help some people stay 'fat and fit'
Conclusion As people often say, if exercise was a medicine, it would be hailed as a miracle cure. This study suggests that what we already know about the benefits of exercise may extend to reducing risk of cardiovascular disease for middle aged and older people, even if they are overweight or obese. But the study has some limitations. This type of study can't prove that one factor – exercise – is responsible for the lower risk of heart attack and stroke among overweight or obese people who exercise more. It's possible that other factors are important – for example people's income may be linked to their opportuniti...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Obesity Lifestyle/exercise Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Weekend-only workouts 'still give an important health boost'
Conclusion This survey aimed to investigate patterns of physical activity in adults over the age of 40 and the potential impact on their cause of death. The study found that, compared with those who were not physically active, all active groups saw a reduction in their risk of death from any cause and cardiovascular disease. Being active at the weekend only had no effect on cancer mortality. However, interpretations around the optimal level of activity are difficult when you note that insufficient activity gave similar mortality reductions as the recommended regular activity. This study has both strengths and limitations...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 10, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Heart/lungs Cancer Source Type: news

'Netflix and kill?' Binge watching box-sets linked to blood clots
Conclusion This study used data from a large Japanese cohort study to assess the link between the number of hours spent watching the television and the risk of death from pulmonary embolism. The study found that a greater number of hours watching the television increased the risk of death from pulmonary embolism. The main strength of this study is the very large sample size and long follow-up periods. However, there are a number of limitations: this study design is not able to prove cause and effect, so while there appears to be a link, we cannot be sure the cause of mortality is from television watching even thoug...
Source: NHS News Feed - July 26, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

'Stop demonising butter,' say researchers
Conclusion This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the long-term association between butter consumption and major health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and death. The nine identified studies found little to no evidence that butter consumption increased the risk of death, cardiovascular disease, heart disease or stroke. Perhaps surprisingly, though, there did seem to be a protective effect against the risk of type 2 diabetes. This review has both strengths and limitations that may affect the reliability of the findings. The researchers used careful search methods that aimed to identify onl...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 30, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Exercise benefits you - even in polluted city air
Conclusion This modelling study aimed to assess exposure to air pollution through physical activity and the associated health risks around the world. The study found the background pollution level required to reach the tipping point is only present in less than 1% of cities, according to the WHO. In an average city physical exercise will remain beneficial up to seven hours a day for cycling or 16 hours for walking. In highly polluted areas this became as low as 30 minutes a day for cycling and 90 minutes of walking. The main limitation of this study is that it is only a model and we do not know how true to life the findi...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Short bursts of intense exercise 'as good' as endurance training
Conclusion The idea that a 10-minute workout could have the same benefits as spending 45 minutes in the gym is tempting. The researchers found it may improve specific markers of health, in one group of young men. However, this is a small study in a specific population, and we don't know whether it would have comparable effects in older people or women. Also, we don't know the long-term effects of this type of training programme on people's health. Studies that look at the effects of an intervention, whether it's exercise, diet or medicine, on health measures such as insulin resistance and oxygen uptake, can only give us a...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 28, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Heart/lungs Diabetes 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

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