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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

Any type of physical exercise is good for the heart
Conclusion This study shows that all physical activity, in any form, is good for us. This includes both recreational and non-recreational activities. Don't be misled by some of the media: non-recreational activities like housework are not "better" than recreational activities like playing sports or going to the gym. The fact that reduced risk was seen with non-recreational activity across all countries, but only seen with recreational activity in high-income countries was probably just because fewer people in lower-income countries play sports or go to the gym. The researchers estimate that 8% of all deaths and...
Source: NHS News Feed - September 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Results of global fats and carbs study not very relevant for UK
Conclusion The results of the study have been presented in the media as if they overturn all current dietary guidelines. In the UK at least, that is completely misleading. The study results support the UK guidelines, having found that people who get around 50% of their calories from carbohydrates and 35% from fat, as recommended by Public Health England, were likely to live the longest. There are some limitations to the study, not least that observational studies cannot prove cause and effect. For example, the very low fat and high carbohydrate levels of diets found among some participants in the study might simply repres...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 30, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Source Type: news

Long working week 'may increase risk of irregular heartbeat'
Conclusion This study draws together data from a large group of people to investigate whether working hours could be linked to AF. It found people who work 55 or more hours a week had an increased risk of developing an irregular heartbeat. But before we jump to any conclusions, there are several important things to consider: The number of people who developed AF during this study was small: only 1.24%. That's the absolute risk of AF. Even if working more than 55 hours a week does increase your risk of AF by around 40%, it would only be increasing it to something like 1.74% – which is still very small. Only a small ...
Source: NHS News Feed - July 14, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Does coffee make you live longer?
Conclusion This study, conducted on a large number of people across Europe, was backed up by similar findings in the US. It appears to show some association between people who drink higher amounts of coffee and a reduced risk of death. But the "potentially beneficial clinical implications" need to be considered carefully for a number of reasons: Although the analyses were adjusted for some confounding variables, there may be a number of other factors that differ between the groups that account for the differences in death, such as socioeconomic status, family history, other medical conditions, and use of medic...
Source: NHS News Feed - July 12, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Source Type: news

Overweight teen boys have increased risk of stroke in later life
Conclusion The findings of this large longitudinal cohort study seem to demonstrate a link between being overweight aged 20 and an increased risk of stroke. This risk was regardless of whether the boy had been overweight aged 8 or not. There seemed to be no increased risk for boys who were overweight aged 8 but were a normal weight by the age of 20. The study was conducted before the obesity epidemic, and might be even more relevant today. But there are a number of considerations to take into account before we draw any conclusions: Participants were followed up until they were 52-68, so all the strokes occurred at a r...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 29, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Obesity Pregnancy/child Source Type: news