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Source: NHS News Feed
Condition: Cholesterol
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Total 95 results found since Jan 2013.
Stroke risk 'higher at start of warfarin treatment'
Conclusion
This study has found that warfarin was associated with an increased risk of ischaemic stroke during the first 30 days of treatment. After 30 days of treatment, warfarin was associated with a decreased risk of stroke.
However, this study has a number of limitations that should be considered:
All information was from patient records, which means that it wasn't subject to recall bias, but the information may not be complete – we do not know if, for example, people took the medication they were prescribed.
There may be other factors (confounders) that explain the association seen. In particular, the ba...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 19, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Source Type: news
Memory gaps in graduates a 'stroke warning sign'
Conclusion
This study showed that highly educated people who notice memory complaints in themselves may be more likely to develop stroke than those who don’t, over an average of 12 years.
The study had a number of strengths, such as its population-based prospective design and availability of data on more than 9,000 participants at baseline with a long follow-up. However, there were also a number of limitations that weaken the strength of the conclusions.
It was not clear whether the memory complaints were assessed just once at the start of the study or an ongoing basis. Some people may report memory complaints that are o...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 12, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Mental health Older people Source Type: news
Longer sleep linked to stroke
Conclusion
This cohort study found that, overall, people who sleep for more than eight hours have a 46% increased risk of stroke. When analysed separately, there was no statistically significant association for men, but a much higher increased risk for women, of 80%.
A major strength of the study is the number of potential confounding factors that the researchers tried to account for, including many cardiovascular risk factors. However, it did not account for other illnesses such as sleep apnoea or cancer, which may have had an effect on the amount of sleep and risk of stroke.
In addition, the study is reliant on the i...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Older people Source Type: news
Reported link between diet drinks and dementia and stroke is weak
Conclusion
The researchers used data from a large ongoing cohort study to look for links between consumption of sugary and artificially sweetened drinks and risk of stroke or dementia.
This cohort study benefits from the large overall sample size, long period of data collection, careful and valid diagnostic assessments, and adjustments for a number of confounders. However, care must be taken when interpreting these results – particularly if latching on to the maximal tripled risk figures reported in the media.
There are several points to consider:
Small numbers
The new number of strokes and dementia in this study was sma...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 21, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Neurology Source Type: news
Flu jab "may cut" stroke risk by a quarter
ConclusionThis research finds that, overall, having the flu vaccine reduced the risk of a person experiencing a stroke by about 25%. The reduction in risk seemed to be greatest within the first three months of vaccination, but remained for up to 12 months. However, the effect lasted only if the vaccine was given early in the flu season (September to mid-November); giving the vaccine late in the flu season (mid-November to February) was not associated with significantly reduced risk.The research benefits from using data coded within the General Practice Research Database for England and Wales for almost 50,000 people with...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 21, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Neurology Older people Source Type: news
Female stroke survivors’ quality of life investigated
Conclusion
The study suggests that women have a lower quality of life than men three and 12 months after they have been discharged from hospital after experiencing a stroke or mini-stroke.
While the results were statistically significant, the relative differences appeared small. For example at three months (where the largest difference was found) the average difference in quality of life score between men and women was 0.036 points. This is on a quality of life scale that ranges from 0 (death) to 1 (perfect health). The quality of life difference at 12 months was 0.022 points. Whether these small differences are clinicall...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 10, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news
Female stroke survivors' quality of life investigated
Conclusion
The study suggests that women have a lower quality of life than men three and 12 months after they have been discharged from hospital after experiencing a stroke or mini-stroke.
While the results were statistically significant, the relative differences appeared small. For example at three months (where the largest difference was found) the average difference in quality of life score between men and women was 0.036 points. This is on a quality of life scale that ranges from 0 (death) to 1 (perfect health). The quality of life difference at 12 months was 0.022 points. Whether these small differences are clinicall...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 10, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news
Eating one egg a day may lower risk of stroke
Conclusion
This research broadly supports previous studies in this area, which suggest eating eggs does not increase the chances of getting heart disease or stroke. It raises the possibility that eggs may decrease the risk of having a stroke, but there are limitations to the study, meaning this result may not be reliable.
It's interesting that researchers did not find a "dose response" between stroke risk and the number of eggs eaten. Usually, if something is having an effect on the chances of getting a condition, you can see a linear pattern – having more of that food or treatment increases or decreases chanc...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 2, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Neurology Heart/lungs Source Type: news
Eating chocolate may slightly lower your risk of stroke
ConclusionThis study used a large prospective cohort of English residents to estimate the risk chocolate poses to cardiovascular death and disease. In addition, they systematically combed the research literature for other similar studies, combining their results with that of other researchers. By comparing the highest chocolate consumers with chocolate abstainers, they found that chocolate was linked to a lower risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. The risk for coronary heart disease was not statistically significant. Results from the meta-analysis of eight additional studies showed higher chocolate consumption was li...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 16, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Neurology Source Type: news
Mediterranean diet cuts heart and stroke risk
Conclusion
The results of this randomised controlled trial appear to confirm previous studies that there are benefits to following a Mediterranean diet. The trial has many strengths, including its large size, long period of follow-up, thorough assessment of medical outcomes (including reviewing medical records and having contact with the family doctor), and careful attempts to assess whether the diets were being followed.
As this is a randomised controlled trial, it should also balance out other health and lifestyle differences between the groups that may influence cardiovascular risk. This avoids the limitations of m...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 26, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Source Type: news
UK heart disease and stroke death rates now lower than cancer
Conclusion
This valuable research informs on the burden of cardiovascular disease and associated mortality across European countries.
It demonstrates that CVD is still the most common cause of death across Europe, but rates have been falling over the past 10 years. This fall means that in several European countries, including the UK, cancer rates now overtake CVD death rates in men. Generally, CVD disability and burden of disease seems to be greater in Eastern European countries.
The WHO mortality data and population data are quite up-to-date and should be reliable, though as the researchers say, there was a lack of high ...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 15, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Cancer Neurology Source Type: news
Global stats show rise in strokes in younger people
Conclusion
This study is comprehensive in its global coverage of stroke and is based on the largest stroke dataset available to date. It is also the first to provide systematic regional and country-specific estimates of the burden of the disease.
As the authors point out, the main limitations include a scarcity of high-quality data from low-income and middle-income countries especially, which may affect the reliability of some of the figures. Other limitations include a potential underestimation of the burden of stroke. This may have come about because "silent strokes", which are those not based on diagnosis u...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 24, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medical practice Neurology Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news
'Nine out of 10 strokes preventable,' claims study
Conclusion
This valuable research aims to clarify which preventable risk factors are associated with stroke risk – knowledge that could have an effect on addressing this important global health problem.
The study's strengths are that it is based on a large sample size of nearly 27,000 people from 32 countries and of different socioeconomic backgrounds.
The researchers made careful attempts beforehand to calculate how many participants they would need to include to be able to reliably detect differences in risk factors.
There was little missing data across the total sample – for the various different risk factors as...
Source: NHS News Feed - July 18, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Medication Source Type: news
Deep-fried Mars bars – unhealthy, but no killer
Conclusion
This study found no significant differences in cerebrovascular reactivity (the body’s ability to respond to breath holding by increasing blood flow to the brain) after eating either a deep-fried Mars bar or porridge.
When the researchers analysed men and women separately, they found no significant differences in cerebrovascular reactivity after eating a deep-fried Mars bar or porridge. However, when the researchers compared men with women, they found a significant difference, although whether there is any clinical significance to this finding is unclear.
The researchers point out that there are limitations to ...
Source: NHS News Feed - September 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Neurology Obesity Source Type: news
Deep-fried Mars bars: unhealthy, but no killer
Conclusion
This study found no significant differences in cerebrovascular reactivity (the body’s ability to respond to breath holding by increasing blood flow to the brain) after eating either a deep-fried Mars bar or porridge.
When the researchers analysed men and women separately, they found no significant differences in cerebrovascular reactivity after eating a deep-fried Mars bar or porridge. However, when the researchers compared men with women, they found a significant difference, although whether there is any clinical significance to this finding is unclear.
The researchers point out that there are limitations to ...
Source: NHS News Feed - September 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Neurology Obesity Source Type: news
