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'Exercise pill' could potentially help people with heart failure
Conclusion The protein hCT1 caused heart muscles to grow in a more healthy way in rodents with heart failure. When treatment stopped, the heart went back to its original condition – something that does not happen when the heart grows in a dysfunctional way. There is currently no cure for heart failure and treatment is only available for keeping symptoms under control. Therefore, this very promising early-stage research with potential for developing a drug for people with heart failure, has huge implications. However, it is important to remember that as this is experimental laboratory research, there are many more stage...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 9, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Statins side effects 'have been overstated', says study
Conclusion This is a complex study that provides a plausible explanation for the difference in reports of adverse effects of statins in RCTs and observational studies, some of which have suggested as many as 1 in 5 people get side effects from statins. However, we need to be aware of some limitations and unanswered questions: When people knew they were taking statins, they were more likely to report muscle pain than those not taking statins. But they were less likely to report muscle pain than in the first phase of the study, when they didn't know whether they were taking statins or placebo. We don't know why this is. ...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 3, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Statins side effects 'have been overstated,' says study
Conclusion This is a complex study that provides a plausible explanation for the difference in reports of adverse effects of statins in RCTs and observational studies, some of which have suggested as many as 1 in 5 people get side effects from statins. However, we need to be aware of some limitations and unanswered questions: When people knew they were taking statins, they were more likely to report muscle pain than those not taking statins. But they were less likely to report muscle pain than in the first phase of the study, when they didn't know whether they were taking statins or placebo. We don't know why this is. ...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 3, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Heart/lungs Source Type: news

A pattern of brain activity may link stress to heart attacks
Conclusion This intriguing study sets out a possible pathway by which the effects of stress on the brain could translate into inflammation in the blood vessels, and so raise the risks of cardiovascular disease. This would help to explain why people living in stressful situations, or with illnesses such as depression and anxiety, are more at risk of heart attacks and strokes. However, there are important limitations to the study which mean we should treat the findings with caution. The main study of 293 people was relatively small for a long-term study looking at cardiovascular disease, and only 22 people had a cardiovascul...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 12, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Mental health Source Type: news

Behind the Headlines 2016 Quiz of the Year
In 2014, Behind the Headlines has covered more than 500 health stories that made it into the mainstream media. If you've been paying attention you should find this quiz easy and fun. Why not test your knowledge of 2014's health news with our month-by-month quiz? Answers are at the foot of the page (no peeking!).   In January 2016's health news... In a controversial study, monkeys were genetically engineered to develop what disorder? 1) Sex addiction 2) Bi-polar disorder 3) Autism In a similarly controversial study, what psychological condition was dismissed as a "myth" 1) Seasonal affective disorder...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 5, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Special reports Source Type: news

Can a high-tech treatment help combat some of our oldest fears?
Conclusion This experimental study assessed whether it is possible to counter-condition people against their fear memories by using reward without actually having to re-expose the person to the fearful stimulus. The researchers conclude that they have shown this can be done, all with participants remaining unaware of the content and purpose of the procedure. They further suggest the procedure may be an initial step towards novel treatments for fear-related disorders such as phobia and PTSD, via unconscious processing. While these findings show promise, there are some key limitations, the main one being the small number of ...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 22, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Neurology Source Type: news

Calcium supplements linked to post-stroke dementia in women
Conclusion The media paint this as a troubling study for older women who take calcium to strengthen their bones. However the small size of the study (only 98 women took calcium supplements, and only 14 of those got dementia) and its observational nature mean that we cannot rely on the results. As the researchers mention, it is possible that those taking supplements were less healthy than those that didn't in some unmeasured way. Further research may improve our confidence in these results. Broken bones are not a trivial matter for older people – a broken hip can be the difference between being able to live independentl...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 18, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Medication Older people 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

Study: 'mini strokes should be treated immediately with aspirin'
Conclusion The study supports current recommended practice that people with a TIA or ischaemic stroke caused by a blood clot are treated with aspirin as soon as possible. NHS experts are considering whether to recommend that you take aspirin yourself while waiting for medical help. The reason this isn't recommended at present is that some people will have had a haemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke, and aspirin can make the bleeding worse. For people who've had a full stroke, an urgent brain scan is usually performed to exclude bleeding as a cause and check it's safe to proceed with anti-clotting treatment. The risk of trans...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 19, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Medication 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

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

Air pollution linked to silent strokes
Conclusion This cross-sectional study has suggested a link between exposure to small particles in the air (one form of pollution) and the presence of "silent stroke" in older adults – small areas of damage to the brain tissue that are not severe enough to cause obvious symptoms. There are a number of limitations to be aware of when assessing the results of this study: While there was an association between particulate matter in the air and total brain volume, this was no longer statistically significant after taking into account whether people have conditions such as high blood pressure, which can also affec...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 24, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Source Type: news

No such thing as baby brain, study argues
Conclusion The researchers conclude that although the pregnant women reported memory problems, these did not show up on their tests. However, this does not take into account their pre-pregnancy ability. The women may have performed better before they got pregnant, which is why they are now reporting memory problems. None of these women were tested before they got pregnant, which is the major limitation of the study. The researchers say that because there were a similar number of students in each group, the women in the control group was a good enough representation of how the pregnant women would have performed pre-pregna...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 8, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Neurology Pregnancy/child Source Type: news

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