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American Indian/Alaska natives have significantly higher alcohol-related death percentage than general population, CDC reports

Nearly 12% of American Indian and Alaska Native deaths over a four-year period were alcohol related, according to a CDC report released on Thursday, AP/USA Today reports.

1 Sep 2008

Uganda's Health Ministry orders $1.8 million worth of antiretrovirals to address drug shortage

Uganda's Ministry of Health is expecting a batch of antiretroviral drugs to "arrive any time," Sam Zaramba, director-general of health services, announced on Tuesday following a drug shortage confirmed by health officials in the country last week, the New Vision/AllAfrica.com reports.

1 Sep 2008

Obama accepts Democratic Presidential nomination; discusses health care, other issues at convention

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver accepted the presidential nomination and discussed his proposals for health care and other issues, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

1 Sep 2008

Delegates at Asia-Pacific meeting call for increased efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in region

Health officials and experts from countries in the Asia-Pacific region with a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS Thursday in Manila, Philippines, pledged to intensify national efforts to curb the spread of the disease, the Independent Online reports.

1 Sep 2008

Bryostatin extends stroke treatment time to 24 hours, repairs brain tissue

Scientists at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI) have discovered that Bryostatin -- and a related class of drugs discovered at BRNI -- administered 24 hours after stroke can rescue and repair brain tissue. These findings are markedly advanced compared to current stroke treatments that must be administered within three hours and are unable to repair damaged brain tissue.

1 Sep 2008

New diagnostic tools and biomarkers

Patients presenting shortness of breath on arrival at the emergency department (ED) can gain from improved diagnosis allowing physicians to distinguish congestive heart failure patients from those presenting pneumonia.

1 Sep 2008

Advances in the management of diabetes mellitus

The need for long term studies to establish the best means of treating Diabetes, was underlined by Prof John Cleland from the University of Hull at the ESC Congress in Munich. Prof Cleland listed the latest treatment available for patients and voiced his concern about the side-effects and efficacy of available anti-diabetic drugs.

1 Sep 2008

New biomarkers in acute cardiac care

In conjunction with clinical assessment and the ECG, simple and rapid blood tests have become the standard for the detection of myocardial infarction. Starting in the year 2000, recommendations by the European Society of Cardiology and other major cardiology societies worldwide have begun to state uniformly that a rise in cardiac troponins - sensitive and specific markers for dying cells in the heart - is a prerequisite for the clinical diagnosis of myocardial infarction.

1 Sep 2008

Intima media thickness of the carotid artery

Both in the clinic and in the research area we look for a toll to identify subjects who will develop cardiovascular disease. Decades of silent arterial wall alterations precede vascular clinical events, which then reflect advanced atherosclerotic disease.

1 Sep 2008

Antiangiogenic and anti-inflammatory drugs: are they safe?

Since Rofecoxib (Vioxx) was withdrawn from the worldwide market based on the safety findings of the Adenomatous Polyp Prevention on Vioxx (APPROVe) study, the uncertainty around the cardiovascular safety of NSAIDs and COX-2 inhibitors remains and leaves practitioners with difficult management decisions for the hundreds of millions of patients worldwide who continue to require pain-relieving therapy to maintain an acceptable quality of life.

1 Sep 2008

Reality television programmes fuelling demand for cosmetic surgery

Reality television programmes which focus on extreme weight loss and drastic changes to a person's appearance may be behind a dramatic increase in cosmetic and weight reduction surgery, according to University of Auckland researchers.

1 Sep 2008

Pregnant women warned off using perfumed products

Pregnant women have been warned not to use scented creams or perfumes during the first three months of their pregnancy because they may jeopardise the future fertility of unborn boys.

1 Sep 2008

Save your life by taking the stairs instead of the lift

Researchers say walking up the stairs at work instead of taking the lift could be a lifesaver.

1 Sep 2008

World Cancer Declaration sets ambitious targets for 2020

A summit of more than 60 high-level policymakers, leaders and health experts have adopted a global plan aimed at tackling the growing cancer crisis in developing countries.

1 Sep 2008

Sex hormones link to heart risk

Men are more prone to - and likely to die of - heart disease compared with women of a similar age - and sex hormones are to blame, according to a new University of Leicester led study.

1 Sep 2008

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement - a new frontier in cardiovascular medicine

Replacing heart valves without the substantial trauma of opening the chest and the heart were little known concepts until the groundbreaking pulmonary and aortic transcatheter valve replacements performed during 2000 and 2002, respectively by Philipp Bonhoeffer and Alain Cribier.

1 Sep 2008

Robotic navigation systems in electrophysiology

Catheter ablation is still associated with a substantial amount of complications, and more failure then sometimes reported. Perforation with catheters is especially important in atrial fibrillation. Robotic navigation could reduce these complications.

1 Sep 2008

Percutaneous mitral valve repair

The scope of percutaneous cardiac therapy has expanded from percutaneous coronary and peripheral intervention to percutaneous valve intervention, first used in the mid eighties.

1 Sep 2008

Transapical aortic valve implantation

Transapical aortic valve implantation (TA-AVI) is a new therapeutic strategy, which has been implemented successfully into clinical practice in several hundred patients suffering symptomatic aortic stenosis and an increase perioperative risk during the past two years. The Edwards SAPIEN prosthesis has been used.

1 Sep 2008

Does treatment of depression improve prognosis after heart attack?

Depression and heart disease are the two leading disorders with the strongest contributions to the global burden of disease. Depression and heart disease are also intertwined.

1 Sep 2008