The cardiovascular safety and efficacy of some hypoglycemic including saxagliptin (Onglyza), an inhibitor of dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4), is not well established. 16492 patients were randomized diagnosed with type 2 diabetes with a history of cardiovascular events or high risk to receive saxagliptin or placebo. Other medications for diabetes, including hypoglycemic, were permitted. The combined...
Original title: Comparison of 30-Day and 5-Year Outcomes of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Versus Coronary Bypass Grafting in Patients Aged ≤50 Years. Reference: Fausto Biancari, et al. Am J Cardiology Article in Press. Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is associated with better evolution than percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), mainly due to left main and multiple vessels re...
People with poor cardiovascular health have a higher incidence of cognitive decline, according to new research. Improved cardiovascular health is more common in men and people with higher education and higher income, while the incidences of mental disability is most commonly detected in people with lower incomes, living in the “stroke belt” or have cardiovascular...
The L-carnitine, a compound abundant in red meat and often added as a complement to many energy drinks, could be promoting atherosclerosis according to research published in Nature Medicine. The study, by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic (USA), shows that the bacteria in the human digestive tract metabolize L-carnitine, making trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), a metabolite that...
Diclofenac is the most popular of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDS) in 15 countries, according to studies, and it is listed as an essential medicine in 74 middle and high income countries, despite its association to heart attack and stroke in vulnerable patients, alerts a study published in PLoS Medicine manazine. This risk, claim the authors,...
Death caused by cardiovascular disease still strikes hard in Argentina. During the last decade, mortality rates from cardiovascular conditions, including infarction, stroke, hypertension and arrhythmia, dropped a mere 6%, according to the registry of vital statistics of de National Health Ministry. In the previous decade, this rate was lower: it had reduced 22%. This difference...
A recent study has shown that hair analysis allows us to evaluate the level of cortisol and stress hormone over a few months while the results from blood tests indicate the status only at the particular time of the test. A rising level of cortisol, like hypertension and excess abdominal fat, increases the risk of...
Eating a Mediterranean diet, enriched with 30 grams of nuts reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease by 30% and decreases the chance of having ictus or stroke by about 49%. The essay, called “Predimed“, is one of the largest clinical nutrition studies ever made in the world and the results will enable a comprehensive nutrition...
Original title: Randomized Trial of Primary PCI with or without Routine Manual Thrombectomy. Reference: S.S. Jolly et al. for the TOTAL Investigators. N Engl J Med. 2015 Apr 9;372(15):1389-98. Manual thrombectomy is a routine procedure with ST elevation AMI patients. This common practice proved to reduce mortality in the TAPAS study. However, the TASTE study did not observe...
Original title: The Use of Impella 2.5 in Severe Refractory Cardiogenic Shock Complicating and Acute Myocardial Infarction. Reference: Frederic Casassus et al. J Interv Cardiol. 2015 Feb;28(1):41-50. The presence of cardiogenic shock is observed in 7% of patients undergoing acute myocardial infarction (AMI) with ST segment elevation and 2.5% of those with non-ST AMI. In this scenario inotropic...