Dementia is among the leading causes of death among older adults, but researchers from the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Indiana University set out to determine if milder forms of cognitive impairment are also associated with an increase in long-term mortality among patients aged 60 and older. For the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, nearly 4,000 patients were recruited between 1991 and 1993 and screened for cognitive impairment.

Will limiting your salt intake, as the federal government recommends doing, actually lower your risk of stroke, heart attack, or other cardiovascular diseases? A new Reuters Special Report takes a close look at the science behind this contentious question.

The battle of the statins has resulted in a draw, as the data from the two-year SATURN study of over 1,300 patients are in. Scientists found that AstraZeneca s Crestor (rosuvastatin) and Pfizer s Lipitor (atorvastatin) actually have comparable effects when it comes to lowering the volume of fatty deposits in the arteries of patients with coronary disease a conclusion that surprised both cardiologists and AstraZeneca.
Simply stated, says ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava, this is good news. Now people have the choice of taking either drug without sacrificing any of the benefits.

Last week, The Lancet ran a special 9/11 issue, and several studies published in the journal came to varied conclusions about the health effects of exposure to World Trade Center dust. The first study, led by Dr. David J. Prezant, Chief Medical Officer for the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), suggested a link between cancer and exposure to the dust.

As we ve reported several times, estrogen replacement therapy either with or without progesterone is currently the most effective means of treating menopausal symptoms. Now, a study just published in the journal Menopause has found that a skin patch that delivers the hormone has even fewer risks than the already quite safe standard method of delivery, pills. The general term for such hormone supplementation is hormone replacement therapy, or HRT.

That the prevalence of obesity is rising in the U.S. is no secret. However, few people may realize that, among the other obesity-related diseases more commonly cited, such excess body weight puts them at risk for gout. In fact, the number of Americans with this very painful form of arthritis is on the rise: Between 1988 and 1994, just 1 percent of Americans had been diagnosed with gout; in 2008 that number was estimated at 4 percent, according to government health surveys.

Large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness have recently focused attention on the ability of the U.S. food safety system to protect the public health, writes Michael R. Taylor, the Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA. In an article appearing in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Taylor outlines both the issues that have moved the agency to action and the components of the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

An FDA-authored analysis of electronic cigarette contents has just appeared in the Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Technologies. The agency has, in the past, gone out of its way to find hypothetical dangers of e-cigarettes even going so far as to try to bar their importation (a Federal judge stopped that attempt). This most recent article s slant is in keeping with the FDA s enduring prejudice against this clean nicotine delivery device.

While the FDA is in the process of assessing how it will regulate modified risk tobacco products, a new study in Harm Reduction Journal reports that smokers remain largely misinformed about the relative safety of these products compared to cigarettes. The study draws from data collected between 2002 and 2009 from over 21,000 smokers in Canada, the U.S, the U.K., and Australia, where public education and access to smokeless products is varied.

C-sections account for nearly one-third of U.S. births, and though the procedure is common enough, many may not know that the operation significantly increases a new mother s risk of blood clots. These clots the medical term is deep vein thrombosis (DVT) originate in the legs or groin and can travel to the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism, which is a serious problem and can even be fatal. During pregnancy and up to six weeks after delivery, as many as two out of every 1,000 women will experience DVT.