A new study by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital puts the results of a landmark trial about blood pressure control into terms that may be easier to interpret and communicate to patients. When data from The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) were published in 2015, the medical community responded enthusiastically to the news that reducing blood pressure lower than the normal targets could reduce overall death rates by 27 percent for adults at high cardiovascular risk. While these study results are being integrated into clinical practice, explaining what they mean and why they are important to patients can be challenging. Investigators from the Brigham describe how aggressively lowering blood pressure levels can extend a person’s life expectancy. They report that having a blood pressure target of less than 120 mm Hg—rather than the standard 140 mm Hg—can add six months to three years to a person’s lifetime, depending upon how old they are when they begin intensive blood pressure control. Results are published in JAMA Cardiology.
Read More

It’s long been known that endurance athletes have larger hearts on average than the rest of the population and that cardiac enlargement is a healthy adaptation to exercise.
Read More

Melbourne researchers have uncovered important differences between the male and female immune system which may explain why men are more susceptible to obesity and metabolism-related associated diseases, such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Read More

In a first-of-its-kind study using advanced brain imaging techniques, a commonly used anti-psychotic medication was associated with potentially adverse changes in brain structure. This study was the first in humans to evaluate the effects of this type of medication on the brain using a gold-standard design: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.
Read More

Decreased folate levels in the bloodstream have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, shedding light on why those patients are more susceptible to heart and vascular disease, according to research published today in JAMA Network Open by experts at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
Read More

People in industrialized countries are getting older and are very often in good health as a result of good nutrition, a healthier lifestyle and a higher level of education. More people nowadays know how to keep fit and prevent diseases. Screening programs have increased the survival rates of many illnesses such as cancer, national vaccination programs have completely eradicated many diseases, and better safety standards such as traffic regulation, risk management and safe work procedures have helped to reduce the number of accidents.
Read More

Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease make up the world’s most common diseases. A new biobank at Lund University in Sweden—the largest of its kind—with stem cells from both those affected and healthy individuals, will contribute to an increased understanding of how these diseases arise.
Read More

Research on novel nanoelectronics devices led by the University of Southampton has enabled brain neurons and artificial neurons to communicate with each other. This study has for the first time shown how three key emerging technologies can work together: brain-computer interfaces, artificial neural networks and advanced memory technologies (also known as memristors). The discovery opens the door to further significant developments in neural and artificial intelligence research.
Read More

A research team has described five new cases of a rare disease known as KAT6A syndrome, of which there are only 80 dominant cases worldwide. This neurological and developmental disorder, caused by alterations in the lysine acetyltransferase 6A gene (KAT6A), involves intellectual disability, language impairment, low muscle tone, cardiovascular malformation and eye defects, among other symptoms.
Read More

As the coronavirus spreads, the nation’s leading health official told a Senate committee on Feb. 25 that “we cannot hermetically seal off the United States to a virus.”
Read More