The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (12/18, Fuoco) reports that according to a study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases and funded by vaccine-maker Sanofi Pasteur, giving high-dose flu vaccines to elderly residents in long-term care facilities “produces a significantly better immune response than a regular flu shot.” The article explains that the high-dose flu shot “contains four times the antigen of regular shots that prompts the immune system to make antibodies against the flu.” David A. Nace, the study’s lead author, cautioned that the vaccine is not a guarantee and recommended “vaccination of health care workers, asking those with flu-like illness not to visit residents, practicing proper cough etiquette and hand hygiene, and frequent sanitation of commonly used areas and equipment.”
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Bloomberg BusinessWeek (12/19) reports, “an interdisciplinary team of Yale researchers has shown that guanfacine, a medication approved for treating hypertension that reduces stress and enhances cognition, shows promise as a smoking cessation aid.” Sherry A. McKee, the study’s lead author, said, “The fact that this drug can target different stress-related effects made us believe this would be a good medication to study for smoking cessation, given the strong relationship between stress and smoking.” The results of the study “showed that, compared with the placebo-treated smokers, guanfacine-treated smokers showed increased ability to resist smoking following stress and decreased smoking by 70% during the brief treatment.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (1/7, Templeton) reports thatresearch published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that individuals “with type 1 diabetes who intensively control their blood glucose soon after diagnosis are likely to live longer than those who do not.” Researchers found that “over about three decades, the group whose diabetes was tightly controlled for the first seven years after diagnosis had a 33 percent reduction in deaths, as compared with those whose diabetes was not as well controlled.”
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (1/7, Satyanarayana) reports, “One caveat,” study leader Trevor Orchard “said, is that the study’s participants died from the same causes — heart disease and cancer, mostly — and they were a little young. A few more years of mortality data could help define the full impact of intensive therapy.” According to the NPR (1/7, Tucker) “Shots” blog, “the study is the first to show that tight control prolongs life in type 1 diabetes.” Meanwhile, Reuters (1/7, Seaman) reports that a separate study published in JAMA indicates that individuals who have type 1 diabetes die, on average, more than a decade earlier than individuals who do not have type 1 diabetes. HealthDay (1/7, Thompson) reports, “Diabetes’ impact on heart health appeared to be the largest single cause of lost years, according to the study.” However, the investigators “also found that type 1 diabetics younger than 50 are dying in large numbers from conditions caused by issues in management of the disease – diabetic coma caused by critically low blood sugar, and ketoacidosis caused by a lack of insulin in the body.” Medscape (1/7, Tucker) reports, “Relative mortality risks increased by chronic kidney disease stage, with hazard ratios ranging from 1.74 for stage 3 to 8.7 for stage 5 compared with those who had estimated glomerular filtration rates of more than 90 mL/min/1.73m².” But, “even those with preserved renal function (> 90 mL/min/1.73m²) had reduced life expectancy compared with the general population without type 1 diabetes, with about an 8-year difference for those in their early 20s.” Researchers estimate that 337,000 of the 9.2 million deaths among European men and women in 2008 were attributable to obesity. However, twice this number (676,000) could be attributed to physical inactivity. In anAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition study of 334,161 European men and women who were followed over an average of 12 years, investigators estimated that the exercise equivalent of a 20 minute brisk walk each day would move an individual from being considered inactive to being moderately inactive and reduce their risk of premature death by 16% to 30%, depending on BMI and waist circumference.
A meta-analysis of 14 studies confirms that supplementation with alkaline potassium salts (bicarbonate and citrate) leads to significant reductions in urinary calcium and acid excretion, as well as decreased bone resorption. This means that excess acid is neutralized and bone mineral is preserved. The Osteoporosis International findings suggest that eating more fruits and vegetables, which are rich in potassium salts, could be a way to improve bone strength and prevent osteoporosis.
Among 4676 healthy women who were followed for more than 20 years and whose diets were ranked on a scale of 1 to 9 for similarity to the ideal Mediterranean diet, the higher the score for adherence to the diet, the longer the telomeres (protective structures at the end of chromosomes). The difference in telomere length for each 1 point change in the Mediterranean Diet score corresponded on average to 1.5 years of aging. The BMJ results further support the benefits of adherence to the Mediterranean diet for promoting health and longevity.
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