Women who take the drug Fosamax for osteoporosis may be at an increased risk of developing an irregular heartbeat, a US study suggests.
Researchers have linked the drug - widely prescribed in the UK to stop bone-thinning in older women - to a condition known as atrial fibrillation.
This is not necessarily serious, but can in [...]

They said the finding sheds light on the benefits of offering treatment for hypertension among people over 80, a group that is often overlooked in medical studies.
Our results clearly show that many patients aged 80 and over could benefit greatly from treatment. Populations are living longer and we have growing numbers of people living well [...]

The 3,845 patient Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial (HYVET), which is coordinated by scientists from Imperial College London, is the largest ever clinical trial to look at the effects of lowering blood pressure solely in those aged 80 and over. Patients were given either a placebo or the diuretic indapamide slow release (SR) 1.5mg, [...]

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Researchers for Merck/Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals, who were conducting a clinical trial of the blockbuster cholesterol drug Vytorin, wanted him to look at ultrasound images of the carotid arteries of a few people in the trial, which had just finished enrolling patients.
Stein, an expert on the use of carotid ultrasound to detect heart [...]

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The e-mails were from John Kastelein, the lead author of the Vytorin study, to an executive at Schering-Plough, one of the two companies that market the drug. Vytorin is a combination of the statin medication Zocor and a different cholesterol-lowering drug, Zetia.
Kastelein asks if it’s true that Schering-Plough is not going to [...]

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There was even a rough guideline that normal blood pressure was 100 plus a person’s age.
Research presented here Monday suggests that formula may be fatally flawed.
In a study of 3,845 people over the age of 80, treating high blood pressure resulted in a dramatic decrease in strokes, heart failure and deaths from [...]

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Some experts have said special brain-wave monitors were the best way to prevent anesthesia awareness. Now, in a big setback for efforts to prevent it, the first large, independent test of the monitors shows they are no better than older technology.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis compared two [...]

The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it happens after 11 p.m., when staffing may be lower or patients watched less closely.
“Our findings should be a pretty big wakeup call to [...]

He puts six pills in his mouth and, with a shaky hand, brings a glass of water to his lips. Six down and 19 to go.
Lammers takes 25 pills a day to control his worsening Parkinson’s disease. He has to use a partially filled glass of water, just like everything else he drinks, because his [...]

But this innocuous-looking bug is wreaking havoc from Asia to Europe. And scientists say it is one of the most perplexing and powerful flu viruses they have ever seen.
It has jumped the species barrier from wild birds to domestic poultry; from domestic poultry to people; and from dead chickens to cats. This latter transmission is [...]