Vioxx & Celebrex Raise Risk of First & Repeat Heart Attack: Large Study

July 8th, 2005 Merck tried to patent a drug that would reduce heart attack risks for Vioxx (COX-2 selective inhibitors) users, three years before the company withdrew the painkiller drug from the market because of safety concerns. According to government records, the company applied for the patent in 2001.

July 23rd, 2005 A doctor told jurors yesterday in the nation's first Vioxx lawsuit that the drug contributed to the death of a Texas man, aged 59, who had an arrhythmia linked to a heart attack in 2001. ''His taking of Vioxx caused and/or contributed to his heart attack," Dr.

October 7th, 2005 I have moved the coverage of all Health related news to a separate blog - Consanesco. Here is the summary of important news from this week: Cervical Cancer Preventable with Vaccination Repeat Angioplasty Increases Heart Attack Risk NSAID Lowers Oral Cancer Risk in Smokers; Increases Heart Disease Risk Why Babies of Diabetic Women with are 2-5 Times more Likely to Develop Birth Defects And How to Prevent it

September 27th, 2005 Pfizer Inc. said U.S. regulators (FDA) have approved its cholesterol lowering drug Lipitor. Lipitor is used to reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack in diabetic patients.

August 16th, 2005 The odds are against Merck & Co. prevailing in a wrongful-death civil Vioxx lawsuit being tried in Texas, an analyst at Prudential Equity Group says.

November 21st, 2005 No, it is not a typo. However read the full article.

May 18th, 2005 Valsartan, commercially known as Diovan, a drug that controls blood pressure and reduces heart risk, also appears to protect against diabetes, especially in high-risk people, according to new research presented at the American Society of Hypertension's Twentieth Annual Scientific Meeting and Exposition (ASH 2005) by a University of Michigan physician who helped lead the study. The randomized trial involved 15,313 patients at 942 sites in 31 countries, of whom 9,995 did not have diabetes at the start of the study.

May 7th, 2005 Cranberries are long known for beneficial effects on UTI (Urinary Tract Infection). Diabetic and immunosuppressed patients (after kidney or heart transplant) are more susceptible to recurrent UTI problems, women much more then men.

April 22nd, 2005 The same gene that accounts for part of a genetic risk for developing alcoholism in a U.S. population is found in a Russian population, according to a published study by a Yale School of Medicine researcher.

November 15th, 2006 A few bits of dark chocolate a day can have the same benefit as aspirin in reducing blood clots and preventing heart attacks, researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine concluded in a study of chocolate lovers. "What these chocolate 'offenders' taught us is that the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack," lead researcher Diane Becker from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine told the annual conference of the American Heart Association, in Chicago.

August 9th, 2005 Overweight or obese has long been recognized as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The results of a new study are clarifying the nature of the link between weight and diabetes.

March 23rd, 2005 "Positron Emission Tomography is being installed at AIIMS next month, through which we will get the final proof of our work on heart patients. All the patients would be screened for finding how viable our work was and would also study various heart tissues of the patients metabolically," Dr P Venugopal, director AIIMS, said.  "We also plan to inject stem cells directly into the pancreatic arteries of patients suffering from diabetes," he says.

April 2nd, 2005 According to the team, as waist circumference increased, so did the risk of developing diabetes, with the risk in men with the highest waist circumference (up to 158 centimeters) increasing by 12-fold, they report. "Our findings support the contention that the measurement of waist circumference should be used in clinical practice instead of waist-to-hip ratio," the investigators write.

March 23rd, 2005 Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have found genetic regions that, when defective, allow the immune system to attack the pancreas - the first in a series of mis-steps that lead to type 1 diabetes. Armed with these findings, published today, March 22, in the journal Immunity, the researchers are now trying to hone in on the exact genes involved, in mice and in human patients.

September 7th, 2005 A simple ten minute survey to determine your life expectancy. It says about me: In an extremely high risk overweight category, meaning you are at extremely high risk for obesity-related illnesses such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and cancer.