Common drugs used to control cholesterol, blood sugar and high blood pressure might also lower a person’s risk of stroke, a new study finds. The researchers evaluated the risk of brain aneurysms that cause bleeding strokes in patients. For the study, they looked at the medical records for nearly 4,900 patients who had a bleeding stroke, and compared them against nearly 44,000 people who never had a brain aneurysm. They identified four specific drugs that appeared to lower the risk of a brain aneurysm, after accounting for other risk factors: The high blood pressure drug lisinopril reduced risk by 37%. The cholesterol drug simvastatin decreased risk by 22%. The diabetes drug metformin lowered risk by 42%. The prostate drug tamsulosin reduced risk by 45%. “We urgently need new ways to prevent this type of stroke, which occurs at younger ages and with a higher death rate than other types of stroke,” said researcher Jos Peter Kanning, with the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. “Our current surgical treatments for brain aneurysms have a risk of permanent disability and death that often outweighs the potential benefits, so preventing rupture with a noninvasive drug would be very beneficial,” Kanning added in a university news release. On the other hand, four drugs increased the risk of a bleeding stroke: the blood thinner warfarin, the antidepressant venlafaxine, the…  read on >  read on >

Less than one-quarter of people who survive serious heart conditions receive the dietary counseling needed to protect their future health, a new study finds. Only about 23% of people treated for major illnesses like heart attack and heart failure receive counseling on their diet within three months of hospitalization, researchers reported recently in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “Nutrition counseling may reduce the risk a person has for cardiovascular episodes and disease, yet our research shows that the vast majority of patients, who are all at risk after significant heart events, are not receiving this essential education,” said senior researcher Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, a professor of internal medicine-cardiology at the University of Michigan Medical School. For the study, researchers tracked nearly 150,000 patients seen for serious heart problems at hospitals across Michigan between late 2015 and early 2020. Most of the patients who did receive dietary counseling got it as part of a cardiac rehabilitation program. Only 20% to 30% of eligible patients take advantage of such rehab, researchers noted. Outside of cardiac rehab, doctors offered dietary counseling just 5% of the time. It might be that the doctors don’t have the time to offer diet advice, or don’t consider themselves expert enough to provide good counseling, researchers said. “When patients receive this education, we have seen tremendous results — some…  read on >  read on >

Caffeine has been associated with a reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, but a new study says a coffee jolt might not be good for people already diagnosed with the brain disorder. Consuming caffeine appears to blunt the brain’s ability to use dopamine, the hormone that lies at the heart of Parkinson’s symptoms, researchers reported recently in the journal Annals of Neurology. Patients with high caffeine consumption had an 8% to 15% greater decrease in the ability of dopamine to bind with receptors in the brain, compared to those who took in less caffeine, results show.  “While caffeine may offer certain benefits in reducing risk of Parkinson’s disease, our study suggests that high caffeine intake has no benefit on the dopamine systems in already diagnosed patients,” said principal researcher Valtteri Kaasinen, a professor of neurology with the University of Turku in Finland. “A high caffeine intake did not result in reduced symptoms of the disease, such as improved motor function,” Kaasinen added in a university news release. Parkinson’s occurs when nerve cells that produce the brain chemical dopamine start to die.  Reduced levels of dopamine wind up causing the movement problems associated with the disease, including tremors, muscle stiffness and impaired balance and coordination. For this study, researchers performed brain scans on 163 early-stage Parkinson’s patients and 40 healthy people. The scans tracked changes in…  read on >  read on >

Folks typically think of heart disease as a byproduct of modern fast-food living, but a new study shows the condition has plagued humanity for centuries. More than a third (37%) of 237 adult mummies from seven different cultures spanning more than 4,000 years had evidence of clogged arteries, CT scans revealed. Researchers say the results show that humans have an innate risk of atherosclerosis — a build-up of plaque in the arteries that can lead to heart attack and stroke. “We found atherosclerosis in all time periods — dating before 2,500 BCE — in both men and women, in all seven cultures that were studied, and in both elites and non-elites,” said lead researcher Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo. “This further supports our previous observation that it is not just a modern condition caused by our modern lifestyles.” The mummies came from around the world, including ancient Egyptians, lowland ancient Peruvians, ancient highland Andean Bolivians, 19th century Aleutian Islander hunter-gatherers, 16th century Greenlandic Inuits, ancestral Puebloan, and Middle-Ages Gobi Desert pastoralists, researchers said. Most cases were consistent with early heart disease that’s often found on CT scans of modern patients, researchers said. The findings were published May 28 in the European Heart Journal. “This study indicates modern cardiovascular risk factors — such as smoking, sedentary…  read on >  read on >

Feeding kids peanuts early in childhood can drastically reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy, a new clinical trial reports. Children regularly fed peanut products from infancy to age 5 had a 71% lower rate of peanut allergies by the time they reached their teen years, researchers reported May 28 in the journal NEJM Evidence. The study “should reinforce parents’ and caregivers’ confidence that feeding their young children peanut products beginning in infancy according to established guidelines can provide lasting protection from peanut allergy,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).  “If widely implemented, this safe, simple strategy could prevent tens of thousands of cases of peanut allergy among the 3.6 million children born in the United States each year,” Marrazzo said in a NIAID news release. For the study, researchers tracked more than 500 kids who had earlier participated in a clinical trial to test exposure to peanut as a means of warding off peanut allergy. Half of the kids regularly consumed peanuts from infancy, while the other half avoided peanuts. Early introduction of peanut into their diets reduced kids’ risk of peanut allergy by 81% at age 5, researchers found. This new study followed up on those findings by tracking the kids into adolescence, with an average age of 13. The researchers found that…  read on >  read on >

The rate at which Americans under the age of 65 suffered a stroke rose by about 15% between 2011 and 2022, new government data shows. That was true even among the young: The rate of stroke jumped 14.6% among people ages 18 to 44 during the study period, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. It’s not clear why stroke rates have risen so sharply, but rising rates of obesity and high blood pressure are likely contributing factors. Another reason could be that people are better now at spotting the signs of a stroke, said a team led by Yui Fujii, of the CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. “Better recognition of stroke signs and symptoms might have potentially contributed to increased stroke prevalence, because earlier stroke treatment contributes to improved outcomes” and more survivors, his team said. Stroke remains the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. According to the National Institutes of Health, each year 795,000 Americans will suffer a stroke, and about 137,000 will die. In the new report, Fujii’s group tracked 2011-2022 data from a U.S. national health surveillance system to spot trends in stroke incidence among Americans aged 18 and older. Overall, stroke increased by 7.8% among Americans during those 11 years, the data showed. The rate of stroke among seniors remained…  read on >  read on >

Many teens are spending their days buzzed on caffeine, with their parents mostly unaware of the potential risks, a new national poll says. A quarter of parents reported that caffeine is basically part of their teen’s daily life, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health released Monday. Two out of three parents said they know whether their teen’s caffeine intake is appropriate, and which products contain too much caffeine, poll results say. However, a third of parents weren’t able to identify the recommended caffeine limits for teens, researchers found after polling just over 1,000 U.S. parents in February. “Our report suggests parents may not always be aware of how much they should be limiting caffeine consumption for teens,” said poll co-director and Mott pediatrician Dr. Susan Woolford. “Even for parents who know the recommendations, estimating their teen’s caffeine intake can be challenging.” Most teens chose soda as their caffeine source, with tea and coffee coming in second, poll results found. Less than a quarter of parents said their teen consumes energy drinks. Older teens are more often caffeine users. More parents of kids ages 16 to 18 years than parents of those ages 13 to 15 report their teen consumes coffee daily, the poll found. “Caffeine is a drug that stimulates the brain and nervous system,…  read on >  read on >

If you suddenly find yourself craving food or drink right before you head to bed, one expert suggests you steer clear of big meals and caffeine. “From a sleep standpoint, you shouldn’t eat a big meal at 8 p.m. if you plan to go to bed at 9 p.m. If you are sensitive to caffeine, I would say to stop drinking it around noon,” said Roberta Anding, a registered dietitian and assistant professor in the Joseph Barnhart Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “Drinking caffeine before bed will impact your sleep. The average person takes about 10 to 20 minutes to fall asleep,” she said in a Baylor news release. “If you have caffeine in your system or are sensitive to it, this amount of time can double.” And watch out for hidden sources of caffeine: “Caffeine is not only found in coffee, tea and some soft drinks but can also be added to the pre-workout drink you take before going to the gym,” Anding said. Similar warnings apply to eating heavy meals late at night. Anding explained that consuming a big meal before bed will impact blood flow and alter sleep/wake cycles. “Having a lot of food in your stomach before bed can redirect blood flow to your gut to digest the food, meaning there is less blood flow…  read on >  read on >