• Migraine Plus High BP May Raise Stroke Risk: Expert

    Updated: 2011-06-27 19:47:05
    According to one expert, people who suffer from migraines and high blood pressure could be more likely to suffer a stroke than those who only have high blood pressure.

  • Chantix may cause heart attacks

    Updated: 2011-06-22 17:00:00
    The drug varenicline—sold under the brand name Chantix and used to help smokers quit—may increase the risk of heart problems, the FDA has warned. Varenicline more than doubles a smoker’s chance of quitting compared with willpower alone, but it has...

  • Many heart failure patients don't benefit from pacemakers

    Updated: 2011-06-17 06:45:00
    Nearly 40 percent of heart-failure patients who use pacemakers get little or no benefit from them, according to a study published online this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Pacemakers are battery-powered devices sometimes used in heart-failure patients to...

  • STICH examines the role of CABG in heart failure

    Updated: 2011-06-11 01:31:38
    While the efficacy of CABG in improving both morbidity and mortality in patients with severe coronary artery disease and angina was established in the 1970’s, the majority of patients who took part in these initial ground-breaking studies had normal or near normal ventricular function.  The role of CABG in treating patients with poor systolic LV [...]

  • PRECOMBAT: PCI viable for unprotected left main disease

    Updated: 2011-06-11 01:17:23
    The SYNTAX study, which randomised patients with complex severe coronary disease to either CABG or PCI, found that CABG remains a superior treatment option for the majority of these patients.  However, in a substudy of patients who had left main stem (LMS) disease, SYNTAX suggested equipoise between the two treatments.  Since then, the debate about [...]

  • An answer to a question

    Updated: 2011-06-09 22:42:12
    I received a question on a recent blog from a 67 year old woman.  She wanted to know what a calcium score of 44 meant.  Hers happened to be in the left anterior descending, but it could be anywhere in the coronary tree. The answer is unfortunately poor in that we don’t quite know, and likely [...]

  • Zocor Receives New FDA Warning Label

    Updated: 2011-06-09 02:47:02
    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ordered a new warning label for the cholesterol medication Zocor, saying that the drug has an increased risk of muscle damage when taken at its highest dosage.

  • Aim-High…and fail Part III

    Updated: 2011-06-07 22:24:15
    Who killed Kennedy?  Did we fake the moon landings?  Is that really President Obama’s birth certificate?  Is Fox News really true and accurate?  Some ideas just won’t go away no matter how many negative facts build up against it. Such is the case with niacin and coronary disease.  In light of this latest news, there is [...]

  • Aim-High…and fail. The failure of a system Part II

    Updated: 2011-06-02 22:12:21
    AccessMedicine © 1978-Present McGraw-Hill and/or its respective owners. Aim-High was a study to determine if patients who had cardiovascular disease but persistently low HDL levels and high triglycerides would be benefited by adding slow release niacin to their drug therapy. I have blogged about Niacin and it’s troubled past before.  It was the substance tested in the [...]

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