Medical Research

Contradicting unexpected findings released last week by American researchers, an Australian team Wednesday said it found no evidence that aggressive treatment of diabetes in patients with heart disease increased their risk of death. Physicians and patients were shocked by last week's announcement because it seemed to contradict a long-held tenet of diabetes treatment: that reducing blood glucose levels as much as possible improves health.

An experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis that targets a portion of the immune system not previously subjected to therapy reduced damaging lesions of the nervous system by 91% and relapses of the disease by 58%, researchers report today. A single course of the drug, called rituximab, helped patients for the full 48 weeks of the trial and suggests a new way to treat relapsing-remitting MS, the most common form of the disabling disease.

Studies in rats show that high doses of folate, already used to prevent anemia in pregnant women and to prevent birth defects, can blunt the effects of heart attacks, researchers from Johns Hopkins University say. Giving the supplement for days before a heart attack or infusing it into the bloodstream during an attack reduced damage to the heart by 90%, they found in a study that will be published next month in the journal Circulation. The researchers cautioned that people should not self-medicate until a clinical trial can be performed, but they held out hope that the supplement could be used prophylactically in people at high risk for heart attacks and to treat victims.

Two of the world's bestselling drugs to lower cholesterol may have no benefit, researchers reported Sunday in a development that could significantly alter how patients are treated for heart disease. Based on the news, a top medical journal encouraged doctors to stop routinely prescribing them. Vytorin and a related drug, Zetia, did not reduce fatty plaque in arteries any more than a cheaper generic, researchers said at a major cardiology conference in Chicago.

Improvements in angioplasty in the last few years have made the procedure for unblocking coronary arteries much safer, allowing cardiologists to perform procedures they were reluctant to do in the past. The procedures include performing angioplasty after clot-busting drugs have been given and using it in hospitals that don't have a heart surgery team available for emergencies, researchers said during a weekend cardiology meeting in Chicago.

Contrary to the prevailing belief among cardiologists, reducing blood pressure in people over the age of 80 can sharply reduce the number of heart attacks, strokes and deaths, researchers said Monday. Treatment with one or two inexpensive, well-tolerated drugs produced a 21% drop in overall mortality -- such a significant decrease that the study was ended prematurely so that all of the participants could benefit from the treatment, British researchers said.

Researchers have reported the development of a new combination drug that will allow patients to take high doses of the cholesterol-lowering vitamin niacin without a painful and embarrassing side effect known as flushing.

Scientists mimicked one of cancer's sneaky tricks to create a drug that promises to prevent a serious side effect of cancer treatment -- radiation damage -- or offer an antidote during a nuclear emergency. A dose of the experimental drug protected mice and monkeys from what should have been lethal doses of radiation, researchers reported Friday in the journal Science. A study to see if the compound is safe in people could begin as early as this summer. The drug activates a protein that prevents cells from self-destructing, as they would normally do when damaged by radiation.

Two new reports involving the painkiller Vioxx raise fresh concerns about how drug companies influence the interpretation and publication of medical research. The reports claim that Merck & Co. frequently paid academic scientists to take credit for research articles prepared by company-hired medical writers, a practice called ghostwriting.

For the first time since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women. In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12% of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study being published today. The downward trend is evident in places in the Deep South, Appalachia, the lower Midwest and in one county in Maine.