October 7th, 2013
Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: October 7th
Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP
This week’s topics include several papers on the CV safety of diabetes drugs, a follow-up report from the WHI on hormone therapy, clopidogrel and smoking, and more.
December 7th, 2012
Should Body Weight Influence Choice of Antihypertensive Therapy?
Larry Husten, PHD
The hypertension field has been troubled by repeated observations that normal weight patients have more cardiovascular (CV) events than obese patients. Now a new analysis of a large hypertension trial confirms this finding but also suggests that it may be explained by either an adverse effect of diuretics or a protective effect of calcium-channel blockers in non-obese hypertensives. […]
December 6th, 2011
Change in Fitness Appears More Important Than BMI Over Time
Larry Husten, PHD
Experts have been debating the relative roles of obesity and fitness in cardiovascular risk. Now a new report from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, published in Circulation, finds that maintaining or improving cardiorespiratory fitness significantly lowers CV mortality irrespective of changes in BMI. Duck-chul Lee and colleagues followed 14,435 men for 11.4 years. Compared with people […]
March 10th, 2011
Obesity and Cardiovascular Risk: Does Size Matter?
Larry Husten, PHD
A very large new study finds that obesity — no matter how it is calculated — is not an important independent predictor of cardiovascular disease. A report from the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration published online in the Lancet analyzed individual records from more than 220,000 people without known cardiovascular disease and found that none of the […]
February 24th, 2011
Study Probes BMI-Associated Risk in Asia
Larry Husten, PHD
The association between BMI and the risk of death in Asia is mostly similar to that seen in people of European origin, but there may be some important differences between populations, suggesting that being underweight may be a more potent risk factor than being overweight in Asia. In a large pooled analysis including more than […]
February 3rd, 2011
Lancet Papers Outline Worldwide Trends in Obesity, Hypertension, and Cholesterol
Larry Husten, PHD
Three papers published in the Lancet provide the most detailed view yet of worldwide trends over the last 3 decades in body-mass index (BMI), blood pressure, and cholesterol, and also include numerous details about different regions and countries. Here are a few highlights of the reports from the Global Burden of Metabolic Risk Factors of Chronic […]
NEJM Journal Watch — Recent Cardiology Articles- Anticoagulation in Patients with Cancer-Associated Pulmonary Embolism: How Long is Long Enough?
- Spironolactone Use After Percutaneous Intervention for Acute Myocardial Infarction
- CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing for Transthyretin Cardiomyopathy
- Does Colchicine Reduce Cardiac Events After Myocardial Infarction?
- First-Line Therapy for Ventricular Tachycardia After MI: What's the Best Approach?