Already, the benches in gym locker rooms and beside basketball courts are filling with 2012’s early casualties, those of us who, goaded by New Year’s resolutions, are exercising a bit too enthusiastically and developing sore muscles. Many of us will then drape ice packs over our aching muscles. But a new review article published this month in the journal Sports Medicine suggests that for sore muscles, ice is not always the panacea that most of us believe it to be and that, in some instances, it can be counterproductive.
For the study, researchers at the University of Ulster and University of Limerick in Ireland reviewed almost three dozen earlier studies of the effects of using ice to combat sore muscles, a practice that many who exercise often employ. Ice is, after all, the “I” in the acronym RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation), which remains the standard first-aid protocol for dealing with a sports-related injury. Icing is also widely used to deal with muscles that twinge but aren’t formally injured. Watch almost any football, basketball or soccer game, at any level, and you’ll likely see many of the players icing body parts during halftime, preparing to return to play.
But there has been surprisingly little science to support the practice. A 2004 review of icing-related studies published to that point concluded that while cold packs did seem to reduce pain in injured tissues, icing’s overall effects on sore muscles had “not been fully elucidated” and far more study was needed.
Ilsa Katz was 85 when her daughter, Vivian Atkins, first noticed that her mother was becoming increasingly confused.
“She couldn’t remember names, where she’d been or what she’d done that day,” Ms. Atkins recalled in an interview. “Initially, I was not too worried. I thought it was part of normal aging. But over time, the confusion and memory problems became more severe and more frequent.”
Her mother couldn’t remember the names of close relatives or what day it was. She thought she was going to work or needed to go downtown, which she never did. And she was often agitated.
In a city renowned for its love of food, it is only fitting that researchers presented the results of a new study in Paris, France, showing that chocolate is good for the heart and brain. In a presentation at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2011 Congress, British investigators are reporting that individuals who ate the most chocolate had a 37% lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a 29% lower risk of stroke compared with individuals who ate the least amount of chocolate.
In the study, published online August 29, 2011 in BMJ to coincide with the ESC presentation, Dr Adriana Buitrago-Lopez (University of Cambridge, UK) and colleagues state: "Although overconsumption can have harmful effects, the existing studies generally agree on a potential beneficial association of chocolate consumption with a lower risk of cardiometabolic disorders. Our findings confirm this, and we found that higher levels of chocolate consumption might be associated with a one-third reduction in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease."
A new study has confirmed the importance of continuing to take aspirin long term for patients with a history of heart disease.
The study, published online in the British Medical Journal on July 19, 2011, found that patients who stop taking aspirin are at a significantly increased risk of MI than those who continue treatment.
Researchers, led by Dr Luis Garcia Rodriguez (Spanish Centre for Pharmacoepidemiologic Research, Madrid, Spain), explain that low-dose aspirin is a standard treatment for the secondary prevention of cardiovascular outcomes. However, despite strong evidence supporting the protective effects of low-dose aspirin, around half of patients discontinue treatment. While many studies have shown this to be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events, they have all taken place in secondary care centers.
Regular coffee consumption is associated with a striking decrease in fatal or metastatic prostate cancer, according to an analysis of long-term data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Kathryn M. Wilson, ScD, with the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues led the new study, reported online May 17 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
According to the researchers, coffee contains "diverse biologically active compounds that include caffeine, minerals, and phytochemicals." They add that many studies suggest that long-term coffee drinking may be linked to improved glucose metabolism and insulin secretion.
The FDA has issued a final rule requiring drug developers to include in informed consent paperwork the disclosure that clinical information from the trial will be entered onto ClinicalTrials.gov.
The rule—21 C.F.R. § 50.25 in Section 801 of the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA)—was effective March 7, but the compliance date is exactly one year later for trials initiated on or after the compliance date. That means the FDA intends to enforce the rule only for informed consent documents and processes for clinical investigations begun on or after March 7, 2012. Trials begun prior to that date will not be...
February 2, 2011
Palm Beach Clinical Research Organization (PBCRO), a clinical research organization located in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, has been selected by American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. (NYSE: AOB) to conduct American clinical trials of AOBO-developed pharmaceuticals. The partnership was formalized on January 21, 2011 at the historic US-China Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum held in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
AOBO was the only Chinese pharmaceutical company among the Chinese delegation of approximately 60 companies signing agreements with American firms.
Palm Beach CRO is the only American clinical research organization to have participated in this trade agreement.
The announcement comes in the wake of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s official state visit to the United States...
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of fatal stroke in whites but not in blacks, a new study shows.
Although blacks had higher rates of both fatal stroke and vitamin D deficiency, racial differences did not explain the excess risk in blacks compared with whites, said lead author Erin Michos, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
In whites, vitamin D deficiency was associated with a two-fold increase in fatal stroke after adjustment for other risk factors.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday gave clinicians a much-needed new weapon against tough bacterial infections by approving ceftaroline fosamil (Teflaro; Forest Laboratories) for treating community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) and acute bacterial skin and skin-structure infections (ABSSSI), including the notorious methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Ceftaroline, an injectable antibiotic, is a cephalosporin, which counter bacteria by interfering with their cell walls.
The drug's debut comes at a time when bacteria strains such as MRSA have gained resistance to existing antibiotics, leading to higher morbidity and mortality.
In a Norwegian long-term population-based study, moderate wine drinkers had better cognitive test scores after 7 years' follow-up compared with teetotalers and those who rarely drank alcohol, researchers report in July in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.
"Our observations support results from other studies which indicate that light-to-moderate wine consumption could protect against cognitive decline and possibly also vascular and Alzheimer's dementia," first author Kjell A. Arntzen, MD, from the departments of Community Medicine and Neurology, University of Tromsø, Norway, and colleagues conclude.
Reached for independent comment on the study, Mary Ganguli, MD, MPH, professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology at University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said: "I don't think...
Monday, January 16, 2012
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