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Hospitals facing pressure to hold down costs and cut infections; drug shortages reported

For the first time in its history, Medicare will soon track spending on millions of individual beneficiaries, reward hospitals that hold down costs and penalize those whose patients prove most expensive. The administration plans to establish "Medicare spending per beneficiary" as a new measure of hospital performance, just like the mortality rate for heart attack patients and the infection rate for surgery patients.

1 Jun 2011

Rochester receives $1M FDA, BDRSA grant to begin first controlled clinical trial in Juvenile Batten disease

After years of building hope for a treatment, Rochester researchers and clinicians will begin the first controlled clinical trial for Juvenile Batten disease this summer, thanks to $1 million in grants from the Food and Drug Administration and the Batten Disease Support and Research Association.

1 Jun 2011

Researchers discover new drug target that may effectively prevent onset of Huntington's disease

McMaster University researchers have discovered a new drug target that may be effective at preventing the onset of Huntington's disease, working much the same way heart medications slow the progression of heart disease and reduce heart attacks.

1 Jun 2011

First Edition: May 31, 2011

Today's headlines include articles on the federal efforts to improve hospital quality, the politics of Medicare and the move by some GOP governors to set up health exchanges.

31 May 2011

Spectranetics to showcase new advanced peripheral atherectomy simulation system at New Cardiovascular Horizons

Spectranetics Corporation today announced it will showcase a new advanced peripheral atherectomy simulation system at the New Cardiovascular Horizons meeting in New Orleans.

31 May 2011

Cancer drug helps prevent hypertensive heart disease

A promising cancer treatment drug can restore function of a heart en route to failure from high blood pressure, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

31 May 2011

Mouse Phylogeny Viewer

Laboratory research has always been limited in terms of what conclusions scientists can safely extrapolate from animal experiments to the human population as a whole. Many promising findings in mice have not held up under further experimentation, in part because laboratory animals, bred from a limited genetic foundation, don't provide a good representation of how genetic diversity manifests in the broader human population.

30 May 2011

Study on entire Swedish population affirms significance of hereditary factors for venous thromboembolism

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is the third most common type of cardiovascular disease after coronary heart disease and stroke. Researchers at the Centre for Primary Health Care Research in Malmö have mapped the significance of hereditary factors for venous thromboembolism in the entire Swedish population by studying the risk of VTE in children of parents with VTE compared with the children of parents who have not had VTE.

30 May 2011

'Ultra-bad' cholesterol increases risk of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes

Scientists from the University of Warwick have discovered why a newly found form of cholesterol seems to be 'ultra-bad', leading to increased risk of heart disease. The discovery could lead to new treatments to prevent heart disease particularly in people with type 2 diabetes and the elderly.

30 May 2011

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis can avoid mother to child transmission of mtDNA disorders

Dutch researchers have developed a test which predicts which mothers at risk of passing on mitochondrial genetic disease to their children are likely to have a healthy baby.

30 May 2011

Lipidomic profiling can lead to better and earlier prediction of major diseases

Studying the genetic make-up of different varieties of lipids in the blood plasma of an individual can lead to a better and earlier prediction of diseases such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, and heart disease, two researchers will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today.

30 May 2011

Woman's risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy can be identified seven years before

A woman's risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy can be identified up to seven years before she becomes pregnant based on routinely assessed measures of blood sugar and body weight, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the online issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

30 May 2011

Short warm-ups improve athlete's power output and help lessen muscle fatigue

University of Calgary Faculty of Kinesiology researcher Elias Tomaras says the idea came to him while watching track and field sprinters warm-up for a race. "If you watch sprinters, short distance speed skaters or cyclists before their race, they will often warm-up for one to two hours, including several brief bouts of high intensity exercise. From an exercise physiology point of view, it seemed like it might be pretty tiring."

30 May 2011

NovaShunt launches new corporate identity and product branding

NovaShunt AG has launched a new corporate identity and product branding to support its goal of leadership in the area of fluid management within the body. The company will now operate as Sequana Medical AG it prepares for the upcoming launch of the ALFApump System in Europe.

30 May 2011

Cholesterol drug Niaspan fails to protect heart: Study

According to researchers at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), increasing the dose of niacin to patients with heart disease who are already taking a cholesterol-lowering statin does nothing extra to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Approximately one out of seven Americans have high blood cholesterol, a main risk factor in heart disease, which kills some 800,000 people in the United States annually.

29 May 2011

Ultra bad cholesterol

Bad cholesterol, known as LDL is known to be sticky but this ultra –bad called MGmin-LDL is found to be stickier meaning it's more likely to attach to arterial walls. This is more dangerous because when LDL attaches to artery walls it forms fatty plaques that cause coronary heart disease (CHD). As fatty plaques grow, they narrow the arteries and reduce blood flow and also may trigger a stroke or heart attack. CHD is the most common type of heart disease and kills almost 450,000 Americans each year.

29 May 2011

High blood pressure becoming more common in young adults: Study

According to a new study about one in five young adults may have high blood pressure. The researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed blood pressure data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, called Add Health, and compared it with data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, commonly referred to as NHANES. They focused specifically on the information about adults age 24 to 32.

29 May 2011

Efficacy of Abbott cholesterol drug in question

A latest study has found that using medication to raise good cholesterol while lowering the bad does NOT translate into fewer adverse cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes. The study was revealed Thursday by the National Institutes of Health and it found that high dosages of Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan failed to prevent heart attacks and boosted the likelihood of a stroke when combined with the popular generic cholesterol pill Simvastatin, also known under the brand name Zocor.

29 May 2011

New smart phone application provides pediatric and adult ER wait times directly to phone

Managing your health just got easier with the launch of Emergency Room (ER) wait times for adult and pediatric HealthONE ERs throughout the Denver metro area. The new Denver smart phone application, HealthONE Fast LocatER, will provide wait times directly to your smart phone as well as locate the nearest HealthONE ER, find a physician, make an appointment request, call 911 and more.

27 May 2011

AHRQ: 94% of women hospitalized for pregnancy and delivery in the U.S. had complications

Over 9 out of every 10 women giving birth in the United States had some complication in 2008, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

27 May 2011

Heart News and Research

Hospitals facing pressure to hold down costs and cut infections; drug shortages reported

Rochester receives $1M FDA, BDRSA grant to begin first controlled clinical trial in Juvenile Batten disease

Researchers discover new drug target that may effectively prevent onset of Huntington's disease

First Edition: May 31, 2011

Spectranetics to showcase new advanced peripheral atherectomy simulation system at New Cardiovascular Horizons

Cancer drug helps prevent hypertensive heart disease

Mouse Phylogeny Viewer

Study on entire Swedish population affirms significance of hereditary factors for venous thromboembolism

'Ultra-bad' cholesterol increases risk of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis can avoid mother to child transmission of mtDNA disorders

Lipidomic profiling can lead to better and earlier prediction of major diseases

Woman's risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy can be identified seven years before

Short warm-ups improve athlete's power output and help lessen muscle fatigue

NovaShunt launches new corporate identity and product branding

Cholesterol drug Niaspan fails to protect heart: Study

Ultra bad cholesterol

High blood pressure becoming more common in young adults: Study

Efficacy of Abbott cholesterol drug in question

New smart phone application provides pediatric and adult ER wait times directly to phone

AHRQ: 94% of women hospitalized for pregnancy and delivery in the U.S. had complications

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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