Archive - Sep 30, 2008

Individuals with Medicaid insurance and those who live in neighborhoods with lower household incomes appear less likely than others to reach the hospital within two hours of having a heart attack, according to a report in the September 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Patients tend to have better outcomes after an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) if they receive medical treatment in a timely manner, according to background information in the article.

New research out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that use of the most commonly prescribed once-a-day treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for longer than one month increases the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack or stroke by more than 50 percent.

Researchers Sonal Singh, M.D., M.P.H., and Curt Furberg, M.D., Ph.D., of Wake Forest, along with Yoon K. Loke, at the University of East Anglia, UK, conducted a meta-analysis of 17 double-blind, randomized trials involving a total of 14,783 patients with COPD.

Men who believe they are at low risk of a heart attack may in fact live longer than those with a more pessimistic outlook, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of more than 2,800 adults followed for 15 years, men who thought they were at lower-than-average risk of a heart attack were 70 percent less likely than other men to die of heart disease or stroke—even with their objective risks taken into account.