Monthly Archives: January 2019


Heavy Workouts Not Linked to High Mortality

A US prospective observational study showed that high levels of physical activity are associated with prevalent coronary artery calcification (CAC) but are not associated with increased all-cause or cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality after a decade of follow-up, even in the presence of clinically significant CAC levels. The study included 21 […]


Optimal Duration of Cardiac Monitoring Following Syncope

A prospective Canadian cohort study suggested that serious underlying arrhythmia was often identified within the first 2-hours of emergency department (ED) arrival for low-risk patients, and within 6-hours for medium- and high-risk patients. Outpatient cardiac rhythm monitoring for 15-days for selected medium-risk patients and all high-risk patients discharged from the […]


Blood Neurofilament Light Chain, a Biomarker of Neurodegeneration

A cohort study revealed that blood neurofilament light chain (NfL) changes predict disease progression and brain neurodegeneration more than a decade before the onset of familial Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study included 243 participants with an early-onset genetic variant known to cause dominantly inherited AD and 162 unaffected relatives as […]


Dietary Fiber Linked to Health

A  series  of  systematic  reviews  and  meta-analyses  of  prospective  studies  and  randomized  controlled  trials with relatively high intakes of dietary fiber and whole grains revealed complementary findings, and striking dose-response evidence indicates that the relationships to several non-communicable diseases could be causal. The analyses included about 135 million person-years of […]


Genetics May Influence the Effects of Vitamin E

A US study suggested that genetic variations may be at play with vitamin E, increasing cancer risk in some individuals while decreasing risk for others. Multiple pathways may link the enzyme catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) to the vitamin E supplement, alpha-tocopherol, and cancer. The most extensively studied variant in COMT comes in […]