MATURE MARKET HEADLINES updated 10/8/99
Some Artery-Narrowing Plaque Is Benign
The plaque that narrows arteries can be dangerous or benign, according to the director of the Cardiovascular Institute at New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center. Dr Valentin Fuster says researchers are close to developing new tests that will predict which people with plaque-clogged arteries will have heart attacks and which won't.
Until recently, doctors believed that any plaque narrowing the coronary arteries was a heart attack waiting to happen. But now, research indicates that not all plaque is created equal. The main issue, explains Dr Fuster, is not only the narrowness of the artery, but also the composition of the plaque narrowing the artery. "Hard" plaques are relatively harmless. But "soft" plaques, the kind rich in cholesterol, are most likely to rupture.
Researchers, says Fuster, once thought that heart attacks were the result of a blood clot forming on a piece of plaque that had ruptured. But today, scientists are beginning to see that in about one-third of heart attacks, there is no plaque, only a blood clot. These cases are related to an inflammation of the blood itself, often triggered by cholesterol or cigarette smoke, according to Dr Fuster.
A new kind of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology is already being used in research laboratories to tell which plaques are dangerously soft and most likely to rupture. And new tests for a substance in blood called "c-reactive protein" can detect blood that is inflamed and most apt to form clots.
Read the entire interview with Dr Fuster and learn all the details about this new finding in the October issue of "New Choices: living even better after 50", on news stands now. This is sure to become the talk-of-the-town, and you don't want to be the only one at the next cocktail party who hasn't read up on this great news.
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Gammalinolenic Herb Jump-starts Healing
As experts in life support and critical care medicine, anesthesiologists often treat patients suffering from a frequently fatal condition known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). ARDS claims the lives of 60 percent of patients with this syndrome and is one of the most vexing problems in intensive care medicine. Now with the discovery of a nutritional supplement called gammalinolenic, doctors may be able to help jump-start the healing process in some of their patients.
ARDS is caused by inhalation of a foreign body, trauma or a bacterial infection. The illness is marked by severe inflammation of the lungs, accumulation of fluid in the lungs and major breathing difficulties. Everything from nitric oxide to liquid ventilation has been tried as a treatment but with little success.
In response to the need for better treatment strategies, anesthesiologists from the Mayo Clinic discovered the healing powers of a common herb that significantly improves patients' chances for recovery. Reporting their findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Mayo researchers say that the herb is an oil derived from the seeds of the borage plant.
In the study, patients were fed a diet of borage seed oil, fish oil, protein, carbohydrates and antioxidants. The result was a 35 percent reduction in the death rate among patients who received the experimental treatment. An analysis of fluid samples from the lungs of ARDS patients taken before treatment and at four-day and seven-day intervals revealed significantly lower white blood cell counts in patients who received the special diet. This represents "a sign of reduced inflammation", reports anesthesiologist Michael J. Murray, M.D., PhD.
Laboratory studies suggest the diet's benefits are not from its high levels of fats and antioxidants, but from the substance common to the oil of the borage seed plant called gammalinolenic acid. The researchers believe this compound reduces inflammation, improves oxygen flow and increases the chances of patient recovery.
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AARP & UN Dispel Myths of Older Women
Isn't it ironical that the world's largest and fastest growing market, older women, is the least understood? And that lack of knowledge can be devastating to any business hoping to prosper in the next millennium. As a case in point, the number of women worldwide aged 60 and over is expected to more than double by year 2025 to 645 million.
As you might expect, the word is getting out about this global opportunity, and every industry from Hollywood to Madison Avenue is taking notice. In fact, for the first time, industry experts and scholars will gather at the United Nations to explore this issue at a three-day international symposium October 13-15. Entitled "The Impact of Globalization on the Images of Older Women", the symposium will examine how western media portray older women, and the effect of those images on our global community.
These "elder image" issues will be tackled by the image makers themselves, academic researchers, policy makers, and media advocates from around the globe. This ground-breaking, historic event is sponsored by AARP and the Netherlands Platform on Older People in Europe, in collaboration with the United Nations Programme on Ageing. The resulting report will be presented to the UN Division for the Advancement of Women.
"The United Nations designated 1999 the International Year of Older Persons," says AARP's Elizabeth K. Mullen. "But for older women, the rewards of maturity ... are diminished by these frightful stereotypes." Mullen hopes the symposium will not only examine, but also resolve, the negative consequences that media stereotypes impose on older women.
In the opinion of AgeVenture News, this symposium offers a win-win situation. Elder female consumers will finally get their due respect, and business will embrace a great and growing marketplace. With everything to gain and nothing to lose, this is one symposium that deserves the full attention of both women and business.
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New Heart By-Pass Guidelines Aid Doctors
Millions of people with clogged arteries now have a new tool to help them decide, with their doctors, if bypass surgery will help them live longer and better. A set of comprehensive guidelines for physicians, established under the direction of Kim Eagle, M.D., University of Michigan, appears in the October issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The guidelines divide heart patients into categories that predict how well bypass will work for them based on their heart condition, age and other factors. "We used the most current knowledge about bypass to give doctors and patients a way to evaluate all the possible risks and benefits together," says Eagle. "We even address newer procedures, such as minimally invasive bypass, for which we urge caution in the face of uncertainty over success rates and complications."
Bypass surgery restores blood flow to the heart by transplanting a patient's own veins or arteries to go around one or more blocked arteries. The past decade has seen major developments in the form of new diagnostic tools, bypass procedures and methods for preventing or addressing common complications, says Eagle. The result is a marked improvement in post-operative survival, with more than 80 percent of patients still alive 10 years after their operation.
The guidelines conclude that for certain classes of patients, bypass can be just as effective and cost-effective as other treatments, such as medications to control angina and reduce cholesterol, and angioplasty to remove the blockages in heart arteries. However, bypass isn't for everybody, the new guidelines warn. There are many patients with stable coronary artery disease who are best managed with medications and lifestyle interventions. These include appropriate use of medications, eating right, stopping smoking and exercising.
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Cell Enzyme Bio-Marker for Alzheimer's
Scientists have discovered a new molecular marker for Alzheimer's disease (AD), a normal cellular protein that piles up in nerve cells ravaged by the disease. A research team supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined the brains of people who had died from AD and found abnormally large amounts of a normal enzyme in the body called casein kinase-1 (CK-1). The findings indicate that a high CK-1 level in cell vacuoles may be a useful marker for AD, along with the two other long-recognized cellular abnormalities, or "lesions," associated with the disease: plaques and tangles.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible disorder that worsens with time. As a result of damage to brain cells, AD produces its hallmark symptoms: mild forgetfulness that progresses to severe and debilitating memory loss. Except for a minority of cases (6 to 7 percent) caused by faulty genes, scientists don't yet know what causes this devastating disease that affects an estimated 4 million people in the United States.
"The most important conclusion from our work is the existence of a molecular connection between the different lesions of Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Jeffrey Kuret of Ohio State University and senior author of the new study. Other team members were from Northwestern University Medical Center and Rush Presbyterian Medical Center (both in Chicago), and ICOS Corporation (in Bothell, Washington). The work appears in the October issue of the American Journal of Pathology.
No doubt the complete story will not be a simple one; for a disease as complicated as AD, scientists reason that many proteins may collectively contribute to this debilitating disease. Researchers welcome the discovery of CK-1 and other identifiable disease-specific features, called "biomarkers," that can serve as markers of disease in autopsied brains. Such biomarkers may soon offer promise in diagnosing early-stage AD in living brains.
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Age-Related Sight Loss Higher for Whites
Two independent studies published in the June 1999 issue of Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, have found Caucasians at a higher risk for developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) than either African-Americans or Mexican-Americans.
AMD is the most common cause of legal blindness among the elderly in the United States. It affects the macula, the small area at the back of the eye that allows us to see fine details clearly. AMD leads to loss of central vision, making it difficult to read, recognize faces, drive an automobile, and perform many other common daily activities, such as watching television.
The first study, lead by Robert Klein, M.D., was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the Research to Prevent Blindness. Researchers examined 8,270 Americans, over the age of 40, of Caucasian, African-American, and Mexican-American heritage. Pigmentary abnormalities and symptoms of AMD, such as leaking blood vessels, were found in 46 Caucasians versus four African-Americans and four Mexican-Americans.
In the second study lead by David S. Friedman, M.D., nearly 3,000 Caucasians and 2,400 African-Americans, 40 years of age or older from East Baltimore, Maryland were examined. AMD was more common among Caucasians than African-Americans. Over two percent of the Caucasians tested, 70 years of age, had AMD, while no cases were detected among the 243 African-Americans in this age group. In the Caucasian subjects over the age of 80, seven out of 100 had some form of AMD, compared to zero African-Americans in the same age group.
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