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BPA 1Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) through consumption of canned beverages is associated with increases in systolic blood pressure, according to a randomized crossover trial in Hypertension. BPA is a chemical found in many plastic bottles, food containers, and the linings of cans.  Sixty older adults (mostly women) had three study visits, during which they consumed two servings of soy milk provided one of three ways: in two glass bottles (least amount of BPA exposure), two cans (most BPA), or one glass bottle and one can. The sequence of serving containers was randomized.  Urinary BPA concentrations were significantly higher 2 hours after participants drank from two cans versus two glass bottles. Furthermore, systolic BP was roughly 4.5 mm Hg higher after two cans versus two glass bottles. The authors write that the observed increase in systolic BP “may cause a clinically significant increase of risk of cardiovascular disorders, such as heart diseases and peripheral arterial diseases.”  Bisphenol A (BPA) is produced in high volumes worldwide. It is used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resin, which are used in the linings of food or beverage cans, water bottles, and dental fillings. BPA has been detected in 95% of the population of the United States.BPA 2

BPA is considered to be an endocrine-disrupting chemical, and it shows affinity for estrogen receptors. It was initially considered to be a weak xenoestrogen, but subsequent studies showed that BPA can have effects even at low concentrations.  In addition, pathways other than binding to estrogen receptors have been proposed. These include the thyroid hormone pathway, binding to BPA 3glucocorticoid receptors and androgen receptors, or interfering with the central nervous system and immune system. Epidemiological studies have suggested that BPA could have adverse effects on human health.  Specifically, BPA exposure has been shown to be associated with increased production of liver enzymes, recurrent miscarriages, premature delivery of fetuses, inflammation and oxidative stress, decreased quality of semen, and male sexual dysfunction.

Source: NEJM Journal Watch

M Diet 2The Mediterranean diet consistently has been linked with an array of health benefits, including decreased risk of chronic disease and cancer. Until now, however, no studies had associated the diet with longer telomeres, one of the biomarkers of aging.

In a study published Tuesday online in The BMJ, researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet correlated with longer telomeres.

Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes that get shorter every time a cell divides. Shorter telomeres have been associated with decreased life expectancy and increased risk of aging-related disease, while longer telomeres have been linked to longevity. Telomere shortening is accelerated by stress and inflammation, and scientists have speculated that adherence to the Mediterranean diet may help protect against that effect.M diet 3

“To our knowledge this is the largest population-based study specifically addressing the association between Mediterranean diet adherence and telomere length in healthy, middle-aged women,” explained Immaculata De Vivo, an associate professor in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the senior author of this study. “Our results further support the benefits of adherence to this diet to promote health and longevity.”

The researchers analyzed 4,676 disease-free women from the Nurses’ Health Study who had completed the food-frequency questionnaire and whose telomere lengths had been measured. They found that a greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with longer telomeres, and that even small changes in diet made a difference.

“Our findings showed that healthy eating, overall, was associated with longer telomeres. However, the strongest association M Dietwas observed among women who adhered to the Mediterranean diet,” explained Marta Crous Bou, a postdoctoral fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine and the first author of the study.

De Vivo notes that future research should be aimed at determining which components of the Mediterranean diet drive this association. This would allow researchers to gain insight into the biological mechanism, as well as provide a basis for increased public education for informed lifestyle choices.

Source: Harvard Gazette

“The Presidential Healthcare Center Provides Nutritional Assessments.”  

Colon CancerIncidences of colorectal cancer have been decreasing by about 1 percent a year since the mid 1980s, but incidences among people under 50 — the recommended screening age — has been increasing sharply, and these younger patients are more likely to present with advanced disease.

The study, published in JAMA Surgery, used a national database of 400,000 patients with colon or rectal cancer. Incidences decreased by about 1 percent a year over all but rose among people 20 to 34, with the largest increase — 1.8 percent a year — in disease that had already progressed to other organs.

Incidence rates today, per 100,000 people, are 3 for ages 20 to 34; 17 for ages 35 to 49; and 300 for people over 50. But by 2030, the researchers estimate, one in 10 colon cancers and one in four rectal cancers will be in people under 50, and rates among those over 50 will be 175 per 100,000.

The study draws no conclusions about whether screening should begin at a younger age. “There are always risks and colon cancer 4unintended consequences of screening tests,” said the senior author, Dr. George J. Chang, an associate professor of surgery and health services research at the University of Texas.

For now, he said, “We have to pay attention to symptoms with which our patients present, and work them up by including colorectal cancer as a part of the differential diagnosis.”

Source: New York Times

The Presidential Healthcare Center’s Executive Physicals include cancer screening and tumor marker tracking.

EDDrinking caffeinated beverages may be associated with a lower likelihood of erectile dysfunction (ED), according to study findings presented at the American Urological Association 2014 annual meeting. Lopez, et al., University of Texas Medical School, Houston, and colleagues analyzed data from 3,724 men aged 20 years and older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2001-2004), a cross-sectional survey of the general U.S. population. The researchers looked at 24-hour dietary recall to estimate intake of caffeine and caffeinated beverages. Overall, men in the 3rd quintile of total caffeine intake (85-170 mg/day) and the 4th quintile (171-303 mg/day) were less likely to report ED compared with men in the first (reference) quintile (0-7 mg/day).

Among overweight and obese men and those with hypertension, the researchers found a ED 3significantly decreased likelihood of reported ED among men in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th quintiles compared with the reference quartile, after adjusting for multiple variables. The authors concluded that total caffeine intake equivalent to about 2-3 cups of coffee (250-375 mg/day) is associated with a significantly lower likelihood to report ED. The team noted that their study is strengthened by the use of a large representative sample of men in the U.S. and validated dietary recall methodology from NHANES. As NHANES is a cross-sectional study, they cannot infer causality or suggest a clinical practice change, the researchers pointed out.

Source: Renal And Urology News

Sleep apnea is a potential health risk for millions of Americans, and a new study points to a possible culprit behind the disorder: a “fat” tongue.

“This is the first study to show that fat deposits are increased in the tongue of obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea,” study senior author Dr. Richard Schwab, co-director of the Sleep Center at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, said in a news release from Sleep, which will publish the findings Oct. 1.Sleep Apnea Tongue

Sleep apnea is a common disorder in which the airways constrict during sleep, leading to repeated stops and starts in breathing. The telltale signs include chronic loud snoring, with periodic gasps or choking — and, for many people, daytime drowsiness because of poor sleep.

But the effects go beyond fatigue. Studies suggest those pauses in breathing stress the nervous system, boosting blood pressure and inflammation in the arteries.

Obese people tend to be at higher risk for sleep apnea, and Schwab’s team say the new findings may help explain the link between obesity and the breathing disorder.

The study included 90 obese adults with sleep apnea and 90 obese adults without the disorder.

The participants with sleep apnea had significantly larger tongues, tongue fat and percentage of tongue fat than those without sleep apnea, the researchers found. The tongue fat in the people with sleep apnea was concentrated at the base of the tongue.

Sleep ApneaIn addition to increasing the size of the tongue, higher levels of tongue fat may prevent muscles that attach the tongue to bone from positioning the tongue away from the airway during sleep, Schwab’s group explained.

While the study found an association between tongue fat content and sleep apnea, it could not prove cause and effect.

However, the researchers believe future studies should assess whether removing tongue fat through weight loss, upper airway exercises or surgery could help treat sleep apnea.

“Tongue size is one of the physical features that should be evaluated by a physician when screening obese patients to determine their risk for obstructive sleep apnea,” American Academy of Sleep Medicine President Dr. Timothy Morgenthaler added in the news release.

“Effective identification and treatment of sleep apnea is essential to optimally manage other conditions associated with this chronic disease, including high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and depression,” he said.

Nearly 35 percent of U.S. adults — 78.6 million people — are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: Detroit Free Press

The Presidential Healthcare Center now offers home sleep studies.  

prostate probMen with a certain pattern of baldness at age 45 had a 39% increased risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer versus men with no baldness, a new U.S. study found.

Men with frontal baldness and moderate baldness on the crown of the head had a higher risk of developing an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Researchers said the finding adds to evidence of a hormone-based, biological link between baldness and prostate cancer, but added that more studies would be needed to support whether baldness patterns should be part of a screening system. Until more research is available, men shouldn’t be overly concerned about baldness patterns, the study’s researchers said.

The hair-loss pattern associated with a higher risk was frontal baldness plus moderate baldness on the vertex, or crown of the head, which about 10% of the men in the study recalled having at age 45. Other patterns—frontal only, and frontal plus mild or severe vertex baldness—weren’t associated with an increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. The results of the study were published online Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The finding arose from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, a large study started in the early 1990s by the National Cancer Institute to determine whether certain screening methods reduce cancer death rates.

In one segment of the trial, from 2006 to 2008, researchers provided questionnaires to men asking them to choose one of five illustrations that most closely resembled their hair-loss patterns at the age of 45, based on memory. The median age of the approximately 39,000 men who responded to the survey was about 70.

After a median follow-up period of 2.8 years after they responded to the survey, about 1,140 cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed. About half of them were classified as aggressive.

About 53% of the total group recalled some form of male-pattern baldness at age 45. Overall, men who had any of the baldness patterns at the age of 45 didn’t have a statistically significant increased risk of any form of prostate cancer later in life, versus men with no baldness.

baldnessHowever, men with frontal plus moderate vertex balding—about 10% of the men in the study—had a 39% increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer versus men with no baldness. Researchers called this a statistically significant finding, meaning it wasn’t likely due to chance.

Still, a large majority of men in this group, and in the study’s other groups, weren’t diagnosed with any prostate cancer during the follow-up period.

If future studies confirm the link, “it may help the doctor-patient discussion about whether men should opt for prostate cancer screening,” said Michael Cook, an epidemiologist with the NCI and one of the study’s authors.

Until then, he cautioned, men shouldn’t be “overly concerned” about their baldness patterns, and shouldn’t alter their current practices and beliefs about prostate cancer screening.

The study had certain limitations, including relying on men’s recollection of their baldness patterns years earlier, and an under-representation of black men.

Prostate-cancer screening has become controversial in recent years amid evidence that it has led to overtreatment of the disease. The American Cancer Society estimates a man’s lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer is 15.3%, while the risk of dying from it is 2.7%.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Airports in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are relying on a familiar tool to stop the spread of Ebola: the thermometer.

Airport staff are measuring the temperature of anyone trying to leave the country, looking for “unexplained febrile illness,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is advising these countries on their exit screening processes.

Ebola ThermometerOther countries that are far from the infected region are screening passengers arriving from West Africa or who have a history of travel to the region. Temperature takers include Russia, Australia and India.

Travelers who exhibit an elevated fever, generally over 101.4 degrees Fahrenheit (though it varies by country), are stopped for further screening. That could mean a questionnaire or medical tests.

Critics of exit screening have pointed out the flaws in using thermometers: fever can lay dormant for two to 21 days in someone who’s been infected with Ebola, and low-grade fevers can be lowered further by simple medications like Tylenol or Advil.

While they can’t predict symptoms before they emerge, the CDC is prepared to thwart those trying to mask a fever with a pill.

“Airline and airport staff are trained to do visual checks of anyone who looks even slightly ill,” says Tai Chen, a quarantine medical officer from the CDC who returned from Liberia this past Tuesday. “And most airports are using multiple temperature checks, starting when you arrive on the airport grounds in your car until you get on the plane. Even if you take medication, your fever will likely have manifested by then.”

Here’s a look at the three methods that can be used in airport exit screening.

Ear Gun Thermometer:

Looks like: An electric toothbrush without the head.ear tests

How it works: The pointy end, covered with a plastic cap, goes in the patient’s ear while the other end is held by the airport employee six or eight inches away. After each use, the cap is discarded and replaced.

What it measures: The human ear drum’s temperature closely mimics the body’s internal temperature. The closer the thermometer can get to the ear drum without touching the fragile membrane, the more accurate the reading.

Is it accurate? The average ear gun thermometer doesn’t get close enough to the membrane to give a true reading, says Marybeth Pompeii, chief clinical scientist at Exergen, a thermometer company. Instead, it averages nearby temperatures and applies “an algorithm to produce the final temperature.” But Dr. Amesh Adalja, a public health expert for the Infectious Disease Society of America, says this margin of error won’t matter when it comes to catching Ebola patients: “Ear thermometers are accurate within a reasonable range. If you have a fever, these thermometers will register it.”

Other concerns: Because the same thermometer is used on many passengers, the device could become contaminated. All those plastic caps add to the expense. And the airport staff with the thermometer is in close proximity with potentially infectious passengers.

Also, the thermometers need to be calibrated correctly — which could explain how NPR correspondent Jason Beaubien registered a cool 91 degrees Fahrenheit in Sierra Leone last month. This temperature indicates extreme hypothermia, but was of little concern to the airport workers, who were looking for dangerously high temperatures, not low.

Full-Body Infrared Scanners

Looks like: It’s a camera, sometimes mounted on a tripod. A passenger probably wouldn’t even notice it.scanner

How it works: Its heat-sensing abilities will turn you into a heat map on a computer screen.

Bonus: The scanner can assess a group of passengers and they don’t even have to stop to be screened.

What it measures: External body temperature. Passengers who show up as green and yellow – the colors for normal body temperatures — are cleared for travel. Anyone with a red forehead is stopped for further screening.

The full-body infrared scanner depicts body temperature with colors on a computer screen. China used the device during the 2003 outbreak of the respiratory virus SARS. Some airports have turned to the scanner as part of Ebola screening.

The full-body infrared scanner depicts body temperature with colors on a computer screen. China used the device during the 2003 outbreak of the respiratory virus SARS (pictured, above). Some airports have turned to the scanner as part of Ebola screening.

Is it accurate? These machines measure skin temperature as a proxy for core body temperature, which isn’t always reliable.

“They measure the heat radiating off of someone,” says Adalja. “That’s not quite the same as internal body temperature.”

Pompeii thinks they are too easily fooled.

“You can just go to the ladies room and splash some water on your forehead. You’re going to exhibit evaporative cooling, even if you have a high fever. And you’ll just sail through,” says Pompeii. Meanwhile, she notes that rushing to catch a flight or having an alcoholic drink could raise your external temperature.

The FDA hasn’t approved full-body infrared scanners for use in the U.S., but they were popular in Asia during the SARS and Avian flu epidemics.

According to a 2011 study in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases, these machines correctly identify a passenger as febrile or non-febrile less than 70 percent of the time. This means healthy passengers could be stopped unnecessarily, and infected passengers could be getting on a plane.

Handheld Infrared Thermometer:

Looks like: A handheld ray gun.handheld

How it works: From a distance of about six inches, the airport employee points the laser at a passenger’s hand or forehead and the infrared technology can estimate the body’s internal temperature. Originally invented for industrial use to measure the temperature of extremely hot or cold items, the handheld thermometer has obvious appeal in a disease outbreak.

“You don’t have to touch anyone,” says Francisco Alvarado-Ramy, a medical officer for the Center for Disease Control. “The risk of cross-contamination and infection is less, and you spend less time worrying about disinfecting the tool.”

The process is also less invasive than the ear gun and more thorough than the full-body infrared scanners.

Is it accurate? “When you are holding something away from the individual, there is dust, air current, humidity, and these things can affect the temperature measurement,” says Pompeii. “And your inch is different than my inch, which means everyone is measuring slightly differently.”

Despite these variances, the FDA approves most handheld infrared thermometers for use in medical settings. They are also the thermometer of choice for the U.S. government, which donated 30 of these infrared scanners for use in the Nigerian airport on Aug. 24.

“The move in hospitals is toward these infrared thermometers,” says Adalja. “They are within the range of the most accurate temperatures.”

Postscript: There is one way of checking temperature that is far more reliable than the rest.

“The most accurate temperature is achieved with a rectal thermometer,” says Pompeii. “But I don’t think airlines can do that.”

Source: NPR.com

A progressively rising blood pressure trajectory is not an inevitable part of aging in men who remain active and maintain high levels of cardiorespiratory fitness, a prospective, population-based study found.

exerciseThe study included almost 14,000 men without high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at baseline followed for three and a half decades.

Men in the study who were categorized as having the lowest level of fitness, based on baseline treadmill tests, reached a systolic blood pressure (SBP) of >120 mmHg at approximately 46 years of age, compared with 54 years of age among those whose fitness levels were highest. Age-related diastolic blood pressure differences (DBP) were far more pronounced, with low-fitness men reaching >80 mmHg at approximately 42 years old compared with beyond age 90 in the highest fitness group.

“This suggests that highly fit men are likely to reach abnormal SBP values about a decade later than men in the low fitness category, implying that improving fitness levels may reduce the duration of elevated SBP,” researcher Junxiu Liu, MD, of the University of South Carolina Columbia, and colleagues wrote in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, published online Sept. 15.

Exercise Keeps Heart Young

The study is one of two published in the issue suggesting that staying physically fit throughout life can keep aging hearts healthy.

In a separate investigation, researchers in Texas examined the impact of long-term exercise on left ventricular (LV) compliance and distensibility in around a hundred older men and women.

The study showed that while low levels of casual, lifelong exercise did not prevent decreased compliance and distensibility, four to five ≥30 minute exercise sessions a week throughout adulthood did prevent most age-related LV stiffness.

“This finding holds important implications for global health, as ventricular stiffening has been implicated in the pathophysiology of many common cardiovascular conditions affecting the elderly,” researcher Paul S. Bhella, MD, of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Dallas, and colleagues, wrote.blood pressure

Fit Men Had ‘Younger’ BP

The study by Liu and colleagues included an all male cohort from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, which was a large study that included mostly white, college-educated people with middle to high socioeconomic status.

The men were between the ages of 20 and 90 at study entry, and they completed between three and 28 (mean 3.8) follow-up medical examinations between 1970 and 2006. Fitness was measured by a maximal treadmill exercise test, and longitudinal data were analysed using linear mixed models.

Cardiovascular fitness was assessed using the Balke maximal treadmill exercise test, with total treadmill time (highly correlated with oxygen uptake) used as an index of aerobic power. Participants were classified into low (<33rd percentile), moderate (33rd to 66th percentile), or high fitness categories (>66th percentile), according to the distribution of age-specific treadmill time.

Information on age, smoking status, and alcohol consumption were obtained by self-administered questionnaire. Body fat percentage was assessed using hydrostatic weigh in, skin fold thickness measurements, or both.

Among the key findings from the study:

-DBP tended to increase until nearly 60 years of age, when a decrease was observed, while SBP tended to increase over all age periods.

-Multivariate analysis revealed that average SBP increased by 0.30 mmHg (95% CI 0.29-0.31) with 1-year age increment after adjusting for body fat percent, fitness, resting heart rate, glucose level, triglyceride level, cholesterol level, current smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and parental history of hypertension.

– had a yearly increase of 0.14 mm Hg (95% CI 0.13-0.15) before age 60 years.

-Overall, abnormal SBP (>120 mm Hg) began to occur at approximately 50 years of age and abnormal DBP (>80 mm Hg) began to occur at 60 years of age.

-Higher fitness levels significantly modified the risk in SBP trajectory across the lifespan, and the age-fitness interaction remained significant after adjusting for known hypertension risk factors.

Study strengths included the large number of participants, the longitudinal measure of SBP, DBP, and other time varying covariates, and the assessment of body fat percentage to measure obesity.

Limitations included the exclusion of women from the study, as well as the inclusion of only a small percentage (5%) of nonwhite and low income men, which limited its generalizability to these populations.

Findings May Not Apply to Women, Nonwhite Men

In an editorial accompanying the study, Stanley S .Franklin, MD, of the University of California Irvine, and Gary L. Pierce, PhD, of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, wrote that the exclusion of women was a major study limitation.

“There is some evidence that men have a steeper rate of increase in aortic stiffening beyond 50 years of age compared with women; therefore, fitness may have a different modifying effect on SBP and DBP trajectory with aging in women than men,” they wrote.

Even with the limitations, Franklin and Pierce wrote that the study suggests “habitual aerobic exercise may counteract the burden of cardiometabolic abnormalities that accelerate artery stiffening- characterized as ‘early vascular aging’ — and therefore slow the onset and severity of isolated systolic hypertension.”

Regular Exercise Preserves LV Function

In the study by Bhella and colleagues, 102 healthy older people (>64 years of age) were recruited and screened for lifelong patterns of exercise. The participants were stratified into four groups: sedentary (<2 ≥30 minute sessions/week), casual (2 to 3 sessions/week) committed (4 to 5 sessions/week) and competitive (6 to 7 sessions/week).

Right heart catheterization and echocardiography were performed while pre-load was manipulated using lower body negative pressure and rapid saline infusion to define LV pressure-volume relationships.

Peak oxygen uptake and LV mass increased with escalating doses of lifelong exercise, with little change in systolic function. At baseline, LV distensibility was greater in committed (21%) and competitive (36%) exercisers than in sedentary participants.

Group LV stiffness constants (sedentary: 0.062±0.039; casual: 0.079±0.052; committed: 0.055±0.033; and competitive: 0.035 ±0.033) revealed increased stiffness in sedentary subjects compared with competitive athletes, whereas lifelong casual exercise had no effect. They also showed greater compliance in committed exercisers than in sedentary or casual exercisers.

bp cupThe researchers noted that sedentary aging, and the decreases in LV compliance and distensibility that accompany it, may set the stage for the cardiovascular conditions that affect the elderly, such as atrial fibrillation and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

In a commentary published with the study, Wilbur Y.W. Lew, MD, of the VA San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California San Diego, wrote that the effects of exercise on the heart are multifactorial and complex and that potential factors that prevent age-related changes in LV compliance include lowering blood pressure and arterial stiffness, decreasing cardiovascular comorbidities, improving endothelial function, and activating metabolic and signaling pathways to reduce chronic inflammation, fibrosis, and LV remodeling.

“A long-term commitment to exercise preserves LV compliance comparable to a young heart,” he wrote. “This may facilitate diastolic filling and preserve diastolic function. We face challenges to establishing causality, identifying mechanisms, and applying these results to an increasingly sedentary population.”

Source: medpagetoday.com

In an analysis of cohort studies, a history of kidney stones was associated with an increased risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. The data suggest that the risk may be higher in women than men.

The studies included close to 50,000 patients with kidney stones and 3.56 million controls. Results found kidney stone history to be associated with a 19% greater risk for CHD and a 40% greater risk for stroke. Additionally, women showed a statistically significant increased risk for myocardial infarction, while men did not.

The researchers noted that a lack of studies separately evaluating for effect modification by sex, along with other limitations, could explain the risk difference among men and women. Though, they added that several recent studies have shown a gender difference in kidney stone-related CHD and stroke risk.

One was reported in JAMA in July 2013. kidney stones

The prospective study included 45,748 men and 196,357 women in the U.S. without a history of CHD at baseline, including 19,678 who reported a history of kidney stones. Two cohorts of women and one of men were followed for up to 24 years.

The study found that women with a history of kidney stones had about an 18% increased risk for CHD and a 48% increased risk compared with women who had never had a kidney stone.

An even larger study from Alberta, Canada, reported in March of this year, showed similar differences in risk by gender.

The study included close to 3.2 million people registered in Alberta’s universal healthcare system between 1997 and 2009 who were followed for a median of 11 years.

The study showed that people who had at least one kidney stone had a 40% higher risk for heart attack, a 63% higher risk for blockage of blood flow to the heart and other organs, and a 26% higher risk for stroke. The magnitude of increased risk appeared more pronounced for women than men.

Both studies were included in the newly-published meta-analysis.

Gary C. Curhan, MD, who was a co-author on both, said the new data make a strong case for a real gender difference in cardiovascular disease risk associated with kidney stone history.

Curhan is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a renal disease specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.

“The risk certainly seems to be higher in women than men, but I would not say the risk is zero in men.” “These two studies give us more confidence that this association is real. The next step is to try and answer the question ‘Why is there a difference?'”

Source: medpage Today

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