Gale Scott

A new set of guidelines from the American College of Physicians (ACP) advises physicians to prescribe exercises and behavioral therapy-not drugs-as first-line treatment for many patients with urinary incontinence (UI).

Using an experimental and highly sensitive test for cardiac troponin, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers found undetected signs of heart muscle damage in people with diabetes and pre-diabetes. That may suggest that hypoglycemia directly damages the heart.

Taking human pluripotent stem cells, reprogramming them to act like embryonic stem cells, and then getting those cells to create neurons has enabled researchers to create a "brain in a dish." In a dramatic demonstration of this technique's potential in neurological research, scientists recently took some of these neurons and reprogrammed them by using genetic material in skin cells taken from people with schizophrenia.

A new blood test said to predict Alzheimer's disease up to 10 years before its onset will be available to researchers and pharmaceutical companies this fall, according to NanoSomiX, the company that developed it.

A version of injectable interferon that multiple sclerosis patients can use far less frequently than existing products is proving safe and effective in clinical trials, its manufacturer says. Biogen Idec announced that new data from the second year of its Phase III clinical trial of peginterferon beta-1a (Plegridy) show it is well tolerated and appears to halt symptoms of relapsing forms of MS. Patients getting the drug had a lower risk of relapse, less disability progression, and fewer new brain lesions than those who got a placebo.

The quest for a non-pharmaceutical therapy for hypertension suffered a setback recently with the publication of two studies on renal denervation (RDN). Both articles appeared in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and both reported on trials that showed the procedure did not lower blood pressure. But in an accompanying editorial, Vivek Reddy, MD, and Jeffrey Olin, DO, said they have critical questions about those studies that need to be answered before RDN therapy is written off.

Doctors may be undertreating patients for sickle cell disease, a US National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel said. A group of experts convened by the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute issued new guidelines Sept. 9, calling for more aggressive treatment of these patients including periodic blood transfusions for pediatric patients. They also called strongly for greater use of hydroxyurea, a drug that promotes production of one type of healthy hemoglobin and thus dilute the amount of the faulty hemoglobin that causes the symptoms of sickle cells disease.

Public health researchers have long believed that if patients could take one pill instead of several they would be more likely to comply with the drug regimens prescribed by their physicians. The US Food and Drug Administration's cardiovascular and renal drugs advisory committee is evaluating the "potential clinical utility" of a single pill that would contain an anti-hypertensive drug, aspirin, and a statin. The goal would be to prevent strokes and heart attacks in patients with a history of cardiovascular disease.

The damage that results from oxygen deprivation to the brain during sleep apnea can be reversed by using a continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP) device, an Italian study found.

Emergency department treatment for severe headache usually means a prescription for painkillers. But a Minnesota doctor has come up with a non-prescription, low-tech way of treating severe headache pain-immersing the back of the patient's head in a basin of gradually cooling water.

GeNeuro, a Swiss company specializing in promising therapies for neurological disorders, recently announced positive results from a Phase IIa study of a new drug for multiple sclerosis (MS).

Edison Pharmaceuticals announced favorable results from a six-month Italian trial of a drug that could help patients with Rett syndrome, a rare genetically based neurodevelopmental disorder that affects mostly girls. Boys with the syndrome typically die shortly after birth

A respiratory virus called Enterovirus D68 is causing a spike in pediatric hospitalizations and illnesses, putting hospitals on alert across the US.

A normal process in which unneeded connections between the brain's neurons die off may go awry in autistic children, a Columbia University research team found. After studying the postmortem brains of 20 autistic children (all of whom had died of other causes) the researchers saw that by late childhood, the numbers of synapses had not declined as quickly than in samples of brain tissue in a control group.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave a breakthrough therapy designation to pimavanserin (Nuplazid/Acadia Pharmaceuticals) for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease. The drug, a proprietary small molecule that is a selective serotonin inverse agonist, may also hold be useful in other mental illnesses, including Alzheimer's Disease and schizophrenia, according to Acadia.

The US Food and Drug Administration considers medical marijuana use an untested alternative therapy. But with marijuana sales now legal in Colorado, a Denver research team led by Edward Maa, MD is recruiting patients for a scientific study involving the plant. Maa and colleagues will conduct an observational study to evaluate a marijuana compound's efficacy in treating Dravet Syndrome.

It may be too early to determine whether a new generation of ultra-thin stents do a better job than standard stents, but a Swiss study concluded the new product is at least not inferior.

Contrary to the recommendations of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), a UK study found it pays to treat more than the lesions in the "culprit" artery after a heart attack.

Heart failure patients are routinely given beta blockers, but the drugs appear to have no effect on patients who also have atrial fibrillation, a meta-analysis showed.

Hypertension has long been linked to obesity, but a new study shows that where that fat is matters. A team of researchers at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX conclude that when that fat is in the viscera-as opposed to accumulating under the skin-there is a strong chance patients will develop hypertension.

AstraZeneca's beleaguered anti-platelet drug ticagrelor (Brilinta) may get a boost from a French study published online Sept. 3 in the New England Journal of Medicine. In findings also reported at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Gilles Montalescot, MD, found that in a group of 1862 patients, the drug appeared to offer greater protection from stent thrombosis when administered by ambulance personnel than when given later in a cardiac cath lab.

Insurers and disaster relief organizations are still tallying the bill for Super Storm Sandy, the weather disaster that caused an estimated $68 billion in damage in the Northeastern US on Oct. 2012.

Results of a large international study known as SIGNIFY showed ivabradine offered no benefit to patients who had stable coronary artery disease without clinical heart failure (CHF).

Novartis plans to soon file a new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its investigational heart failure drug LCZ696. A report showing the drug works better than enalapril to prevent adverse cardiac events was released at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, Spain Aug. 30 and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Patients who do not have coronary artery disease but have fat around their hearts appear more likely to develop atherosclerosis, a team of researchers in Germany found.

Even though the active ingredient in marijuana can be associated with memory impairment, it may slow or halt Alzheimer's disease.

An investigational drug that researchers hope will reverse nerve damage in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been found to be safe and well tolerated in early trials. The big question is whether it will work, researchers said.

The US Food and Drug Administration announced it will give priority review status to Amgen's application to market ivabradine as a treatment for chronic heart failure.

As the nation tries to cut its health-care costs critics of reform have worried that some patients who need expensive though risky procedures like coronary artery bypass graft surgery might not get them. But a new Harvard School of Public Health study could allay those fears.

The nation's youth, and its smoke-free air need federal protection from vapors from e-cigarettes, according to a set of recommendations released Aug. 25 by the American and Heart Association.