Pictures of a Bleeding Heart Scientists in London have captured dramatic images of heart muscle bleeding immediately following heart attacks. The researchers used MRI machines to scan 15 people who had just suffered attacks. They found a direct correlation between the amount of heart damaged and the amount the heart bled. Recent research has shown some hearts bleed after blood restarts pumping through damaged tissue. The amount of bleeding that occurs after infarction may also indicate how well the patient recovers. (posted January 21, 2009)

More Doctors E-Mailing It In The number of doctors prescribing medicine electronically has more than doubled in the past year thanks to a number of new incentives. Now about 70,000, or 12% of office-based doctors, have ditched pen and paper for software. Some studies have shown medicines are less likely to get mixed up if they’re e-prescribed, and starting this month Medicare’s going to give doctors a bonus if they make the digital switch. E-prescriptions may just be a start; the Obama administration wants to spend $50 billion in the next five years to adopt health-information technology. (posted January 21, 2009)

Problems Pumping Iron? Maybe You’ve Got a Problem Pumping Blood Problems in the left ventricle are a good indicator of whether a person will have problems exercising. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic studied a group of people undergoing exercise echocardiography and found a strong inverse correlation between diastolic dysfunction and exercise capacity. They saw that those with mild and moderate/severe resting diastolic dysfunction had reduced exercise capacity. They also noted similar correlations with increased age, femaie sex and high body mass index. (posted January 21, 2009)

Bill Gates, Others Pledge $630 Million to End Polio Retired Microsoft founder Bill Gates is teaming with a group of donors to give $630 million to eradicate polio. The Gates Foundation is teaming with Rotary International and the British and German governments. Polio remains a serious problems in parts of Africa, India and the Middle East. Despite the $630 million, the World Health Organization believes another $2 billion is needed to eliminate the disease by 2013, one of its goals. (posted January 21, 2009)

With a New President, a New Worry Should the U.S. start stockpiling antibiotics? Five years ago the last American plant to manufacture crucial ingredients for a number of drugs like penicillin closed its doors. On the heels of China's third reported case of human bird flu this year, some are asking whether President Obama’s administration should start storing more medicine at home. (posted January 20, 2009)

First Time Heart Attacks Not as Severe First time heart attacks aren’t as bad as they once were. Researchers in the current issue of Circulation think that may help explain why the heart attack death rate has declined by 1.5% over the past two decades. Since 1987, studies have shown those first attacks are doing less damage to the heart - though it’s unclear why. (posted January 20, 2009)

The “Sure Thing” Gene One percent of the world’s population carries a gene mutation nearly guaranteed to lead to heart problems. If those odds aren’t bad enough, they’re even worse for Indians. One in 25 people in India carry the gene, which means by next year India will have 60% of the world’s heart patients. It’s rare a common mutation has such a huge negative effect, according to scientists. (posted January 20, 2009)

Men Better at Resisting Temptation Men’s brains may be better at resisting food cravings than women’s. A small study may shed some light on why greater numbers of women are obese. Twenty-three test subjects went without eating for 17 hours. Then researchers asked them to control their desire as they were taunted by plates of their favorite meals. Brain scans showed men fared better. (posted January 20, 2009)

Drug-Resistant Staph Infections Rising in Kids An “alarming” increase in children’s ear, nose and throat infections caused by drug-resistant staph, or MRSA, has a number of scientists worried. In the five year period between 2001 and 2006, the percentage of MRSA infections more than doubled, to 28 percent. These superbugs were once thought to only come from hospitals; now they’re being found in the community. (posted January 20, 2009)

Popular Health Risk Tools Don’t Find Heart Disease Traditional risk assessment tools like the Framingham and National Cholesterol Education Program, NCEP, do not accurately predict coronary heart disease. In a Yale University School of Medicine study of 1,654 patients, some with no history of the disease and some taking statins, doctors used the tests to calculate the patients’ risk of heart disease. Researchers compared those results to the amount of plaque actually found in the patients’ arteries. The results: One in five patients thought to need statins before the test actually didn’t. And one in four taking statins had no plaque whatsoever. (posted January 16, 2009)

Cholesterol Levels May Not Help Either Looking at cholesterol levels may not be any better. In another study, researchers found that nearly 75% of people hospitalized for heart attacks had normal levels of LDL cholesterol, the “bad” kind. The study’s author contends current cholesterol level guidelines should be changed, a topic the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is likely to look into soon. (posted January 16, 2009)

Heparin-Induced Antibodies Point To Thrombosis Risk Cardiac patients with antibodies that resist heparin are more likely to develop thrombosis after surgery. Some of the patients studied developed the antibodies during surgery while others already had some resistance. But either way, researchers found the patients were more likely to develop deep vein thrombosis, a pulmonary embolism or myocardial infarction. (posted January 16, 2009)

Superbugs Vs. Cancer Drugs So-called “superbugs” that haunt some hospitals may have an enemy in cancer drugs. Some antibiotic-resistant bacteria “play dead,” or go dormant to avoid attack, then reawaken later. Scientists have discovered a protein called Hip A that enables the cells to go dormant is actually a protein kinase. Because several cancer drugs work by inhibiting protein kinases, it’s thought they might be able to treat some forms of antibiotic resistance. (posted January 16, 2009)

Senator: Schools Failing to Regulate Medical Conflicts of Interest Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (R) says schools don’t go far enough to disclose researchers’ ties to industry. The senator recently informed the University of Wisconsin that one of its lead spinal surgeons/researchers under-reported payments received by spinal device maker Medtronic – by a factor of 100. While only required by the school to report receiving “more than $20,000,” Dr. Thomas Zdeblick actually received at least $2.6 million a year in royalty and consulting payments. In all, Dr. Zdeblick received $19 million from 2003 to 2007. Sen. Grassley blames the school’s disclosure requirements. (posted January 16, 2009)

Coffee Can Reduce Alzheimer’s, Cause Hallucinations Those daily coffee runs may help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. Middle-aged people who drink between three and five cups a day lowered their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s by nearly two-thirds. Scientists aren’t sure why, exactly, but believe it may have something to do with the antioxidants found in coffee. Or it could be its ability to protect the nervous system. (posted January 16, 2009)

But that comes on the heels of another study that showed college students who drink more than seven cups of coffee a day sometimes hear voices that aren’t really there. The study’s researchers say they couldn’t prove a direct link between java and auditory hallucinations but more study is warranted. (posted January 16, 2009)