Among patients with coronary heart disease and LDL-cholesterol levels less than 70 mg/dL, there is no incremental clinical benefit from the addition of niacin to statin therapy during a 36-month follow-up, despite improvements in HDL-cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
This brief but important intervention trial was detailed recently in the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The conclusion was that eating canned soup on a regular basis could rapidly increase the body load of BPA, high levels of which have been associated with a variety of illnesses.
The first results of a 5-year study of the effects a mindfulness-based stress reduction program on medical complications and psychosocial outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes show prolonged reduction in psychological distress and depression compared to usual care.
Both vitamin D deficiency and supplementation with vitamin D are significantly associated with several cardiovascular outcomes, including mortality.
Pertussis, commonly known as the "whooping cough," is an infection of the upper respiratory tract leading to a protracted cough illness. Emergency physicians should become familiar with the diagnosis and management of this disease, given the potential of pertussis to cause serious morbidity and mortality in young infants and protracted illness in adolescents and adults. Furthermore, diagnosing and treating pertussis in a timely manner has a large public health impact, given its extremely contagious nature.
