Neurology News

• CSF Biomarkers Predict Rate of Alzheimer's Cognitive Decline The ratio between two biomarkers, phosphorylated tau (p-tau) and total tau, in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) predicts how fast Alzheimer's disease will progress, report researchers from the Netherlands in the October 27th issue of Neurology. When the ratio is low, the disease is more aggressive.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Infections Such as Pneumonia and Herpes May Heighten Stroke Risk Researchers report that infections increase the risk for stroke through their aggregate effect on vascular inflammation.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• No Benefits of Aspirin for Primary Prevention in Diabetics, Meta-Analysis Suggests Most guideline documents recommend aspirin for primary prevention in people with diabetes, but a new meta-analysis has found no benefit of the widely used drug across a range of different cardiovascular end points. The results speak to the need for dedicated randomized trials, investigators say.
  Heartwire, November 2009
• Walking Speed Predicts CV Mortality in Older People Fast walkers should find themselves less likely to succumb to cardiovascular death, according to a new French study in older adults. Measuring general fitness in this way could easily be incorporated into a general global assessment of cardiovascular risk, say the researchers.
  Heartwire, November 2009
• Clopidogrel Effects in Men vs Women A new meta-analysis has suggested that clopidogrel reduces cardiovascular events and increases bleeding in both men and women, without significant differences between the sexes.
  Heartwire, November 2009
• Maternal Cytokine Profile May Affect Autism Risk: Study Children who inherit polymorphisms in cytokine regulatory genes from their mothers appear to be at greater risk of autism, according to a presentation by US researchers here at the 5th Asia Pacific Congress in Maternal Fetal Medicine.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Scientists Devise Treatment for Spine Injury in Rats Injecting tiny polymer spheres into rats immediately after spinal cord injury helped the animals recover movement and prevented secondary nerve damage, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Gene Variant Affects IVIg Efficacy for Demyelinating Polyneuropathy In patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), responsiveness to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) is influenced by a single nucleotide polymorphism in the transient axonal glycoprotein 1 gene (TAG-1), say researchers from Japan in the October 27th Neurology.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Prenatal Tobacco Exposure Linked to Multiple Neurodevelopmental Problems Prenatal tobacco exposure may negatively affect neurodevelopment in developing fetuses and infants, leading to multiple problems, such as irritability, casual attention, and poor self-regulation.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• More Evidence Atypical Antipsychotic Use May Boost Kids' Cardiovascular Risk Use of atypical antipsychotics increased the risk for significant weight gain and varied metabolic changes in children and adolescents with mental illness and behavioral disturbances.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Elderly People With Influenza and Dementia More Likely to Die Elderly people with influenza and dementia are 50% more likely to die than those without dementia.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration Highly Heritable A new study confirms that FTLD, formerly known as Pick's disease, is highly heritable, although heritability varies widely among the clinical syndromes within this spectrum of disorders.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Varenicline May Not Be Linked to Increased Risk for Self-Harm A cohort study shows no clear evidence of an increased risk for fatal or nonfatal self-harm or depression with varenicline use, but a 2-fold increased risk cannot be ruled out.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Management of Vitamin D Deficiency Reviewed A review suggests best practices for recognition and management of Vitamin D deficiency in the family practice setting.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Abnormal Sleep and Errors More Common in ICU Nurses Intensive care unit (ICU) nurses are more likely than floor nurses to have abnormal sleep and to experience a drop in vigilance during their shift that could impair patient safety, according to study findings presented this week at the CHEST 2009 meeting in San Diego, California.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Diabetic Ketoacidosis Linked to Memory Deficits Children with type 1 diabetes and a history of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) have significantly worse memory for item-context associations than diabetic children who have never had DKA, a new study shows.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Are Doctors What Ails U.S. Healthcare? Nowhere in the United States has more doctors at its beck and call than White Plains, one of the wealthiest cities in the nation.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• House Passes Healthcare Reform Bill In the face of near unanimous Republican opposition and a last-ditch effort to make changes, the US House of Representatives voted 220 to 215 for legislation to overhaul the nation's healthcare system.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• PTSD Linked to Patient-Reported Cardiovascular Health Status In the Heart and Soul Study of patients with heart disease, posttaumatic stress disorder was more associated with patient-reported cardiovascular health status vs objective cardiac function measures.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Stereotactic Radiosurgery Reduces Tremor, Complications in Parkinson's and Essential Tremor Results from a long-term cohort study in patients with medically refractory PD and ET suggest that stereotactic radiosurgery provided outcomes comparable to deep brain stimulation and radiofrequency.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009