Medical Bulletin 8/June/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Fat content within muscle predicts risk of cognitive decline

New research reveals that the level of fat within the body's muscle-or muscle adiposity-may indicate a person's likelihood of experiencing cognitive decline as they age. In the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 5-year increase in fat stored in the thigh muscle was a risk factor for cognitive decline. This risk was independent of total weight, other fat deposits, and muscle characteristics (such as muscle strength or mass) and also independent of traditional dementia risk factors.

Investigators assessed muscle fat in 1,634 adults 69-79 years of age at years 1 and 6 and evaluated their cognitive function at years 1, 3, 5, 8, and 10. Increases in muscle adiposity from year 1 to year 6 were associated with faster and more cognitive decline over time. The findings were similar for Black and white men and women.

Reference:

Increase in skeletal muscular adiposity and cognitive decline in a biracial cohort of older men and women,Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,DOI 10.1111/jgs.18419

Multimorbidity does not impact chronic disease treatment

Treatment efficacy for a broad range of chronic diseases does not differ depending on patients' comorbidities, according to a new study published in the open access journal PLOS Medicine.

There is often uncertainty about how treatments for single conditions should be applied to people who have multiple chronic conditions (multimorbidity). This confusion stems, in part, from the fact that people with multimorbidity are under-represented in randomized controlled trials, and trials rarely report whether the efficacy of treatment differs by the number of comorbidities or the presence of specific comorbidities.

Reference:

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004176

Hanlon P, Butterly EW, Shah AS, Hannigan LJ, Lewsey J, Mair FS, et al. (2023) Treatment effect modification due to comorbidity: Individual participant data meta-analyses of 120 randomised controlled trials. PLoS Med 20(6): e1004176. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004176

Rate of repeat procedures and heart attacks in angina patients with stents reduced by daily beetroot juice

Drinking beetroot juice every day for six months after having a stent fitted reduced the chance of angina patients having a heart attack or needing a repeat procedure, according to new research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference.

The researchers, based at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Queen Mary University in London, found that 16 per cent of angina patients had a serious heart or circulatory incident, like a heart attack or need for another procedure, in the two years after having a stent fitted. However, when patients had beetroot juice daily, this dropped to 7.5 per cent.

Reference:

Dr Krishnaraj Rathod et al,BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION