The heart attacks occurred in the final five weeks of the trial and in patients at low risk for heart problems.
Health services must take the long term view and prevent the heart attacks, strokes, blindness and kidney damage that diabetes can cause.
The researchers surveyed the study participants about their chocolate consumption (as well as the rest of their diet), and also tracked the heart attacks and strokes that occurred in the group.
If one of these turned out to be just 2 percent better than the other at preventing heart attacks and deaths, this knowledge would save vast numbers of lives around the world, because heart attacks are so common, and because statins are so widely used.
FORBES: Do We Really Need Head-To-Head Comparison Trials With Statins To Improve Cardiac Health?
According to a presentation here, at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, the drug reduced heart attacks and strokes by 50%.
If the findings hold up, they could open a totally new approach to heart disease, with the potential to slash heart attacks far beyond the 30%-to-40% reduction seen with cholesterol-lowering drugs alone.
Does the drug reduce heart attacks as the companies say it does?
Just last month, researchers led by Armin Arbab-Zadeh of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore published a comprehensive review of the biology of heart attacks in the journal Circulation, which said that vulnerable plaques often rupture without causing a heart attack and that a "perfect storm" of other conditions is required before one occurs.
The differences in the risk of heart attack weren't, possibly because of the low incidence of heart attacks among people in the study, researchers said.
WSJ: Mediterranean Diet of Olive Oil, Nuts, Reduces Heart Disease, Study Finds
When present, this gene variant nearly doubled the risk of heart attacks and increased the risk of stroke by 67%.
Since auras are a neurological phenomenon, it's not known why they might affect the heart or increase the risk of heart attacks.
CNN: Women's migraines linked to higher stroke, heart attack risk
It is not known why the virus specifically attacks the heart muscle or why young children are particularly at risk of serious infection.
It showed that an aspirin a day reduces the incidence of heart attacks by half, and that the drug can also help to prevent thrombosis and strokes.
The New York-based drug giant says last night it received news that in a study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, on using Celebrex to prevent cancerous colon polyps, the drug more than doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes. (The risk showed up with the highest dose of Celebrex.) That study, called the APC trial, has been halted.
DeCode says it has identified an unspecified inflammation-producing gene, present in 30% of Iceland's heart attack patients, that doubles the risk of heart attacks.
But Schering pushed far beyond that use without proving that the drug prevented heart attacks, strokes and deaths--the cardiologist's gold standard that statins such as Pfizer's Lipitor have passed.
Merck pulled the pill from the market in September 2004, after its own study showed that Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients who took the drug for 18 months or more.
One could argue that these drugs have greatly improved the treatment of heart disease and are partially the reason why deaths due to heart attacks and strokes have slowed over the past decade.
FORBES: Do We Really Need Head-To-Head Comparison Trials With Statins To Improve Cardiac Health?
After the hurricane, heart attacks represented about 2.4% of the 48, 000 people admitted to hospitals, which is a considerable and significant rise.
FORBES: How Major Psychological Stressors Can Lead To Serious Health Problems
Another NIH study testing Celebrex as a cancer preventative had found that the drug increased the risk of heart attacks, and patients were dropping out of the Alzheimer's study in droves.
That summer a panel of FDA consultants voted 20 to 3 that Avandia probably does increase the risk of heart attacks but also voted 22 to 1 that the drug should stay on the market.
When Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ) pulled Vioxx off the market because it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes, it had stated that the company believed it would be possible to continue to market Vioxx with a strong warning label.
Anti-inflammatory drugs may have to be tested on thousands of heart patients for years before it is known whether the drugs prevent heart attacks.
To further cloud the matter, heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems will only be counted in the first 14 days after patients stop their painkiller.
Statins, for instance, lower the risk of heart attacks, and are prescribed to millions of adults all over the world.
It's hoped that such drugs could further cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes, which kill 900, 000 people in the United States annually.
The fact that Bextra, given with an injectable drug, increased the risk of heart attacks following open-heart surgery will also be included in the Bextra label.
Although Actos significantly reduced the risk of heart attacks, strokes and death by 16%, that was not the primary aim of ProACTIVE study.
In SEAS, Vytorin failed to do better than placebo at treating a heart valve disease called aortic stenosis, but it did reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and operations to unclog arteries.
The study, funded by Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) and called Treating New Targets, or TNT, showed that the top dose of Lipitor decreased the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people with stable heart disease, compared to the lowest dose of the same drug.
应用推荐