“Arthritis is for old people, right?” This is an outdated view of a spectrum of diseases that affect people of all ages in the population. In the past decade, there has been a revolution in the understanding…
The salt debate has filled the pages of health magazines and newspapers for years. From John Swales’ original scepticism in 1988 to the Godlee’s sharp call to reality in 1996, the debate has transcended…
Physical activity is a key driver in lowering mortality rates from cardiovascular disease.
Mike Baird
A new Global Cardiovascular Disease Atlas shows that rates of cardiovascular disease are falling in wealthier countries. During the second half of the 20th century, deaths from diseases such as heart attacks…
A public health own goal.
Cholesterol pills by Shutterstock
What we know about statins comes almost entirely from commercial interests. So what we take for knowledge about their harms and benefits is actually information designed to optimise the drug makers’ responsibility…
Nearly 13m more adults in the US will be eligible for statins after new guidelines widened the criteria for use of the drugs to treat high cholesterol and prevent heart attacks and strokes. Using data…
One of the world’s largest clinical cell therapy trials has begun to enroll 3,000 heart attack patients, some of whom will have bone marrow cells extracted with a needle from their hip and fed into their…
People in Arab countries are now living longer with less disability, but face a rise in problems related to chronic illness such as heart disease, according to a new paper in The Lancet. With the exception…
People who are obese and have normal blood pressure, cholesterol and blood-sugar readings will still be unhealthy and die sooner compared with people who have a normal body weight, according to researchers…
Cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke) causes the most deaths in Western countries overall and the vast majority of premature deaths. Drugs known as statins have been the cornerstone of how we…
Gold is one of our most valuable commodities but its use extends far beyond jewellery and gold bars. It’s a conductive material and is helping us to develop new medical innovations such as specialised…
It’s a numbers game: warning of heart attack risk is reassuring but misleading.
Flickr/ansik
Patricia McGettigan, Queen Mary University of London
Millions of people use diclofenac, an over-the-counter painkiller, to relieve pain and inflammation caused by arthritis, backache and other conditions. But on Friday, the UK medicines regulator, the Medicines…
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand