People who use smokeless tobacco products like snus have a slightly higher risk of having a fatal heart attack or stroke, according to research published on bmj today.

In the past few decades there has been an increase in the number of people in Europe and North America using smokeless tobacco, particularly among people younger than 40. Given that these products are being promoted as ‘safer’ alternatives to smoking cigarettes, the number of individuals using them is set to increase, says the study.

The research team, led by Dr Paolo Boffetta at International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, analysed the results of 11 studies carried out in Sweden and North America on the use of smokeless tobacco products and the risk of developing or dying from a heart attack or stroke.

Differences in study design and quality were taken into account to minimise bias.

They found a small increased risk of death from a heart attack or stroke among users of smokeless tobacco products compared with non-users. Smokeless tobacco caused 0.5% of all heart attacks in the United States and 5.6% in Sweden. The products were also the cause of 1.7% of stroke deaths in the United States and 5.4% in Sweden.

The authors conclude that, although the magnitude of the excess risk, particularly for fatal myocardial infarction, was small, the consistency of the results among studies and their robustness with respect to study design and quality added to their credibility.

If the association is real, the authors believe that its public health and clinical implications might be substantial and they call for more research in this area.

Link to paper

Source
British Medical Journal

Hughston Clinic orthopaedic surgeon, Champ L. Baker Jr., M.D., FACS, received two prestigious national awards last weekend at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM).

Dr. Baker was honored with the Robert E. Leach, M.D,, “Mr. Sports Medicine” Award for his significant contributions to the world of sports medicine. He was also awarded the George D. Rovere, M.D., Award for his contributions to sports medicine education. More than 1,400 orthopaedic surgeons from across the United States attended the three-day conference in Providence, Rhode Island, and were on-hand to witness Dr. Baker receiving the awards.

The Mr. Sports Medicine Award is the top award presented each year by the AOSSM. Dr. Baker is the 37th recipient of this distinguished award given to an individual who has provided outstanding service in the orthopaedic community and has made numerous contributions to the specialty of sports medicine. As part of the award, $5,000 will be donated to Dr. Baker’s charity of choice. The only other physician from the Hughston Clinic to win this award is the clinic’s founder, the late Dr. Jack C. Hughston, a pioneer in developing the discipline of sports medicine. Dr. Hughston, the father of sports medicine, was also Mr. Sports Medicine in 1976.

The George D. Rovere Award is given annually to a member of the AOSSM for his or her contributions to sports medicine education. Throughout his career, Dr. Baker has consistently served the AOSSM and other industry organizations, and remained dedicated to education and training through teaching, lectures, research and published articles. For 25 years, Dr. Baker has served as Director of the Hughston Sports Medicine Fellowship program at the Hughston Clinic, where more than 200 young doctors have trained, studied and advanced their knowledge of sports medicine.

“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized with these awards,” said Dr. Baker. “I am humbled and grateful. It has always been my passion to serve and give back to the field of sports medicine, to further advance the discipline through research, continuing education, hands-on experience, physician collaboration and the discovery of new and innovative ways to treat patients.”

“This is quite an accomplishment for Dr. Baker to win two awards in the same year from the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine,” said Mark Baker, CEO of the Hughston Clinic. “Everyone at Hughston is extremely proud of Dr. Baker for this well-deserved recognition.”

Besides being a physician at the Hughston Clinic where he previously served as president from 1994 to 2000, Dr. Baker is chairman of the board of directors at the Hughston Foundation. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia.

Dr. Baker holds teaching appointments at Tulane University School of Medicine and at the Medical College of Georgia.

Dr. Baker’s specialties include sports medicine and arthroscopic surgery. He has been the team physician for numerous local and regional athletic teams, including the University of Alabama, and is currently the team physician for Columbus State University. Dr. Baker has also served on the U.S. Olympic Committee as a volunteer physician and is past president of the Board of Trustees at Columbus State University.

Source:

American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine

Hughston Clinic

Neurobiologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified pathways that allow microscopic worms to survive in a low-oxygen, or hypoxic, environment.

They believe the finding could have implications for conditions such as stroke, heart attack and cancer. Sensitivity to low oxygen helps determine how damaging those medical conditions can be. The researchers report their findings in the Jan. 30 issue of the journal Science.

“In stroke and heart attack, cells die because they lack oxygen,” explains principal investigator C. Michael Crowder, M.D., Ph.D. “In cancer, the opposite is true. Cancer cells are hypoxia-resistant in many cases, and their potential to spread throughout the body tends to correlate with their degree of hypoxia resistance.”

Crowder says it may be possible to develop more effective therapies for stroke and heart attack, on one hand, and cancer, on the other, when scientists better understand how cells protect themselves from oxygen deprivation. In the case of stroke and heart attack, therapies would involve making healthy cells resistant to hypoxia. Cancer therapies might work more effectively if it were possible to make hypoxia-resistant cells more vulnerable to low oxygen levels.

In new experiments, Crowder’s team manipulated genes in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans to alter the organism’s sensitivity to a low-oxygen environment. They did that by identifying a gene that controls the translation of genetic information into specific proteins. Mutant copies of the gene cut translation rates in half, which conferred 100% survival to the animals compared to 100% death in non-mutant worms.

Crowder says that inhibiting translation likely protects cells from hypoxia by reducing energy consumption because making proteins consumes a lot of energy. The researchers were surprised by the degree of resistance to hypoxia when the translation rate was cut. They wanted to find out whether increasing hypoxia resistance was explained only by the fact that the cells were using less energy.

In a second experiment, the researchers introduced another mutation into the worms to evaluate its effect on the original mutation. The second mutation affects a process known as protein folding.

“In some cells, hypoxia has been shown to generate unfolded proteins,” says Crowder, the Dr. Seymour and Rose T. Brown Professor in Anesthesiology and professor of developmental biology. “So then you have this load of unfolded proteins that may be toxic and promote cell death from hypoxia. We wondered whether suppressing translation in the cell might make it resistant to hypoxia by reducing the load of unfolded proteins, and that’s what we saw.”

Folding is important in allowing proteins to function properly. Every protein has shapes and pockets and active sites that bind to other proteins and perform various functions. If a particular protein doesn’t “fold” into the proper shape, it can’t do its job. It’s not clear why that might be toxic, but this study suggests fewer improperly folded proteins make exposure to low oxygen less toxic.

Connecting these discoveries to potential stroke and heart attack therapies will involve several steps. First, Crowder plans to move beyond C. elegans to see whether these techniques also will protect neurons in mammals.

“If that happens, then I think there’s hope that, eventually, we could target this process for therapy,” Crowder says. “At this point in time, I think we’re really just scratching the surface of the basic mechanisms of what controls hypoxic injury. It may be that protein translation doesn’t ultimately end up being the answer, but maybe it will lead us to an answer. It already has led us to this unfolded protein response that seems to have potential as a therapy.”

The challenge in treating stroke is that most cells in the brain continue to get plenty of oxygen. Only the part of the brain directly affected by the stroke becomes hypoxic. So Crowder says potential therapies need to protect brain cells affected by hypoxia without harming other cells that continue to experience normal oxygen levels. Targeting the unfolded protein response is attractive because, in theory, therapies would not bother cells with adequate oxygen but would react with the improper protein folding that occurs in cells not getting enough oxygen. Whether such a strategy will work is unknown.

“Many people have thought they made very promising inroads into stroke therapy over the last 50 years, and none of those treatments have been good enough,” Crowder says. “We have no illusions that finding ways to reduce cell death from hypoxia will be easy. But using this approach of randomly mutating genes and seeing what happens helped us to find this unfolded protein response. It works in the worm, so now let’s see what happens in mammals.”

Anderson LL, Mao X, Scott BA, Crowder CM. Survival from hypoxia in C. elegans by inactivation of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. Science, vol. 323, pp. 630-633 Jan. 30, 2009

This study was supported by that National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health, a Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award from the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience and an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award.

Washington University School of Medicine’s 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s Hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching, and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked third in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s Hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

Washington University in St. Louis
1 Brookings Dr., Campus Box 1070
St. Louis
MO 63130
United States
wustl.edu

Both British and European Authorities have confirmed that the bird flu which killed 2,600 turkeys at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk, East Anglia, England, was of the H5N1 strain. The remaining 150,000 turkeys on the farm will be slaughtered, say authorities. Further tests are being carried out to find out whether this H5N1 is the same strain as the Asian one.

This is the first case of H5N1 infection in a British farm. Experts believe the turkeys caught bird flu from wild birds. As the turkeys were very young, none of them had entered the food chain, said the Bernard Matthews company. A spokesman for DEFRA said no produce had left the farm. Everyone who works on the farm will be given Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug.

The farm, about 27 km south-west of Lowestoft, is now within a three-kilometre protection zone, a further 10 kilometer radius has been set up as a ‘surveillance zone’.

Authorities stressed that the infection only affected turkeys – there is currently no threat to human health.

Peter Kendall, President, National Farmers’ Union (NFU), in a BBC interview said all the focus will now be on eradicating this outbreak. He said the NFU will make sure they get the message across about how well this will be managed and controlled. He added that all farmers must be extremely vigilant and check their flocks carefully. Kendall said poultry is still safe to eat in the UK.

For a period several bird events and sports will not be allowed in England, such as pigeon racing and bird shows.

Comment by Editor of blog
The British press will be going through everything with a fine tooth-comb. This will be a real test for the authorities. Any mistakes, or examples of incompetence will be published at lightning speed.

The following European Union countries have now been affected by bird flu:
Austria, Czech Rep, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK.

– Bernard Matthews (Company that owns the farm)
– Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
– National Farmers’ Union
– Health Protection Agency

View drug information on Tamiflu capsule.

Should I exercise in the morning or the evening? New research on physical activity and sleep architecture being presented today at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and the 2nd World Congress on Exercise is Medicine® may finally answer that age-old question. For the best sleep, researchers say, work out in the morning.

“Insufficient sleep threatens our country’s health by contributing to chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity,” said Scott Collier, Ph.D., FACSM, lead author of the study. “Exercise is proven to improve the quality of sleep, and our team wanted to see if the timing of exercise could maximize these benefits.”

Researchers with Appalachian State University studied the effects of exercise timing on the sleep patterns of six male and three female subjects. Each subject visited the lab on three separate occasions at pre-determined times – one at 7 a.m., one at 1 p.m. and one at 7 p.m. – for 30 minutes of treadmill exercise. At night, subjects wore a sleep-monitoring headband to measure sleep stage time and quality of sleep.

Aerobic exercise at 7 a.m. invoked significantly greater improvements in quality of sleep compared to exercise at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. When subjects exercised in the morning, they spent more time in light sleep by 85 percent and more time in deep sleep by 75 percent. Exercising at 7 a.m. also caused a 20 percent increase in sleep cycle frequency.

“Our research has shown that well-timed exercise can elicit even greater sleep quality,” said Collier, who is an assistant professor at Appalachian State University. “These findings – if the results of the sample hold true for the general population – can help exercisers gain even greater benefits from physical activity.”

The National Sleep Foundation suggests adults get seven to nine hours of sleep per day, but nearly 25 percent of people in the U.S. do not get enough sleep. For more information on the importance of sleep, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source:

American College of Sports Medicine

Following a comprehensive analysis of the pre and post marketing data by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) the risk/benefit profile for rosuvastatin (CRESTOR) has been confirmed and black triangle status has been removed for rosuvastatin.

What Does This Mean For Health Care Professionals?

New medicines are marked with an inverted black triangle symbol to encourage the medicine to be intensively monitored in order to confirm its pre- marketing risk/benefit profile in real life. The CHM and the MHRA therefore encourage health care professionals to report all suspected reactions to black triangle medicines through the yellow-card scheme. When the CHM and MHRA are satisfied that the benefit/risk profile for the medicine established during the pre-marketing phase has been confirmed, the black triangle status is removed and Healthcare Professionals are no longer required to report suspected non-serious adverse drug reactions through the yellow card system1. Therefore:

Rosuvastatin no longer has black triangle status because the benefit/risk profile has been confirmed by the MHRA and CHM. Health Care Professionals ( HCPs) are no longer required to report suspected non-serious rosuvastatin adverse events through the yellow card system.

In line with other established medicines, HCPs are now only required to report suspected serious adverse drug reactions* (and are no longer required to report non-serious adverse drug reactions) through the yellow card system.

AstraZeneca is committed to ensuring optimum patient care and proactively monitors the experience and use for all of its medicines on an ongoing basis.

* Definition of serious adverse drug reaction1: Serious reactions include those that are:

– fatal;
– life-threatening;
– disabling or incapacitating;
– result in or prolong hospitalisation;
– congenital abnormalities; or
– medically significant.

Rosuvastatin (CRESTOR®) 5-40mg

– Rosuvastatin is available in 5mg-40mg dose range. The recommended start dose of rosuvastatin is 5 or 10mg2

– The majority of patients achieve their LDL-cholesterol goal with rosuvastatin 10mg3-4

– If necessary, dose adjustment to rosuvastatin 20mg can be made. Patients with severe hypercholesterolemia and at high cardiovascular risk who do not achieve their LDL-cholesterol goal with rosuvastatin 20mg may be titrated to the maximum dose of rosuvastatin 40mg2

– Specialist supervision is recommended when the 40mg dose is initiated2

– Rosuvastatin 20mg is the maximum dose to be used with concomitant fibrate usage; in patients with predisposing factors for developing myopathy/rhabdomyolysis; and in patients of Asian origin2

– The 40 mg dose is the highest registered dose of rosuvastatin2. Rosuvastatin should be used according to the prescribing information, which contains recommendations for initiating and titrating therapy according to the individual patient profile.

References:

1. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MRHA). New drugs and vaccines under intensive surveillance. mhra accessed June, 2007

2. Crestor SmPC medicines

3. Schuster H, Barter PJ, Stender S, et al. Effects of switching statins on achievement of lipid goals: measuring effective reductions in cholesterol using rosuvastatin therapy (MERCURY I) study. American Heart Journal 2004; 147: 705-712

4. Middleton A et al. Achieving lipid goals in real life: the DISCOVERY-UK study. The British Journal of Cardiology 2006;13:72-76

AstraZeneca

View drug information on Crestor.

The flood believed to be behind the Noah’s Ark myth kick-started European agriculture, according to new research by the Universities of Exeter, UK and Wollongong, Australia. Published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, the research paper assesses the impact of the collapse of the North American (Laurentide) Ice Sheet, 8000 years ago. The results indicate a catastrophic rise in global sea level led to the flooding of the Black Sea and drove dramatic social change across Europe. The research team argues that, in the face of rising sea levels driven by contemporary climate change, we can learn important lessons from the past.

The collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet released a deluge of water that increased global sea levels by up to 1.4 metres and caused the largest North Atlantic freshwater pulse of the last 100,000 years. Before this time, a ridge across the Bosporus Strait dammed the Mediterranean and kept the Black Sea as a freshwater lake. With the rise in sea level, the Bosporus Strait was breached, flooding the Black Sea. This event is now widely believed to be behind the various folk myths that led to the biblical Noah’s Ark story. Archaeological records show that around this time there was a sudden expansion of farming and pottery production across Europe, marking the end of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer era and the start of the Neolithic. The link between rising sea levels and such massive social change has previously been unclear.

The researchers created reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shoreline before and after the rise in sea levels. They estimated that nearly 73,000 square km of land was lost to the sea over a period of 34 years. Based on our knowledge of historical population levels, this could have led to the displacement of 145,000 people. Archaeological evidence shows that communities in southeast Europe were already practising early farming techniques and pottery production before the Flood. With the catastrophic rise in water levels it appears they moved west, taking their culture into areas inhabited by hunter-gatherer communities.

Professor Chris Turney of the University of Exeter, lead author of the paper, said: “People living in what is now southeast Europe must have felt as though the whole world had flooded. This could well have been the origin of the Noah’s Ark story. Entire coastal communities must have been displaced, forcing people to migrate in their thousands. As these agricultural communities moved west, they would have taken farming with them across Europe. It was a revolutionary time.”

The rise in global sea levels 8000 years ago is in-line with current estimates for the end of the 21st century. Professor Chris Turney continued: “This research shows how rising sea levels can cause massive social change. 8,000 years on, are we any better placed to deal with rising sea levels” The latest estimates suggest that by AD 2050, millions of people will be displaced each year by rising sea levels. For those people living in coastal communities, the omen isn’t good.”

###

Source:
Sarah Hoyle
University of Exeter

Performing cardiac stress tests that measure exercise capacity and heart rate recovery can improve dramatically on existing techniques that predict who is most likely to suffer a heart attack or die from coronary heart disease (CHD), the leading cause of death in the United States, a team of cardiologists at Johns Hopkins reports.

In the Sept. 13 edition of the journal Circulation, the Hopkins team reports that 90 percent of men and women with no early signs of CHD who, nevertheless, died from it had had below average results from their cardiac stress tests conducted 10 to 20 years earlier.

The team’s analysis showed these asymptomatic people were two to four times more likely to die from CHD within 10 to 20 years than people with average or better-than-average stress test results, even though traditional scoring for major risk factors for the disease, such as such as age, blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels and smoking status, had determined the asymptomatic people to be at low or intermediate risk of having heart problems.

According to the cardiologists, these exercise stress tests are easy to perform, lasting less than 20 minutes and requiring only that a person walk on a treadmill at progressively higher speeds and inclines every three minutes until they become markedly fatigued. During the test, people are hooked up to a heart monitor.

“This is the strongest evidence to date that selective use of cardiac stress testing improves prediction of who is really at high risk of suffering a fatal heart attack when traditional risk assessment suggests they are not at high risk of a heart attack within the next 10 years,” says senior study author and cardiologist Roger S. Blumenthal, M.D., an associate professor and director of the Ciccarone Preventive Cardiology Center at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute.

The traditional risk factors combine to give a score called the Framingham Risk Score, or FRS, that was developed in the last 20 years. Considered the gold standard, the score is based on a summary estimate of the major risk factors for heart disease: age, blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels and smoking status. It consists of a percentage range of how likely a person is to suffer a fatal or nonfatal heart attack within 10 years.

However, Blumenthal says that many people, especially women, with cardiovascular problems go undetected despite use of the Framingham score, which does not factor in a person’s family history, weight or exercise habits. Blumenthal is also a spokesman for the American Heart Association, which estimates that 656,000 Americans died from CHD in 2002, the last year for which statistics are available.

More than 6,100 people took part in the study, conducted from 1972 to 1995, and part of a larger project known as the Lipid Research Clinics Prevalence Study. All participants in this smaller Hopkins study were age 30 to 70. None had early signs of heart disease, but every participant did have at least one major risk factor for it.

At 10 medical centers across the United States, study participants were given a physical examination, had blood tests performed and were scored on the FRS. Each participant also underwent cardiac stress testing, which included stress testing for exercise capacity and heart rate recovery, plus any changes in the heart’s electrical signaling that are typical of decreased blood flow to the heart muscle.

Those with a Framingham score of less than 10 percent were gauged to be at low risk for future CHD, while participants with a score between 10 percent and 20 percent were ranked at intermediate risk for future CHD, and those with a score higher than 20 percent were judged to be at high risk of CHD.

Once participants were ranked by Framingham score, the researchers monitored their health every six months until death or the end of the study to find out who did or did not die from a heart attack or CHD.

Cardiac stress testing is used to gauge how well the heart works when it has to pump harder and use more oxygen, for example, while walking on a treadmill. The exercise, sustained for five to 10 minutes, mimics the strain placed on the heart when arteries are blocked or narrowed.

The researchers goal, however, was to determine if more accurate prediction of whether or not a person will die from a heart attack could be made by adding exercise capacity and heart rate recovery to current assessment techniques that relied mostly on monitoring the heart’s electrical signaling.

During stress testing, a person’s breathing, blood pressure and heart rate are monitored while the intensity of their exercising is slowly increased to see how their heart responds. The amount, in number of beats per minute that the heart rate drops two minutes after exercise stops, is also recorded to determine heart rate recovery.

Using tables that take into account a person’s age, gender and weight, the results can be compared against average scores to see if a person is below, at or above the norm. There is very little risk of harm associated with the testing because participants are closely monitored.

The researchers report that 246 participants died from CHD even though they had initially been categorized by their FRS as at either low or intermediate risk of the disease. However, 225 of those who died also had below average test scores for exercise capacity and heart rate recovery.

“Our best means of preventing coronary heart disease is to identify those most likely to develop the condition and intervene before symptoms appear,” says the study’s lead author, cardiologist Samia Mora, M.D., M.H.S., then a research fellow at Hopkins.

“Cardiac stress testing could significantly improve our abilities to find and aggressively treat these people so that they are much less likely to suffer a heart attack.”

According to the researchers, these latest results support conclusions from earlier this year that traditional risk assessment with the FRS can be improved with selective use of cardiac CT scans to measure calcium scores in individuals with more than one risk factor, such as obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyle or a family history of heart disease.

Funding for the study was provided by the Maryland Athletic Club Charitable Foundation in Lutherville, Md.

Other researchers involved were Rita Redberg, M.D., M.Sc., from the University of California in San Francisco; and A. Richey Sharrett, M.D., Dr.P.H., from Hopkins.

David March
dmarch1jhmi.edu
410-955-1534
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
hopkinsmedicine

About 13 percent of elderly Americans are mistreated, most commonly by someone who verbally mistreats or financially takes advantage of them, according to a University of Chicago study that is the first comprehensive look at elder mistreatment in the country.

“The population of the country is aging, and people now live with chronic diseases longer. So it’s important to understand, from a health perspective, how people are being treated as they age,” said lead author Edward Laumann, the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor in Sociology at the University of Chicago.

Other studies have been based on small, non-representative samples of the population or on data gathered from the criminal justice system or welfare agencies such as adult protection services. They are not as comprehensive as the new study, which was made in response to a report from the National Research Council calling for scientific study of elder mistreatment.

Laumann and his research team found that 9 percent of adults reported verbal mistreatment, 3.5 percent reported financial mistreatment and 0.2 percent reported physical mistreatment. Physical impairment apparently plays a role in mistreatment, the study found.

“Older people with any physical vulnerability are about 13 percent more likely than those without one to report verbal mistreatment but are not more likely to report financial mistreatment,” said co-author Linda Waite, the Lucy Flower Professor in Sociology at the University.

Their study showed that adults in their late 50s and 60s are more likely to report verbal or financial mistreatment than those who are older. “Perhaps the respondents are including fairly routine arguments, perhaps about money, with their spouse, sibling or child in their reports or perhaps older adults are more reticent to report negative behavior,” Laumann said.

The findings, which found wide variations in mistreatment depending on age and ethnicity, were reported in “Elder Mistreatment in the U.S.: Prevalence Estimates from a Nationally-Representative Study,” published in the current issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences.

The study found that females were about twice as likely to report verbal mistreatment, but no higher level of financial mistreatment, than men; Latinos were about half as likely as whites to report verbal mistreatment and 78 percent less likely to report financial mistreatment; and blacks were 77 percent more likely to report financial mistreatment than whites.

Regarding mistreatment, respondents were asked about the past 12 months and answer three questions: “Is there anyone who insults you or puts you down?” (verbal); “Is there anyone who has taken your money or belongings without your OK or prevented you from getting them, even when you ask?” (financial); and “Is there anyone who hits, kicks, slaps or throws things at you?” (physical).

Of the people reporting verbal mistreatment, 26 percent identified their spouse or romantic partner as being responsible, 15 percent said their children mistreated them verbally, while the remainder said that a friend, neighbor, co-worker or boss was responsible.

Among people who reported financial mistreatment, 57 percent reported someone other than a spouse, parent or child, usually another relative, was taking advantage of them.

Waite said there is good news, though. Few older adults reported mistreatment by family members, with older adults quite insulated from physical mistreatment. However, the authors pointed to the need for sensitivity on the part of physicians and other medical personnel to the possibility, although infrequent, of physical mistreatment of their patients.

###

Sarah Leitsch, a research scientist at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, joined in the study.

The study was based on the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), a 2005-2006 survey of a random sample of 3,005 community-dwelling adults, ages 57 through 85. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) supported the study, which collected data on individuals’ social lives, sexuality, health and a broad range of biological measures.

The NSHAP is supported by several components of the NIH, including the National Institute on Aging, the Office of Research on Women’s Health, the Office of AIDS Research and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. The National Opinion Research Center, whose staff was responsible for the data collection, also supports the project.

Source: Steve Koppes

University of Chicago

Signalife, Inc.
(“Company”), (Amex: SGN) announced that it has initiated its cardiovascular
wellness and athletic program. The first engagement will be the most
demanding i.e. testing and utilization with worldwide track and field
athletes as well as nationwide fitness facilities. Through this program the
parties intend to explore protocols for the utilization of Signalife’s
revolutionary product. As is generally acknowledged, ECG devices are rarely
capable of detecting a clinical quality ECG signal in an ambulatory
environment. The selection of Signalife’s flagship Fidelity 100 heart
monitor by Olympic class athletes and internationally-known fitness
facilities, will attempt to utilize the devices during exercise training
environments such as track and field, professional football, tennis and
other sports. Healthcare professionals will be able to gauge numerous
indicators relating to health and athletic performance. One partnership
with the utilization of Signalife’s technology is with Maurice Green, the
current American and Olympic 100 meter champion. Others include, renown
track and field stars such as Leonard Scott (world indoor sprint champion),
Dominque Arnold (American hurdling record holder), and Larry Wade.

Additionally, retired athletes from all sports are in support of the
utilization of the Fidelity 100(TM) for their health and conditioning
needs. For example, Hall of Fame professional running backs Marcus Allen
and Jim Brown, as well as superstars Tim Brown, Marshall Faulk and Willie
Gault, will utilize the Fidelity 100(TM) with their physicians to gauge
their cardiovascular condition. To quote Mr. Gault (formerly voted the
greatest athlete in the world) “It is never too late, or too early, to
learn the actual condition of the most important muscle in the body and to
do something about it.”

Furthermore, Signalife has already entered into understandings with
best of class fitness facilities. The most stress known in the world to
date may be the “under 10-second” 100 meter dash in which the heart muscle
of the athlete literally moves inside the heart’s chest cavity. The
Signalife Fidelity 100(TM) performs flawlessly in that environment. But the
Signalife Fidelity 100(TM) is even more important for the client population
in general, as conditioning and disease states is a matter of degree
spanning a $400 billion cardiovascular industry.

Signalife anticipates numerous expansions in the wellness and
performance arena over the upcoming 120 days, both nationally and
internationally. During this time, look for events at fitness clubs near
you when these athletes will conduct physician prescribed and supervised
demonstrations of the revolutionary Fidelity 100 (TM).

Signalife’s cardiovascular wellness and athletic program has become
increasingly important in light of several recent studies that have
measured the injury to the general population — and the increase in the
cost of health care in general — from unrecognized cardiovascular
abnormalities. By providing clientele, in the exercise and fitness setting,
with the only ambulatory, clinical quality, ECG monitoring device,
Signalife hopes to identify and stratify risks earlier for the benefit of
all those prescribed the device by their physicians.

In the July 27, 2006 addition of Health Day News, the authors stated:

“Heart attacks often go unrecognized, although experts disagree
on just how often. One recent study suggested that 43 percent of
attacks — more than four in 10 — may go undetected when they
occur, and more often in women than men. While other experts say that
estimate is too high, they concede that unrecognized attacks are a
problem…

The researchers gave the men and women a baseline ECG screening
during the years 1990 to 1993, and then repeated the ECGs during
either 1994 to 1995, or 1997 to 2000. The imaging tests revealed
that over 4 out of 10 heart attacks went unrecognized — including
one-third of attacks in men and more than one-half in women, the
study said.

The researchers think the results could apply to any developed
country.”

Under the pact, Signalife has established a series of pilot programs
for athletes — from professionals to “weekend warriors.” The
cardiovascular issues faced by the entire population are paralleled to the
professionals. Indeed, current 100-meter record holder Maurice Greene –
American Record Holder in the 100 Meter dash, Olympic Gold Medalist and
National and International Track and Field Superstar — commented: “People
are under the incorrect impression that professional athletes are not as
sensitive to what is happening in their body than are the general
population. The truth may be just the opposite. We have to be very in tune
with our bodies, because the stress created by national and international
competition is unequalled in terms of the potential short and long term
impact on the athlete’s heart. With the Signalife Fidelity 100(TM) device,
we now for the first time have an easy-to-use (size of a PDA) measuring
stick that provides clear data and trusted results that are useful from
everything to the athletes’ health as well as the data he or she needs to
make intelligent decisions about their performance, their health and their
life. To then be able to have benefits to mankind — with Signalife using
the data to stratify risks across populations and demographics, from the
track to the gym to the jogging trail — is very rewarding for me as a role
model and caring member of society. Looking for all the information I can
get to live a competitive career and life, it was an easy choice for to
begin using the Signalife technologies.”

Mr. Greene continued: “This is not about paid endorsements, and my
relationship with Signalife is not one of them. This is about my health and
the health of the population. If I can assist in helping myself as well as
the general population, there is no way I am going to walk away from the
opportunity. I am extremely proud to be working with a device already
demonstrated to generate a perfect clinical quality ECG signal during the
harsh environment associated with internationally competitive 100-meter
races. To me, the benefits to the population are endless. This is among the
most exciting endeavors I have been involved with both during my career and
prospectively thereafter.”

Of course, third party physician practice groups shall purchase and
utilize the Signalife heart monitoring products in a manner calculated to
achieve the goal of promoting the objectives of its clientele. While the
athletes and organizations are under no obligation to continue any program
beyond one year, it is anticipated that all pacts will be made permanent in
the event the initial testing produce the expected results. Signalife hopes
to be a staple in all endeavors of athletic competition.

Dr. Lowell Harmison — former Principal Deputy of the United States
Department of Health and Human Services, developer of the world’s first
fully implantable artificial heart and member of Signalife’s Board of
Directors — commented on the pact: “It is well established that
cardiovascular problems and athletic performance — as with all diseases
and athletic states — can be better predicted through knowledge. In the
case of a normal person, the key is early detection and early intervention.
As a corollary, health and wellness is obviously maximized by knowing — in
detail and in advance — of any signal-related changes in the person’s ECG
evaluation. The ECG is the gold standard, but no ECG other than ours can
produce a clinical quality signal while following a patient in 9 seconds as
he runs the 100 meters. We are excited to be working alongside
internationally-respected and record- holding athletes as well as national
gyms.”

“It is important to applaud the adoption of Signalife technologies and
to recognize the opportunity we have been given,” states Pamela Bunes,
Signalife’s CEO. “According to statistics provided by the International
Health, Racquet, & Sports Club Association, there are more than 26,000
health and fitness clubs in the US with more than 43 million members.
Health club members focus on their future wellness by adopting a fitness
regimen that can now include ECG evaluations that reflect the improvement
to one’s cardiovascular health after the adoption of an appropriate fitness
regimen. A number of states recently required that gyms keep Automatic
external Defibrillators (AEDs) onsite to address the growing incidence of
sudden cardiac arrest at sports facilities…

Leading up to the wellness and athletic program, Signalife has not only
engaged in extensive and well-known medical testing of its flagship
Fidelity 100(TM) heart monitor, but Signalife has also tested the device in
exercise settings. Indeed, Signalife’s FDA-cleared Fidelity 100 (TM)
produced a clinical quality ECG during strenuous exercise known only to
world class track and field athletes as well as professional race-car
drivers. In these exact settings, the ECG signal was as clear as if the
patient was resting in a physician’s office. Signalife’s research to date
indicates that these ambulatory settings are where cardiovascular
abnormalities are most likely to be detected at the earliest stage and
where performance can best be measured.

About Signalife, Inc.

Signalife, Inc. engages in the research, development, and marketing of
signal-monitoring devices for detecting diseases. It primarily offers
patient modules that are used as part of a heart monitor system to acquire,
amplify, and process physiological signals associated with a patient’s
cardiovascular system. Signalife is based in Greenville, South Carolina.
For more information visit signalife.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this release that are not strictly historical are
“forward- looking” statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and
unknown risks, which may cause Signalife’s actual results in the future to
differ materially from expected results. Factors which could cause or
contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, failure to
complete the development and introduction of heart monitoring and other
biomedical devices incorporating Signalife’s technology, failure to obtain
federal or state regulatory approvals governing heart monitoring and other
biomedical devices incorporating Signalife’s technology, inability to
obtain physician, patient, client or insurance acceptance of for heart
monitoring and other biomedical incorporating Signalife’s technology, and
the unavailability of financing to complete management’s plans and
objectives, including the development of heart monitoring and other
biomedical incorporating Signalife’s technology. Additional risks are found
in clientele acceptance of Signalife’s product-set. These risks are
qualified in their entirety by cautionary language and risk factors set
forth and to be further described in Signalife’s filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, but are significant and should be
carefully evaluated by any and all investors.

Signalife, Inc.
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