Facts

One in Five Kids Have Abnormal Lipids: New data from the CDC shows that one in five youths aged 12 to 19 years has abnormal lipid levels. Also, nearly one-third of these youths are obese or overweight and based on their body-mass index (BMI) are candidates for lipid screening, according …

Thirty Million Americans Have Normal-Weight-Obesity: A recent report suggests that fat in your body can get you and your heart into trouble even if you don’t look fat and if the scale tells you you’re healthy. In a study that looked at data from 6,171 Americans with normal body size, …

Hypertension Identified as Number One Global Risk for Mortality: Hypertension is the leading global risk for mortality, responsible for 12.8% (7.5 million) of total deaths worldwide, according to a new report from the WHO. The report also identified hypertension as responsible for 3.8% of years of life lost due to …

One in five teens at risk of heart disease due to high cholesterol: One out of every five US teenagers has a cholesterol level that increases the risk of heart disease, federal health officials reported, providing striking new evidence that obesity is making more children prone to illnesses once primarily …

Too much sitting as bad as too little exercise: Sitting all day may significantly boost the risk of lifestyle-related disease even if one adds a regular dose of moderate or vigorous exercise. The study shows that each daily one-hour increase in sitting time while watching television upped the rate of …

Cognitive Impairment + Diabetes = Dementia: Researchers found that older people with memory loss are three times more likely to develop dementia if they also have diabetes. Scientists have previously recognized that diabetes is associated with development of mild cognitive impairment, memory loss. This most recent study shows that having …

ADA Announces New Recommendations for the Diagnosis of Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes: The American Diabetes Association’s new Clinical Practice Recommendations, being published as a supplement to the January issue of Diabetes Care, call for the addition of the A1c test as a means of diagnosing diabetes and identifying pre-diabetes. The test has …

FDA Decision on Liraglutide Expected within Days: Danish pharma major Novo Nordisk said it expects formal feedback from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the new drug application (NDA) for its diabetes drug candidate liraglutide within days. Liraglutide is a once-daily human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue, which works by …

Which is Better? Insulin vs. Triple Oral Therapy for Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes: Early use of insulin after diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes is met with resistance because of associated weight gain, hypoglycemia, and fear of decreased compliance and quality of life (QoL). When compared with a clinically equivalent treatment …

Antidepressants Linked to Increased Risk for Death, Stroke in Postmenopausal Women: Postmenopausal women taking either a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) or a selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) appear to be at increased risk for all-cause mortality, and SSRI users seem to be at increased risk for hemorrhagic and fatal stroke, although the …