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(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) in collaboration with researchers from Lahey Clinic Northshore, Peabody, Mass., believe that androgen deficiency might be the underlying cause for a variety of common clinical conditions, including diabetes, erectile dysfunction, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease (CVD). These findings appear in the September/October issue of the Journal of Andrology. Androgens are a steroid hormone, such as testosterone, that controls the development and maintenance of male characteristics. In a number of studies, androgen deficiency has been linked to an increased mortality in men. Testosterone (T) is an anabolic hormone with a wide...

COPENHAGEN — Rheumatoid arthritis and two other rheumatic diseases are as strong as diabetes as risk factors for cardiovascular disease, prompting a European League Against Rheumatism task force to issue the group's first consensus recommendations for managing cardiovascular risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and psoriatic arthritis. “In our view, rheumatoid arthritis [RA], ankylosing spondylitis [AS], and psoriatic arthritis [PsA] should be seen as new, independent cardiovascular risk factors,” Dr. Michael T. Nurmohamed said at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology. “Very importantly, the risk is comparable to type 2 diabetes,” added Dr. Nurmohamed, a rheumatologist at the...

Enlarge ImageEvolving evidence. In a massive study, C-reactive protein didn’t boost the risk of heart attacks.Credit: Wikipedia A new study may be the last word in a controversy that's plagued cardiovascular disease research for years: whether a marker of inflammation known as C-reactive protein (CRP) drives heart attacks and strokes. In a survey of more than 128,000 people, researchers have found that genes that raise CRP levels don't make cardiovascular disease more likely. Although the study arrives at the same conclusion as earlier work, its massive size makes it statistically the most powerful test yet of this question and...

TUESDAY, (HealthDay News) -- Injecting bone marrow cells into the heart's muscular wall restored blood flow to hearts with blocked arteries for which conventional treatments had proven ineffective, Dutch physicians have reported. "I think this is very good news for patients who are at the end of the line and have no options left," said Dr. Douwe E. Atsma, an interventional cardiologist at Leiden University Medical Center and an author of the study, which appears in the May 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The 50 people in the study, 43 of them men, were experiencing...

Catholic commentator Phyllis Schlafly has suggested Catholics should stop donating to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CHD). The national second collection for CHD at parishes is slated for this Sunday, Nov. 23. In the Nov. 23-29 issue of the Register, we report on the decision by Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham, Ala., to instruct that the CHD collection not be taken this year in parishes in his diocese. The Campaign for Human Development has come under criticism for its longstanding links to ACORN, the community activist group thatÂ’s under criminal investigation for allegedly undertaking voter registration fraud. But critics...

I've had lots of people asking me about ACORN and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CHD). Both are certainly in the news alot these days: The CCHD has donated more than $7.3 million to ACORN-related projects over the past decade, including $40,000 to an ACORN chapter in Las Vegas, Nevada, that was raided before the election in an investigation into fraudulent voter registration forms. Among other questionable documents, the ACORN chapter submitted registration forms for members of the Dallas Cowboys football team.Earlier this week I blogged about the US bishops' decision to stop funding ACORN. Now many folks...

Obama and the Bishops By Richard John Neuhaus Friday, November 7, 2008, 8:16 AM (As) the American bishops of the Catholic Church hold their annual fall meeting in Baltimore. High on the agenda is how Catholic bishops can better communicate Catholic teaching on social justice both in the Church and in the public square. It is understood that the priority issue of social justice is the protection of innocent human life—from the entrance gates of life to the exit gates, and at every step along life’s way. The most massive and brutal violation of justice is the killing of millions...

Before he was elected mayor in 2001, Michael R. Bloomberg had surgery to have two stents implanted in a coronary artery because of blockage in his heart, a person with knowledge of Mr. Bloomberg’s health said last night. Mayor Bloomberg has not had heart disease since the stents were put in, according to this person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Mr. Bloomberg had not authorized release of the information. The mayor is in excellent health today, this person said. Newsweek magazine first reported the implants this week. The person with knowledge of the mayor’s health said the procedure...

High consumption of trans fat, found mainly in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and widely used by the food industry, has been linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). New York and Philadelphia have passed measures eliminating its use in restaurants, and other cities are considering similar bans. A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) provides the strongest association to date between trans fat and heart disease. It found that women in the U.S. with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had three times the risk of CHD as those with...

Are mandatory aerobics classes in your future? "When anyone dies at an early age from a preventable cause in New York City, it's my fault," New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden declared recently (Financial Times registration required). In his campaign to make sure that no New Yorker dies before his or her time, Frieden has adopted an expansive notion of public health. Historically, public health has focused on protecting people from the risks of communicable diseases. Thus public health officials have been empowered to mandate vaccinations, require the chlorination of water, order that milk be pasteurized, and quarantine sick...

HOUSTON (Sept. 16, 2005) - Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have found that human fat cells produce a protein that is linked to both inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. They say the discovery, reported in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, goes a long way to explain why people who are overweight generally have higher levels of the molecule, known as C-reactive protein (CRP), which is now used diagnostically to predict future cardiovascular events. And they also report...

Reducing the levels of a protein secreted by the body during inflammation may be as powerful in slowing heart disease and preventing heart attacks and deaths as lowering cholesterol, two teams of researchers are reporting. The studies, published in Thursday's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, provide the strongest evidence yet for the role of the protein, known as CRP for C-reactive protein, in heart disease. The participants were patients with severe heart disease who were taking high doses of statin drugs, which lower both cholesterol and CRP. Lower CRP levels, the researchers found, were linked to a...

A seductive new diagnostic technology may be coming to a medical center near you. It is an advanced heart scanner that can produce sharply detailed pictures of every clogged artery that might be threatening to cause a heart attack. Some experts expect it to revolutionize the practice of cardiology, while others are warning that it could bankrupt the health care system. Even discounting for hyperbole on both sides, it will be important to ensure that this technology is used only on the most appropriate patients and not promoted willy-nilly for every anxious man or woman eager to exploit the latest...

Between June 6 and June 12, Civil Homeland Defense of Tombstone will be deploying at least 40 skilled civilians into the field to help the beleagured U.S. Border Patrol "seal the border," as was promised by officials of DHS. Twenty-four hour patrols will be conducted in Palominas, a renowned hotbed of illegal alien border-crossers and drug smugglers. Saying that "civil homeland defense begins with securing our borders," Chris Simcox, editor of the Tombstone Tumbleweed and head of Civil Homeland Defense, has promised to guide volunteers from all over the United States to aid the federal government in the performance of...

A new and emerging understanding of how heart attacks occur indicates that increasingly popular aggressive treatments may be doing little or nothing to prevent them. The artery-opening methods, like bypass surgery and stents, the widely used wire cages that hold plaque against an artery wall, can alleviate crushing chest pain. Stents can also rescue someone in the midst of a heart attack by destroying an obstruction and holding the closed artery open. But the new model of heart disease shows that the vast majority of heart attacks do not originate with obstructions that narrow arteries. Instead, recent and continuing studies...

For years, doctors have been saying that to prevent heart disease, patients should pay attention to both the so-called bad cholesterol, or L.D.L., and the good cholesterol, or H.D.L. The good, they said, can counteract the bad. But now, some scientists say, new and continuing studies have called into question whether high levels of the good cholesterol are always good and, when they are beneficial, how much. While some heart experts are not ready to change their treatment advice, others have concluded that H.D.L. should play at most a minor role in deciding whether to prescribe cholesterol-lowering drugs. In the...

Critics Decry Yuma, Arizona's 'Vigilante' Crackdown By Jon E. Dougherty CNSNews.com Correspondent October 14, 2003 (CNSNews.com) - Immigration reform organizations are criticizing a resolution adopted by the Yuma, Ariz., County Board of Supervisors condemning "vigilante" civilian groups that voluntarily patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. Supervisors recently voted unanimously to adopt a decree expressing their opposition to the civilian border groups, some of which have been operating in Yuma County. The goal of the civilian groups is to deter aliens from illegally crossing into the U.S. The handful of groups, which include organizations like Ranch Rescue and Arizona-based Civil Homeland Defense, usually...

Nation & World 7/28/03 Between Two Lands America's border still beckons to thousands of Mexicans, but today it's a life-and-death trip By Bay Fang U.S. News & World Report IN THE SONORAN DESERT--It's a typical summer night in the Arizona desert, but it feels like the end of the world. Bolts of lightning flash here and there, illuminating the sky for seconds, then fading to black. Thunder crashes in surround sound. Craig Howard, a heavyset 57-year-old, packs two guns and sports a baseball cap. Sitting in a lawn chair behind a bush, he is stock-still as he listens for...