Living to 100 may hinge on having special genes that balance out the harmful effects of other, "bad" genes, researchers say. Their discovery could lead to the development of medications aimed at protecting people from disease-causing genes, they believe.

Study subjects who lived to 100 were found to have an equal or greater number of disease-related gene variants as younger people studied by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York City. Researchers, however, were able to identify a particular gene that acted to buffer the harmful effects of a disease-causing gene in the oldest study subjects.

Only one person in 10,000 people currently lives to be 100, researchers noted. They expressed hope that further research could lead to the development of drugs that mimic the action of the longevity gene. This also could lead to better protection against cardiovascular disease and other age-related diseases, they said.

The study report will be published in Friday's issue of PLoS Computational Biology.
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August 27, 2007

Doctors Often Dismiss Drug Side-Effects

U.S. doctors frequently ignore or dismiss drug side-effects reported to them by their patients, a study found.

Physician monitoring of drug side-effects affects not only the doctor's own patients, but is essential to warnings being placed on drugs and even the removal of drugs from the market, reported the study published in the journal Drug Safety.

Researchers from the University of California-San Diego studied 650 patients with side effects from statins -- the widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs -- and found 87 percent of the patients said they spoke to their doctors about a possible connection between a statin and a symptom they experienced afterward.

About 50 percent of the time, patients said their concerns were either dismissed or not addressed. Patients reported their doctor told them: These drugs have no side effects. You're just getting older. It's your imagination -- you just didn't like taking pills.

Physicians were less likely to acknowledge less common side effects -- where reporting is most important -- than the better known side effects, said lead author Dr. Beatrice Golomb.

To ensure patient safety, we need to know as much as possible about a drug's effects -- favorable and possibly adverse, Golomb, said in a statement.
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August 13, 2007

Study: Some older men should receive osteoporosis screening

Screening and treating older men for osteoporosis may prove to be cost-effective, especially if they have had a prior fracture, a new study suggests.

Nearly 15% of men age 65 who had a prior fracture were found to have osteoporosis. The bone-thinning disease was prevalent in about 34% of men with prior fracture at age 85, according to researchers at Park Nicollet Health Services, Minneapolis. In the absence of prior facture the incidence of osteoporosis was lower at both ages.

Universal bone density screening followed by oral medication therapy may be cost-effective for men aged 65 years or older with a prior clinical fracture and for men aged 80 years or older regardless of fracture history. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported the study.
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August 10, 2007

Study: Some elderly don't receive appropriate heart attack care

People over the age of 75, women and minorities are among the 10% of eligible patients who don't receive emergency angioplasty and clot-busting drugs to treat their heart attack, according to new study results.

Emergency reperfusion - angioplasty and clot-busing drugs to reopen clogged arteries - can be a lifesaving treatment and prevent damage to the heart, but 10% of patients do not receive the emergency therapies, the study found. Researchers led by cardiologists at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and the Yale University School of Medicine analyzed national data on more than 238,000 people who had heart attacks between 1994 and 2003.