Vitamin D deficiency is common among women diagnosed with breast cancer, and it may raise the risk of cancer spread and death, researchers report. In a new study, women with vitamin D deficiency at the time of breast cancer diagnosis were 94% more likely to experience cancer spread and 73% more likely to die over the next 10 years, compared to women with adequate vitamin D levels.

The study is the first to suggest a link between vitamin D deficiency and breast cancer progression, but it doesn’t prove cause and effect. And it’s too soon to recommend that all women with breast cancer start taking supplements to improve their outlook, says study head Pamela Goodwin, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. But “women with breast cancer may want to get their vitamin D levels checked in a blood test and get them into the healthy optimal range,” she says.
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A class of drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction may one day help delay or even prevent heart failure in patients with the most common forms of muscular dystrophy, according to a study published in the May 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a progressive muscle-wasting disease that primarily strikes boys between ages 2 and 6 years old. It affects all voluntary muscles, including the lungs and heart. Most patients die before age 30. Duchenne muscular dystrophy and a less severe variant called Becker muscular dystrophy affect about one in every 3,500 to 5,000 boys in the United States.

Maya Khairallah of the Montreal Heart Institute and colleagues assigned mice with muscular dystrophy to either a placebo or Viagra. The mice received the drug once a day for six weeks.
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A telephone survey of more than 71,000 adults in 13 states and Washington, D.C., has revealed that shockingly few people know the warning signs of a stroke. The CDC analyzed data from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey and found that only 16.4% of persons surveyed correctly recognized all five stroke warning symptoms, knew to call 911, and could identify an incorrect symptom of stroke.

According to the CDC, the five warning symptoms of a stroke are:

* Sudden weakness or numbness of the arms, legs, or face, especially on one side. Read more

Smoking marijuana increases the body’s production of a protein that raises levels of blood fats associated with heart attack and stroke, government researchers report. The finding helps explain the increased risk of such cardiovascular problems found in previous studies of marijuana, said Dr. Jean Lud Cadet, chief of the Molecular Neuropsychiatry Research Branch of the National Institute of Drug Abuse. He is lead author of the report, published in the May 13 issue of Molecular Psychiatry.

“We’ve done a number of clinical papers reporting on marijuana users,” Cadet said. “In the past, we have reported cognitive abnormalities, and a paper in 2005 reported vascular [blood vessel] abnormalities.” The latest paper looked at blood levels of a variety of proteins in 18 long-term heavy users of marijuana and 24 volunteers who had never used the drug. It used a new electronic technology that made such protein measurements possible, Cadet said.

The analysis showed significantly higher blood levels of apolipoprotein C-III in the marijuana users than in the nonusers. APOC-III is one of a large family of proteins that interact with fats. It delays the breakdown of triglycerides, fats that can accumulate in blood vessels and promote formation of plaques, leading to blockages that can cause heart attacks, strokes and other problems.

“It is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease,” Cadet said. “The study suggests that APOC-III might be one of the risk factors contributing to the medical problems that marijuana users suffer from.” In terms of heart disease and stroke, is smoking marijuana more dangerous than smoking tobacco? “It is very difficult on the basis of our study to say,” Cadet said, since there was no comparison between marijuana and tobacco smokers.

“It is an interesting study, but I don’t think it is particularly profound,” said Dr. Christopher Granger, a professor of medicine at Duke University who has done studies of risk factors in cardiovascular disease. “It looks at a relatively small number of people and the relationship between marijuana and this particular protein in the blood stream. There is a relationship, but there is far from proof that it is cause-and-effect, and if it is cause-and-effect that it would have an effect on the people using marijuana.”

“I consider this study exploratory, by definition, because of the technique they used, sort of a shotgun approach,” said Dr. Kenneth Mukamal, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who has studied the effects of marijuana use on cardiovascular disease. “They chose this protein out of a range of thousands of possibilities, so there is a chance you find something just by luck.”

The effects of marijuana on the cardiovascular system are still uncertain, Mukamal said. “It has negative effects on heart rate and may even trigger heart attacks,” he said. “But in mice, it apparently prevents atherosclerosis. Whether it is good or bad remains a question.”

via medicinenet

Taking vitamin D supplements may help people live longer, according to a new research review. But it’s not yet clear exactly how vitamin D does that. The new review, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, comes at a time when vitamin D is a hot topic linked to benefits including lower risk of some cancers and fewer falls for elders.

The body makes vitamin D when exposed to sunshine. Vitamin D is also found in some foods, including salmon, and in some fortified foods, including some dairy products and cereals. But some experts are concerned that vitamin D deficiency is too common and suggest that the current recommended intake of vitamin D is too low.

The new vitamin D review comes from Philippe Autier, MD, and Sara Gandini, PhD. Autier works for the International Agency of Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. Gandini works for the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, Italy.
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