They did detect an increased risk in men, but only when cholesterol was at almost twice the average level.

The report in Annals of Neurology recommends using a different type of fat in the blood, non-fasting triglycerides, to measure the risk.

The Stroke Association said triglyceride tests needed to become routine to reduce the risk of stroke.

A total of 150,000 people have a stroke in the UK each year. Most are ischemic strokes, in which a clot in an artery disrupts the brain’s blood supply.

The research followed 13,951 men and women, who took part in the Copenhagen City Heart Study.

During the 33-year study, 837 men and 837 women had strokes.

Poor predictor

They reported that the cholesterol levels in women were not associated with stroke, while there was only an association in men with levels higher than 9mmol/litre. The average in UK men is 5.5.

The researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital said this was “difficult to explain” as LDL, or bad, cholesterol is known to cause atherosclerosis which can block arteries.

They did notice a link, in both men and women, between the risk of stroke and non-fasting triglycerides.

They believe these fats are a marker for “remnant cholesterol” which is left behind when other forms of cholesterol are made.

Dr Peter Coleman, deputy director of research at The Stroke Association said: “Tests for triglyceride levels aren’t routinely carried out in the UK unless there is significant concern.”

“We know that high levels of fats, such as cholesterol, increase your risk of having a stroke. However, this research shows the importance of measuring the fat triglyceride, as well as cholesterol.

“This study highlights the importance of measuring triglycerides routinely in order to reduce a person’s risk of stroke.”

source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12505230

New research suggests that higher doses of statin may not always work to prevent diseases of the coronary artery.

Statins have been found to be highly efficient in lowering cholesterol. Usually, a treat-to-target approach, which means treating to a target cholesterol level, is taken with statin therapy.

But according to some experts, a tailored approach using different dosages based on patients” risk for cardiovascular disease could work better for reducing the risk of coronary artery disease.

Researchers created a computer simulation to compare two treatment approaches at the population level– giving fixed doses of statins depending on a person”s five-year coronary artery disease risk (tailored treatment), or increasing statin doses to attain particular lipid level targets (treat-to-target).

It was seen that the tailored fixed-dose strategy saved more quality-adjusted life-years and treated fewer persons with high-dose statin therapy as compared to the intensive treat-to-target approach.

Researchers say that tying statin treatment individual risk for heart disease and potential benefits may be better than methods that concentrate on realizing certain lipid level targets.

Scientists say they have found proof that another “bad” type of cholesterol contributes to heart disease.

Unlike the well-known LDL cholesterol, lipoprotein(a) or Lp(a) cannot be controlled by cutting down on dietary fats or taking a statin drug.

But researchers say high levels do not carry the same risk as LDL.

And other drugs might work to minimise its effects, they told the New England Journal of Medicine.

LDL is considered the aggressive tiger of the cholesterol world, furring the arteries and greatly increasing heart risk. Scientist believe Lp(a), which is inherited, is more of a pussycat, although it does appear to upset blood clotting.

Inherent risk

The researchers used gene-chip technology to scan DNA that they knew from previous studies were potential “hotspots” for heart disease risk. This analysis revealed the two genetic culprits.

Professor Martin Farrall, lead author of the study carried out at Oxford University, said one in six people carries one or more of the genes for Lp(a).

He said: “The increase in risk to people from high Lp(a) levels is significantly less severe than the risk from high LDL cholesterol levels.

“So Lp(a) doesn’t trump LDL, which has a larger impact and which we can already control pretty effectively.

“The hope now is that by targeting both we could get even better risk reduction.”

Some existing drugs, such as Niacin, and others coming on to the market, such as CETP-inhibitors, lower Lp(a) as well as LDL cholesterol.

Professor Peter Weissberg of the British Heart Foundation, which funded the study, said the findings were useful but urged people not to be alarmed by them.

“They highlight the importance of trying to lower Lp(a), which will spark new efforts to design a medicine to achieve this effectively.

“And they reveal clues that open a new avenue for research to decipher how heart disease develops.

“But LDL is still the type of cholesterol to be more concerned about.”

Fats from food are turned into cholesterol by the liver. There are different types but some, such as LDL, are known as “bad” cholesterol. They can lead to a build-up in the body’s cells.

Prof Weissberg said everyone could reduce their risk of heart disease by eating a healthy balanced diet, being physically active and avoiding smoking.

A new study has found a derivative of cholesterol is necessary for brain cell formation.

Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute say tests on mice prove that the formation of dopamine-producing neurons during brain development is dependent on the activation of a specific receptor in the brain by an oxidized form of cholesterol called oxysterol.

Dopamine-producing nerve cells play an important part in many brain functions and processes, from motor skills to reward systems and dependency. They are also the type of cell that die in Parkinson’s disease.

In addition, oxysterol was helpful in creating more dopamine-producing nerve cells in laboratory-cultivated embryonic stem cells. “It is a great advancement since it increases the possibility of developing new treatments for Parkinson’s disease,” said Professor Ernest Arenas of the Karolinska Institute.

Researchers say their findings are important for the future of Parkinson’s disease research and treatments. They hope it will be possible to replace dead cells in the brains of Parkinson’s patients with transplanted cultivated dopamine-producing cells. Such cells can also be used to test new Parkinson’s drugs.

According to the Mayo Clinic, nutritional supplements and therapies have also been helpful in treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s. Simple physical activities such as walking and swimming as well as physical therapy and soothing massage can provide relief from muscle rigidity and have other neuromuscular benefits.

Now scientists have created tiny particles in the laboratory that mimic those good carriers, scooping up the cholesterol before it can grow into dangerous deposits of plaque. The surfaces of these new particles are coated with fats and proteins so they can bind tightly with the sticky cholesterol to transport it through the bloodstream.

The particles may someday be important in treating cardiovascular disease, said Dr. Andre Nel, chief of the division of nanomedicine and director of the Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Researchers have endowed these artificial particles with the same properties as natural particles that circulate in the blood,” called high-density lipoproteins, or HDL, he said. The artificial carriers can clean up sites where plaques can otherwise rupture, leading to strokes and heart attacks.

The particles may be useful not only in cardiovascular therapy, but also in diagnosis. The researchers have put gold and other metal cores at the center of the particles, Dr. Nel said, so that they show up well in medical imaging. Such imaging could be used, for example, to monitor plaques as they build up in blood vessels.

At the Chicago campus of Northwestern University, artificial HDL nanoparticles have been designed by Dr. C. Shad Thaxton, an assistant professor in the urology department, and Chad A. Mirkin, a professor and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at the university’s Evanston campus They have founded a company, AuraSense, to commercialize the technology.

The Northwestern researchers replaced the fatty core found in natural HDL with gold nanoparticles, Dr. Mirkin said. “The gold core serves as a scaffold for attaching molecules that are the same as those on the surface of naturally occurring HDL,” he said. “We have demonstrated that our synthetic version of HDL binds cholesterol very tightly, not only in the laboratory, but in animals.”

The group has done a pilot study in animals and will soon begin a larger study, also involving animals, Dr. Thaxton said

At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan, Willem J. M. Mulder, an assistant professor of radiology and gene and cell medicine, and his research group have developed HDL-like nanoparticles intended primarily for imaging and diagnosis. The particles have centers of gold or other materials, Dr. Mulder said, depending on the type of imaging to be used.

“One of our interests is in the imaging of the biological processes in atherosclerosis,” the hardening of the arteries caused by plaques, he said.

Gold nanocrystals show up well in one type of imaging, called computed tomography, he said, and iron oxide nanocrystals work well with magnetic resonance imaging.

The research of the Northwestern and Mount Sinai groups may one day benefit people who develop deposits of atherosclerotic plaque, said Dr. Gregory M. Lanza, a professor of medicine at the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Both of these groups have shown that this HDL mimic can adsorb cholesterol,” he said. One day, the particles like those created by the groups may be included in therapies for heart disease, he said. “They may become part of good anti-atherosclerosis management, along with diet, nonsmoking and statins,” drugs that interfere with the synthesis of cholesterol.

BUT for that to happen, cautioned Dr. Nel at U.C.L.A., more study will be needed. “We will have to find out what happens when the gold nanoparticles accumulate in the body,” he said. “This is a problem for treatment of chronic diseases where you administer materials over a long time.”

Vincent M. Rotello, a professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who does nanoparticle research, agreed. “Right now, nanoparticles are great for diagnostic and acute therapeutics,” he said, but issues lie ahead that must be solved before the particles can be prescribed.

“Gold is nontoxic,” he said. “But it does build up. We don’t know what the effects of the buildup might be.” Smaller particles are excreted, he said. But larger particles may accumulate in the liver. Dr. William O’Neill, executive dean for clinical affairs at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, welcomed the artificial particles.

“If we can prove they don’t have side effects, we could give them as a drug, causing plaque in the coronary arteries to shrink,” he said. “It could revolutionize cardiology.”

In one study, results showed that men who retained healthy levels of cholesterol in the range below 200 actually cut their risk of developing high-risk prostate tumors by more than 50 percent in comparison to men with high ranging cholesterol levels.

In the second study, findings showed that men with high levels of good (HDL) cholesterol were slightly less likely to develop prostate cancer in any form, compared to men with very low HDL cholesterol levels.

The studies were recently published in the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research called Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention. Both studies support prior research indicating that by limiting fats in the bloodstream, the risk of cancer can be lowered.

According to Elizabeth Platz of Johns Hopkins University who led the first study, “There might be this added benefit to keeping cholesterol low.” For the study, Platz’s team analyzed data of 5,586 men aged 55 and older that came from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial conducted back in the 1990s. All of these men had been a part of the placebo group during the trial.

Among the group, a total of 60 of the men developed high-risk, aggressive tumors that are known to grow and spread quickly. By comparing cholesterol levels of all the men in the group, it was revealed that those men with cholesterol levels under 200 had a 59 percent less chance of developing one of these high-risk tumors than those men having high levels of cholesterol.

Platz acknowledged that cholesterol levels had no significant effect on the overall incidence of prostate cancer in the study. However, she pointed out that the association between low cholesterol levels and a reduced incidence of aggressive disease “is a notable reduction which is not often seen for prostate cancer.”

Although the decrease in risk is highly significant, it must be noted that the researchers could not account for the number of men in the study who were taking cholesterol-lowering medications such as statin drugs, which include such name brands as Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor. Therefore, some of the reduction in risk may have been due to the use of such drugs rather than from generally having low cholesterol levels.

The results of the second study are based on data gathered over 18 years from following more than 29,000 Finnish men who were taking various vitamins and nutrients to test whether or not they could lower their risk for cancer. All of the participants in the study were smokers. According to study leader Dr. Demetrius Albanes of the National Cancer Institute, findings showed that those men having the highest levels of HDL cholesterol were 11 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than those with lowest levels.

In a statement, Albanes said, “Our study affirms that lower total cholesterol may be caused by undiagnosed cancer.” He then added, “In terms of a public health message, we found that higher levels of good cholesterol seem to be protective for all cancers.”

Researchers from both studies agree that further research is necessary to confirm findings, as well as to identify the molecular mechanisms behind the association.

In the United States, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men. It is estimated that over 192,000 new cases will develop this year alone, and of those, the disease will claim 27,360 lives.

An international team of researchers from Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research and the University of Kuopio in Finland analyzed 10,000 individuals over a period of 40 years. Their work suggests those with high cholesterol—defined as 240 milligrams or more per deciliter of blood—were at a 66 percent higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s.

They also found that even those with slightly elevated cholesterol increased their risk by 52 percent.

“This is an early risk factor for dementia that can be modified and managed by lowering cholesterol through healthy lifestyle changes,” says the study’s senior author, Dr. Rachel Whitmer, adding that almost 100 million Americans have either high or borderline cholesterol levels.

There are a number of natural health resources that help lower cholesterol levels, including regular exercise and a proper diet.

Health practitioners have also recommended nutritional supplements containing fish oil, niacin and red yeast rice to help boost cardiovascular health.

Additionally, many high protein diets are high in saturated fat and low in fiber, a combination that can increase cholesterol levels and raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.

High protein diets have also been shown to cause higher than normal calcium excretion through the urine, which over a prolonged period of time can increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney stones. And a recent study suggests that a high protein diet may actually cause brain shrinkage and an increased “susceptibility to or progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The discovery was an unexpected one, found while studying the effects of different diets on mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The mice were fed either a regular diet, high fat/low carb custom diet, high protein/low carb version or a high carb/low fat option. When the researchers looked at the brain and body weight of the mice, as well as plaque build-up and differences in the structure of several brain regions involved in the memory defect underlying AD, they were surprised to find that the brains of the mice fed a high protein/low carb diet were 5 percent lighter than all the others and the regions of their hippocampus were less developed.

The researchers theorize that the high protein diet may leave neurons more vulnerable to AD plaque. “High protein diets are used for weight control, and those diets sometimes combine high fat and high protein, which may be doubly damaging, if the high fat increases the accumulation of plaques and the high protein sensitizes nerve cells to the poison released by plaques,” said lead author Sam Gandy, a professor at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a neurologist at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York. “Given the previously reported association of high-protein diet with aging-related neurotoxicity, one wonders whether particular diets, if ingested at particular ages, might increase susceptibility to incidence or progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Gandy believes the only way to know for sure if these findings have implications for the human brain is to perform prospective randomized double blind clinical diet trials. “This would be a challenging undertaking but potentially worthwhile. If there is a real chance that the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease might be slowed or avoided through healthy eating,” he said. “Such trials will be required if scientists are ever to make specific recommendations about dietary risks for Alzheimer’s disease.” Previous research has shown a Mediterranean-style low-calorie, low-fat diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and fish might delay the onset or slow the progression of AD.

AD is the most common type of dementia, affecting as many as 5.3 million Americans. Brain lesions, called amyloid plaques and tangles, accumulate, destroying brain cells, causing memory loss and problems with thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, social life and even the ability to cope with everyday life. Over time, AD gets worse and is fatal. Currently, there is no cure for AD, but researchers around the world continue to search for better ways to treat the disease, delay its onset, or prevent it from developing.

A study appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds people who took one tablespoon of whole flaxseed everyday were able to reduce both their total cholesterol and their LDL, or bad, cholesterol levels. Flaxseed oil, in comparison, did not produce the same results.

Women, particularly post-menopausal women, had the greatest reduction in their cholesterol, compared to men and other people who previously had higher cholesterol levels, according to Reuters.

Flaxseed has been called a wonder food and previous studies have found it may help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, according to WebMD.

It contains omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidant-rich lignans and both soluble and insoluble fiber.

Taking one to two tablespoons of flaxseed every day is a simple health resource. Experts say whole and ground flaxseed are preferrable to flaxseed oil so you get all its healthy components.

It is available in packaged foods like crackers, waffles and cereals and can be easily added at home to muffins, cakes and even casseroles.

Most supermarkets, pharmacies, other specialty food and vitamin stores and online retailers sell flaxseed.

Each came up with the same finding: Overall, smoking bans cut heart attacks by 17% — and this effect increases over time. There’s a 26% drop in heart attacks each year after smoking bans are in effect, one of the studies calculates.

This reduction in risk “is not trivial,” notes an editorial by Steven A. Schroeder, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco.

“Secondhand smoke exposure is nearly as harmful to the heart as is chronic active smoking,” Schroeder writes. “It is prudent to assume that exposure to secondhand smoke is almost as dangerous to persons with diagnosed or latent coronary disease as active smoking.”

Exactly what can breathing in the smoke from someone else’s cigarette do to you? It can:

• Make the blood sticky and more prone to clotting
• Stiffen the arteries
• Disrupt crucial functions of the arteries
• Decrease good HDL cholesterol
• Stimulate inflammation
• Make heart attacks worse
• Increase damage from free radicals
• Increase risk of heart rhythm problems
• Increase insulin resistance

“It is hard to imagine substances that would be more cardiotoxic,” Schroeder suggests. “Furthermore, these adverse effects are observed at very low exposures.”

It doesn’t take long for smoking bans to show results, notes David G. Meyers, MD, MPH, of the University of Kansas, lead author of one of the studies.

“The beneficial effect of smoking bans seems to be rapid, with declines in [heart attacks] within three months,” Meyers and colleagues report.

The findings make a strong argument for smoking bans, suggests James M. Lightwood, PhD, co-author of the second study.

“Passing 100 percent smoke-free laws in all workplaces and public places is something we can do to protect the public,” Lightwood says in a news release. “Now we have a better understanding of how you can predict what will happen if you impose a smoking-free law.”

The Lightwood study appears in the early online issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The Meyers study and the Schroeder editorial appear in the Sept. 29 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.