Low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) is the “bad” cholesterol, and despite many drugs including statins available to doctors, patients often have trouble reducing their blood level of LCL-C.
Sanofi and Regeneron presented data at The American College of Cardiology Meeting on 26th March 2012, showing an impressive reduction using their new antibody treatment known as SAR236553/REGN727. The human antibody is administered subcutaneously and targets PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9).

Patients were treated over a period of 8 to 12 weeks and showed between 40 to 70+% reduction in LDL-C where their levels had previously remained stubbornly high using statins.

A new study, published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, shows that cognitive and psychiatric impairments are common amongst long-term survivors of acute lung injury (ALI), and these impairments can be evaluated by using a telephone-based test battery.
Leading researcher, Dr. Mark E. Mikkelsen, MD, MSCE, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, explained:
“Neuropsychological impairment is increasingly being recognized as an important outcome among survivors of critical illness, but neuropsychological function in long-term ALI survivors has not been assessed in a multi-center trial, and evidence on the etiology of these impairments in ALI survivors is limited.

To overcome the constraints of in-person assessment, we developed a telephone battery of standardized neuropsychological tests that could be administered by a non-expert and used it to assess a subset of 122 ALI survivors from the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Clinical Trials Network Fluid and Catheter Treatment Trial.”

Baby aspirin in pregnancy may puzzle a lot of women. Is it safe? How is it used? Before we go ahead, let us understand the reason for using aspirin in pregnancy.

Baby aspirin is nothing but a low dose aspirin. One essential function of aspirin is that it has blood thinning properties. Baby aspirin is used to avoid miscarriages. Certain women go through a condition or disorder like antiphospholipid syndrome or even other kinds of thrombophilia.
These disorders lead to the formation of tiny clots in the blood. These tiny clots get stuck in the blood veins leading to the placenta and clog them. Hence, they cut off the blood supply to the baby along with the essential nutrients required for the growth and development of the baby. Hence, a miscarriage occurs. Doctors recommend aspirin to such patients due to the blood thinning properties of aspirin. This property prevents the formation of tiny clots and in turn helps the baby grow and develop.

CFS does not appear to be a new illness. Relatively small outbreaks of similar disorders have been described in the medical literature since the 1930s. Furthermore, case reports of comparable illnesses date back several centuries, some possibly linked to bacterial, viral, or protozoal infections such as brucellosis, yellow fever, hepatitis, influenza, and malaria. Fatigue syndromes also have been long recognized outside the setting of an infectious illness. For example, the clinical descriptions of CFS and the rheumatologic disorder fibromyalgia, first described in the l9th century, overlap considerably. CFS and depression also share some symptoms.
Interest in what now is called CFS was renewed in the mid-1980s after several studies found slightly higher levels of antibody to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in patients with CFS-like symptoms than in healthy individuals. Most of these patients had experienced an episode of infectious mononucleosis a few years before the onset of their new chronic, debilitating illness. As a result, for a time the CFS-like illness became popularly termed “chronic EBV.”