The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Viagra is no help against heart failure, says study Posted: 12 Mar 2013 08:29 PM PDT
Some early research had suggested the drug, which can increase blood flow to other parts of the body, might offer a benefit to people with diastolic heart failure in which the heart's lower chambers stiffen and cannot pump blood well, causing shortness of breath. But the randomised study of 216 patients at 26 sites in North America showed that the drug, known as sildenafil, was no better than a placebo at improving exercise capability or clinical symptoms of heart disease. Also, more patients taking the drug experienced serious adverse events than those who were given a placebo, leading researchers to urge doctors to stop prescribing it as an off-label treatment for people with heart disease. "The results of our study were surprising and disappointing," said the study's lead author Margaret Redfield, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "There was a lot of anticipation around this study based on other research, and we were hoping to find something that would help these patients, as there are currently few options for treatment." The median age of the patients studied was 69, and nearly half (48 per cent) were women. The patients were tested for cardiovascular improvements after 24 weeks, but none could be seen. During the study period, adverse events such as flushing and low blood pressure occurred more often in patients on sildenafil than in those on the placebo. Also, six people in sildenafil group died before the end of the study, while there were no deaths in the placebo section. The research was released at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in San Francisco and was published simultaneously in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "There were more (but not significantly more) patients who withdrew consent, died, or were too ill to perform the cardiopulmonary exercise test in the sildenafil treatment group, potentially accentuating the lack of benefit observed," said the JAMA paper. Sildenafil and other drugs like it — known as phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors — are used to treat erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs, but are not labeled for heart failure. However, some clinicians may be prescribing them for their heart failure patients because some smaller studies on humans and preliminary animal studies had suggested a benefit. The latest study results "should discourage this practice, particularly considering the high cost of the drug," Redfield said in a statement. — AFP/Relaxnews |
| The rise of the ‘zero TV’ household Posted: 12 Mar 2013 08:01 PM PDT
The US — the country with an average of five televisions per household, now appears to be at the forefront of a new televisual trend — that of rejecting normal network offerings altogether. Back in 2007, ratings agency Nielsen noted that 2 million households didn't fit its traditional definition of a TV household. Some six years later, this number has jumped to over 5 million, or just under 5 per cent of US homes, and the figures suggest that this number is expected to grow. However, these households are not throwing out their televisions in favour of other activities that get them off their seats, rather they are drawing video and televisual content from a number of different sources and enjoying it on an ever-increasing number of devices. As such, 75 per cent of homes that fall into this category still have a TV but it is used more like a computer monitor, to access content via the Internet or for enjoying streamed videos, DVDs or Blu-ray and for gaming. Indeed, 67 per cent admit to regularly watching video content — 37 per cent of these households access their content via their computers; 16 per cent turn to the internet and 8 per cent claim to use smartphones (6 per cent use tablets). The other things these households have in common is age — 44.4 per cent are under the age of 35 and 65.7 per cent are aged under 45. Many are also single-person households or households without children (80.9 per cent) and while some respondents admitted the cost of subscribing to traditional cable and other TV services is a factor in their decision to 'cut the chord' (36 per cent), nearly one third (31 per cent) cited "a lack of interest" in traditional programming as their primary motivation — only 18 per cent said they'd consider subscribing to traditional TV services. Although 5 per cent is a comparatively small amount, Nielsen believes that it is significant enough to start tracking and monitoring on a regular basis, as the ratings organization believes that these households are leading the future trend of TV viewing and media consumption and that as services such as Netflix and Hulu continue to evolve, more families will similarly become zero-TV households. — AFP/Relaxnews |
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