Canadians are getting more serious about their blood pressure, according to a recent report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
A team of researchers looked at blood pressure in people aged 20 to 79 who weren’t living in any institution participating in one of two national health surveys. The subsequent analysis showed decreases in the number of Canadians with hypertension (high blood pressure) between 1992 and 2009 not being treated for hypertension or not receiving adequate treatment to control blood pressure. The percentage of people unaware their blood pressure was high dropped from 43 per cent to 17 per cent.
Overall systolic blood pressure levels in 2009 were lower in people with treated hypertension and in people without high blood pressure compared to data from 1992.
The study also found that individuals with high blood pressure, heart disease or cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease were more likely to have their blood pressure under control.
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for vascular disease in developed countries. Several other recent studies have shown improvements in the rates that drugs to treat hypertension are prescribed and subsequent decreases in cardiovascular events related to high blood pressure.
“However, despite marked improvements in rates for the control of hypertension over the past two decades, one-third of community-dwelling Canadian adults with hypertension still have blood pressures that are higher than the currently recommended targets, and cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of premature death and disability in Canada,” the authors wrote.
The study was conducted at several hospitals and universities across Canada, including the University of Alberta, as well as Statistics Canada.
Obese men with prostate cancer have a much higher risk of the cancer growing and spreading, even when they are treated with hormone therapy, according to researchers from Duke University Medical Centre.
The team presented their findings at the American Urological Association annual meeting on Sunday.
Given the rise of obesity in the population, the team set out to investigate what impact obesity might have in prostate cancer. The team gathered data on 287 patients with prostate cancer who had had their prostates surgically removed (a radical prostatectomy) between 1998 and 2009.
Every single man’s cancer had come back, so they were put on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), which suppresses testosterone production. Testosterone is known to encourage prostate tumour growth.
Compared to men of a normal body weight, obese men were three times as likely to have cancer progression, three times as likely to have their cancer spread to the bone and five times as likely to have metastasis.
The team suggested, besides more research into what role obesity plays in prostate cancer, that the dosage of ADT be reviewed.
“We think perhaps obese men may require additional ADT. The dose is the same regardless of weight, while most drugs are dosed according to weight,” said author Christopher J. Keto.
The same team is now investigating what impact diet and exercise might have on obese patients’ cancer treatment, including ADT.
The myriad health benefits from breastfeeding children have been repeatedly proven, but a new study out of Oxford University has come across a potentially new positive impact — behaviour.
Specifically, the study purports that babies who are breastfed are less likely to grow into children with behaviour problems by the time they reach the age of five compared to children who receive formula.
Questionnaires were sent to thousands of parents that asked them to evaluate their children’s strengths and difficulties. Abnormal scores were less common in children who were breastfed for at least four months, at six per cent, compared with children who were given formula, at 16 per cent.
The researchers argue one reason could be the chemical makeup of breast milk, which includes large amounts of essential long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, growth factors and hormones, which are important in brain and nervous system development.
