Lancet
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Statins are effective cholesterol-lowering drugs that reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease events (heart attacks, strokes, and the need for arterial revascularisation). Adverse effects from some statins on muscle, such as myopathy and rhabdomyolysis, are rare at standard doses, and on the liver, in increasing levels of transaminases, are unusual. Myopathy--muscle pain or weakness with blood creatine kinase levels more than ten times the upper limit of the normal range--typically occurs in fewer than one in 10,000 patients on standard statin doses. ⋯ Stopping statin use reverses these side-effects, usually leading to a full recovery. Asymptomatic increases in concentrations of liver transaminases are recorded with all statins, but are not clearly associated with an increased risk of liver disease. For most people, statins are safe and well-tolerated, and their widespread use has the potential to have a major effect on the global burden of cardiovascular disease.
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Good public-health decisionmaking is dependent on reliable and timely statistics on births and deaths (including the medical causes of death). All high-income countries, without exception, have national civil registration systems that record these events and generate regular, frequent, and timely vital statistics. By contrast, these statistics are not available in many low-income and lower-middle-income countries, even though it is in such settings that premature mortality is most severe and the need for robust evidence to back decisionmaking most critical. ⋯ There is no single blueprint for establishing and maintaining such systems and ensuring the availability of sound vital statistics. Each country faces a different set of challenges, and strategies must be tailored accordingly. There are steps that can be taken, however, and we propose an approach that couples the application of methods to generate better vital statistics in the short term with capacity-building for comprehensive civil registration systems in the long run.
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In some studies, venous thromboembolism has been associated with atherosclerosis and with the risk of arterial cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. Other studies, however, do not show this association. To help clarify these discrepant findings, we aimed to investigate the risk of arterial cardiovascular events in patients who were diagnosed with venous thromboembolism. ⋯ Patients with venous thromboembolism have a substantially increased long-term risk of subsequent arterial cardiovascular events.
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Review Meta Analysis
Efficacy and safety of the weight-loss drug rimonabant: a meta-analysis of randomised trials.
Since the prevalence of obesity continues to increase, there is a demand for effective and safe anti-obesity agents that can produce and maintain weight loss and improve comorbidity. We did a meta-analysis of all published randomised controlled trials to assess the efficacy and safety of the newly approved anti-obesity agent rimonabant. ⋯ Our findings suggest that 20 mg per day rimonabant increases the risk of psychiatric adverse events--ie, depressed mood disorders and anxiety-despite depressed mood being an exclusion criterion in these trials. Taken together with the recent US Food and Drug Administration finding of increased risk of suicide during treatment with rimonabant, we recommend increased alertness by physicians to these potentially severe psychiatric adverse reactions.