The American journal of medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Kidney and Cardiovascular Protection Using Dietary Acid Reduction in Primary Hypertension: A Five-Year, Interventional, Randomized, Control Trial.
High fruit and vegetable diets are associated with reduced chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease but are infrequently used in hypertension treatment. Low acid diets are also associated with reduced chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease, and fruits and vegetables or oral sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) lowers dietary acid. ⋯ The trial supports fruits and vegetables as foundational hypertension treatment to reduce chronic kidney disease progression and cardiovascular disease risk.
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Comparative Study
Angiotensin receptor blockers versus angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors in acute myocardial infarction without heart failure.
Whether angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) can be an alternative to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) in patients without heart failure (HF) after acute myocardial infarction (MI) remains controversial. The aim of this study was to compare clinical outcomes between initial ARB and ACEI therapy in patients with MI without HF. ⋯ In this nationwide cohort, there was no significant difference in the incidence of all-cause death between ARBs and ACEIs as discharge medications in patients with myocardial infarction without heart failure. Angiotensin II receptor blockers would be an alternative to ACEIs for those intolerant to ACEI therapy.
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Dementia and hepatic encephalopathy (HE) have symptom overlap and are challenging to differentiate. The presence of undiagnosed cirrhosis may lead to missed opportunities to treat HE, which was found in a veterans database. This needs validation in a non-veteran cohort. ⋯ The findings of this national cohort suggest that the FIB-4 index could be utilized to screen for potential undiagnosed cirrhosis in patients with dementia, and that hepatic encephalopathy might be misdiagnosed as dementia or cause worsening of cognitive function in patients with dementia.
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This study investigated sex differences in acute myocarditis patients during index hospitalization. ⋯ Compared with men, women with acute myocarditis were older at the time of diagnosis, presented more often with heart failure, and had an increased frequency of severe arrhythmia.