Exercise + Metformin: Improve LDL, Lower CV Risk

"Intense lifestyle changes and metformin both helped modify lipid particles in patients with type 2 diabetes, presumably improving their cardiovascular risk profile, researchers noted..."

>>> Link to article (MedPage)

Measuring BP at Home = Lower BP

"Self-measurement of blood pressure in the home, whether or not supplemented with counseling, educational materials, or other kinds of support, lowers BP over six months to a year compared with standard clinic-based BP monitoring, suggests a meta-analysis of 52 prospective studies published August 5, 2013 in the Annals of Internal Medicine."

Uhlig K, Patel K, Ip S, et al. Self-measured blood pressure monitoring in the management of hypertension. A systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Intern Med 2013

>>> Link to full article

Statin (cholesterol) drugs: large benefit, small risk

Summary:  
A large analysis of ~170,000 patients revealed that taking a statin cholesterol drug was equally good for low risk patients as it was for high risk patients in preventing heart attacks, strokes, and bypass surgery or stents.  The overall rates of side effects were very low.

In Brief:
Over approximately a 5 year span, the "...proportional reduction in major vascular events was at least as big in the two lowest risk categories as in the higher risk categories."  

Major vascular events were defined as:  non-fatal myocardial infarction (heart attack), strokes, or coronary revascularisations (stents or bypass).  "In individuals with 5-year risk of major vascular events lower than 10% [low risk patients], each 1 mmol/L reduction in LDL cholesterol produced an absolute reduction in major vascular events of about 11 per 1000 over 5 years. This benefit greatly exceeds any known hazards of statin therapy."

>>>  Read this 2012 abstract from the Lancet here.

The Best Public Place to have a Cardiac Arrest: The GYM

"The gym may be the least deadly place for your heart to stop, according to a study showing better sudden cardiac arrest survival rates compared with other public places.

The rate of survival to hospital discharge was 56% for arrests that happened at conventional fitness centers and 45% at other places people get exercise, like dance studios and bowling alleys, compared with 34% at all other public indoor locations combined, Richard L. Page, MD, of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, and colleagues found."

>>>See the full article here