Medical News

A new analysis of studies including nearly 80,000 people aged 60 and older confirms that certain types of widely prescribed drugs, such as antidepressants and sedatives, can increase their risk of falling.

Falls often have serious consequences for older people, such as injuries leading to disability and admission to a nursing home, or even death.

While prescription drugs are recognized as contributing to fall risk among older people –who are likely to be on lots of medications — discovering just which drugs are the problem is still a “challenge,” Dr. Carlo A. Marra of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and colleagues note in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

To update a review of studies on this subject published in 1996, Marra and his team identified 22 studies published between 1996 and 2007 including 79,081 people 60 and older, some of whom lived independently, and some of whom were institutionalized. They analyzed the risk of falling associated with nine classes of drugs.

Three classes turned out to significantly boost fall risk: sedatives and hypnotics, typically prescribed as sleeping aids; antidepressants; and benzodiazepines, which include tranquilizers like Xanax and Valium.

The researchers also saw an increased risk in patients taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs — like aspirin– and drugs for treating psychosis, but they note that people may be taking these drugs to treat conditions that would in and of themselves increase their risk of falling.

Prescription drug use among the elderly is on the rise, Marra noted in an interview with Reuters Health. He pointed out that one recent Canadian study found 1 in 7 people over 80 had filled a prescription for an antidepressant.

Older people who are taking any of the drugs associated with falls should talk about the medication with their physician and their pharmacist, Marra advised.

“Perhaps between their practitioner and themselves they can come up with safer alternatives,” Marra said.

U.S. researchers say they’ve identified a protein that causes nasal and sinus polyps in 15 percent to 30 percent of people with chronic sinusitis.

The condition is one of the most serious forms of sinusitis, a constant irritation and swelling of the nasal passages. Polyps – unhealthy overgrowths of sinus tissue — can block the sinus passages and make it difficult or impossible to breathe through the nose. This often leads to pain, swelling and infections.

“This type of sinusitis isn’t subtle — you can spot the patients with polyps across the room. They’re breathing through their mouths, they talk with nasal voices, they’re constantly sniffling, and their faces are swollen,” Dr. Jean Kim, an assistant professor in the departments of otolaryngology and allergy and clinical immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a news release.

Kim and colleagues analyzed sinus tissue from patients and concluded that a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) — which is known to stimulate blood vessel growth — causes the cell overgrowth that causes the polyps.

The protein may offer a target for new treatments for the condition, which typically resists all current therapies. Surgery is a common treatment but the polyps nearly always regrow. Oral steroids only temporarily treat the problem and have a number of harmful side effects.

“In the future, we might have a nasal spray with an anti-VEGF agent in it,” Kim said.

Getting a patient’s family history is widely regarded as a standard element of good medical care. But a report published today concludes that there isn’t much good evidence that obtaining such information improves doctors’ ability to predict and manage disease.

In addition, the report’s authors say the best way to collect family history data is unclear, as is the impact on patient outcomes and behaviors.

Dr. Brenda J. Wilson, from University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and colleagues did a study of previous studies on the subject, and report their findings in the online version of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

They found only two studies that tried to determine whether accurate family histories were likely to have an impact on care, and those studies had a number of limitations.

They found more studies of how patients reported their family histories. In 23 studies, they saw evidence that patients were more accurate about reporting the absence of disease in relatives than the presence of disease. Perhaps not surprisingly, patients were more accurate about their first degree relatives than their distant relatives.

The study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Restless legs syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by a strong urge to move the legs, is much more common among some racial groups than others, a new U.S. study has found.

Researchers interviewed 190 people being seen at a primary care clinic. About 12 percent of those who were black, compared with 36 percent of those who were not black, were found to have restless legs symptoms. Overall, the prevalence of restless legs was 23 percent among the clinic participants.

Among blacks, the prevalence of restless legs syndrome (RLS) was 12 percent for both men and women, compared with 40 percent for women and 29 percent for men among the others, most of whom were white.

“There are significant ethnic differences in the prevalence of restless legs syndrome, but the exact causes of higher prevalence among Caucasians are unknown,” study author Dr. Ammar Alkhazna, of the University of Missouri, said in a news release from the American College of Chest Physicians. “This likely reflects a combination of factors, including a genetic predisposition to RLS, diet, including iron intake, medications, and possibly culture.”

The study was scheduled to be presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians, held Oct. 31 to Nov. 5 in San Diego.

Symptoms of restless legs also were seen more often in women than men, the study found.

“Some risk factors for restless legs syndrome appear to be more common among women,” Alkhazna said. “Women are more likely to be iron-deficient than men and have rheumatoid arthritis, which are known risk factors for RLS.”

That friend who stays thin despite eating anything and everything is not just annoying. She might also wreck your diet, new research suggests.

Researchers found that when they had college students watch a movie and snack with either a skinny or overweight companion, the students typically followed the thin friend’s lead when she overindulged.

In contrast, study participants used more self-control when snacking with a heavier companion who overate.

The findings, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, suggest that seeing a thin friend devour a big meal gives us implicit permission to do the same.

“We think ‘if she can eat like that and stay thin, so can I,’ or ’she is having cake, then I can too,’” explained Dr. Brent McFerran, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, Canada.

“In other words,” he told Reuters Health in an email, “the most dangerous person to eat with is not someone who is obese, but a thin friend with a large appetite.”

For their study, McFerran and his colleagues recruited 210 female college students for what the participants believed was a study on movie viewing; each woman watched a movie with a companion, who was actually a member of the research team.

In some cases, the researcher showed up as her normal 105-pound self, while in others she donned padding that made her appear to be obese.

During the movie, the pairs were offered snacks, with the undercover researcher taking her portion first.

In general, McFerran’s team found, the students ate more when their thin companion took a large portion, versus cases where the “obese” companion took a similarly large portion.

For example, when the skinny researcher ate a lot (30 candies), the participants ate an average of 10 candies. When the researcher was “obese” and ate a lot, the kids ate about 6 candies.

“Eating involves much social pressure,” McFerran said, noting that social influences may, in fact, be the strongest predictor of what we eat.

But the current findings do not mean that we need to cancel all future dinner plans with our overindulgent skinny friends.

“If we think about what we are doing in advance,” McFerran said, “we are less likely to overconsume.”

He suggested that instead of looking at a thin friend who is gorging on dessert and feeling permission to do the same, we should remind ourselves that individuals are different — with different metabolisms and exercise habits, for example.

Focus on your own goal to eat healthfully, McFerran said, rather than automatically mimicking a friend.

He pointed out, however, that there is a “flip side”: Friends who choose smaller portion sizes and healthier foods can encourage us to do so, especially if those friends are thin.