Month: January 2015

A small new study of people with Parkinson’s disease underscores the power of what’s known as the “placebo effect.” And it suggests that price matters. People who think they got an expensive drug may feel better than those who think they got a cheaper one – even if both drugs are fakes (placebos). The study included 12 people with moderate to severe Parkinson’s disease. People were given an injectable “drug” (really saline), then another “drug” 4 hours later. They were given in random order. Before each one, people were told that it was an expensive drug ($1,500 per dose) or a cheaper one ($100 per dose). Before each dose, researchers did MRI brain scans and tests of people’s movement abilities. People showed improvement in movement symptoms, such as tremor and stiffness, after both doses. On average, they had more improvement after the “expensive” drug than after the “cheap” one.

Having high cholesterol for a long time, even in your 30s and 40s, can increase your risk of heart disease later, a new study finds. Researchers used information from a long-term study. The new study focused on 1,478 adults who had not developed heart or blood vessel disease by age 55. Researchers looked at their past cholesterol test results. They divided people into groups based on how long they were exposed to high cholesterol in middle age. They defined high cholesterol as an LDL (“bad cholesterol”) blood level of 130 milligrams per deciliter (mgdL) or more. This is a strict definition. The National Institutes of Health lists 130 as the low end of “borderline high” cholesterol. Researchers kept track of people for an average of 15 years after age 55. In that time, 16.5% of those who had been exposed to high LDL for 11 to 20 years had a heart attack or other heart problems.

People who go to a hospital with chest pain, but are not having heart attacks, may not be helped by extra tests to predict their future risk, a study finds. The study was based on private insurance claims for more than 690,000 people. They all went to hospital emergency rooms because of chest pain. Researchers focused on about 422,000 people who did not have heart attacks, according to test results. Of this group, nearly 128,000 also had other tests at the hospital. For example, they may have had a treadmill stress test or a scan that shows blood flow in the heart. Researchers also looked at how many people had heart attacks later. In the next week, only 11 of every 10,000 had heart attacks. The proportion was the same whether they had follow-up tests or not. The heart attack rate in the next 6 months was 33 of every 10,000 for both groups.