The American journal of medicine
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Multicenter Study
Depression, dietary habits, and cardiovascular events among women with suspected myocardial ischemia.
Dietary habits and depression are associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Patients with depression often report poor eating habits, and dietary factors may help explain commonly observed associations between depression and cardiovascular disease. ⋯ Among women with suspected myocardial ischemia, we observed consistent relationships among depression, dietary habits, and time to cardiovascular disease events. Dietary habits partly explained these relationships. These results suggest that dietary habits should be included in future efforts to identify mechanisms linking depression to cardiovascular disease.
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Chronic pulmonary diseases are chronic diseases that affect the airways and lung parenchyma. Examples of common chronic pulmonary diseases include asthma, bronchiectasis, chronic obstructive lung disease, lung fibrosis, sarcoidosis, pulmonary hypertension, and cor pulmonale. ⋯ Vaccination against S. pneumoniae can reduce the risk of mortality, especially from more serious infections in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients. Patients with chronic pulmonary diseases who take steroids or immunomodulating therapy (eg, methotrexate, anti-tumor necrosis factor inhibitors), or who have concurrent sickle cell disease or other hemoglobinopathies, primary immunodeficiency disorders, human immunodeficiency virus infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, nephrotic syndrome, and hematologic or solid malignancies should be vaccinated with both 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine 23-valent.
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African Americans have a substantially higher prevalence of risk factors for gout than Caucasians. The aim of the present study was to compare the risk for incident gout among African Americans and Caucasians. ⋯ After accounting for the higher prevalence of risk factors, African American ethnicity is associated with a significantly lower risk for gout and hyperuricemia compared with Caucasian ethnicity.
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New guidelines for the treatment of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea were published by the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) in 2010, however, there has been no literature evaluating the effectiveness of these guidelines. The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical outcomes of Clostridium difficile infection including death, C difficile infection recurrence, toxic megacolon, and surgery between patients who received guideline-concordant therapy vs guideline-discordant therapy. ⋯ There was a significant reduction in C difficile infection recurrence and mortality when prescribers followed the IDSA/Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America guidelines for treatment of C difficile infection.