Articles: disease.
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Comment Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Edetate Disodium-Based Chelation for Patients With a Previous Myocardial Infarction and Diabetes: TACT2 Randomized Clinical Trial.
In 2013, the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) reported that edetate disodium (EDTA)-based chelation significantly reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) events by 18% in 1708 patients with a prior myocardial infarction (MI). ⋯ Despite effectively reducing blood lead levels, EDTA chelation was not effective in reducing cardiovascular events in stable patients with coronary artery disease who have diabetes and a history of MI.
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Lyme disease (LD) is an underrated threat to the military that negatively impacts mission readiness. Lyme disease has traditionally been thought to only be a risk in an operational context, where training or deployments are frequently conducted in heavily wooded environments. However, this view diminishes risks posed by many off-duty outdoor recreational activities. Furthermore, although the Army introduced a permethrin factory-treated Army Combat Uniform in 2012, permethrin retention and subsequent protection have been shown to decrease significantly after 3 months of wear. Thus, although LD is a known health risk that threatens unit readiness, beyond using treated uniforms there has been little progress at the unit level to address this threat. ⋯ Lyme disease poses a genuine threat to the health and careers of service members and is an often-overlooked disruptor to military operations. Simple, feasible prevention strategies that are tailored to high-risk geographic regions can be emphasized by military units to reduce the incidence of on-duty and off-duty cases. Additionally, there remains a critical need for new preventative and diagnostic measures for LD.
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Obesity has increased in prevalence worldwide and WHO has declared it a global epidemic. Population-level preventive interventions have been insufficient to slow down this trajectory. Obesity is a complex, heterogeneous, chronic, and progressive disease, which substantially affects health, quality of life, and mortality. ⋯ Bariatric (metabolic) surgery remains the most effective and durable treatment, with proven benefits beyond weight loss, including for cardiovascular and renal health, and decreased rates of obesity-related cancers and mortality. Considerable progress has been made in the development of pharmacological agents that approach the weight loss efficacy of metabolic surgery, and relevant outcome data related to these agents' use are accumulating. However, all treatment approaches to obesity have been vastly underutilised.