PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Recovery of testing for heart disease risk factors post-COVID remains patchy

Analysis of 49 million patients finds that the number of blood pressure readings taken in England may still be below expected levels in 2024

Recovery of testing for heart disease risk factors post-COVID remains patchy
2024-11-26
(Press-News.org) Routine screening to detect risk factors for heart disease dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, and some key measurements, such as blood pressure readings, may still lag behind pre-pandemic levels. These findings are reported in a new study by Frederick Ho and Naveed Sattar of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and colleagues published November 26th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients went without routine face-to-face health checks, which are important for detecting common cardiometabolic conditions, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Previously, it was unknown whether these health checks had recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Researchers looked at how often clinicians took measurements of 12 risk factors for cardiometabolic disease between November 2018 and March 2024, using records from more than 49 million adults in England. They saw a sharp drop in the numbers of measurements being performed from March 2020 to February 2022, but most of the risk factor measurements returned to normal by 2022 to 2023. Blood pressure measurements were an exception, and as of March 2024 were still not back to normal, especially in patients belonging to lower socioeconomic levels.

The findings from the new research confirm previous studies showing that patients missed important routine health checks during the pandemic lockdowns. This lack of screening for cardiometabolic conditions likely explains previous observations that fewer patients received preventive prescriptions, like drugs to lower blood pressure, during the pandemic. The long-term disruption of blood pressure screening identified by the study could lead to missed opportunities for treatment, increasing the risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, or even death. This could also exacerbate existing health disparities for lower-income patients.

The authors add, “These data alert us to potential missed opportunities to measure key risk factors for chronic diseases, which are on the rise in the UK in an alarming way.  Health care workers need better ways to more efficiently capture and then act upon changes in risks to prevent important diseases. The use of new technologies to capture data and better empower patients to make important lifestyle changes are needed.”

#####

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Medicine: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004485

Citation: Ho FK, Dale C, Mizani MA, Bolton T, Pearson ER, Valabhji J, et al. (2024) Routine measurement of cardiometabolic disease risk factors in primary care in England before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: A population-based cohort study. PLoS Med 21(11): e1004485. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004485

Author Countries: United Kingdom

Funding: see manuscript

END


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Recovery of testing for heart disease risk factors post-COVID remains patchy

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Final data and undiscovered images from NASA’s NEOWISE

Final data and undiscovered images from NASA’s NEOWISE
2024-11-26
While NASA’s NEOWISE telescope ended its journey through space on Nov. 1, 2024, the team at IPAC, a science center at Caltech, was working on one further gift from the prolific mission.  The final data release from NEOWISE was released to the astronomy community just two weeks later, on Nov. 14, encompassing over 26 million images and nearly 200 billion sources detected by the telescope. And today, IPAC is releasing six new images from the mission’s archival data as a tribute to this landmark project, available here: https://www.astropix.org/link/3b2x  NEOWISE ...

Nucleoporin93: A silent protector in vascular health

Nucleoporin93: A silent protector in vascular health
2024-11-26
"Research in the last several decades has established endothelial cells (ECs) as a dynamic interface critical for vascular protection.” BUFFALO, NY- November 26, 2024 – This editorial was published by Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) in Volume 16, Issue 17, titled, “The silent protector: Nucleoporin93’s role in vascular health.” Written by Julia Michalkiewicz, Tung D. Nguyen, and Monica Y. Lee from The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, ...

Can we avert the looming food crisis of climate change?

Can we avert the looming food crisis of climate change?
2024-11-26
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2024 – Human activities are causing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to rise, which increases the global average surface temperature—and poses a threat to crop growth. Escalating concerns about climate change’s impact on global food security inspired researchers from Banaras Hindu University in India to create a way to explore how these factors influence crop yields. In Chaos, from AIP Publishing, the researchers share a mathematical model created to capture the nonlinear relationships between CO2, temperature, human population, ...

Alcohol use and antiobesity medication treatment

2024-11-26
About The Study: This cohort study among individuals participating in a weight loss program found that nearly half of those consuming alcohol at baseline decreased their alcohol use after anti-obesity medication initiation. There may be properties of anti-obesity medications that lead to reduced use. For example, naltrexone decreases cravings for alcohol and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) may attenuate the rewarding effects of alcohol, similar to food.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lisa R. Miller-Matero, PhD, email lmatero1@hfhs.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

Study reveals cause of common cancer immunotherapy side effect

Study reveals cause of common cancer immunotherapy side effect
2024-11-26
A multinational collaboration co-led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research has uncovered a potential explanation for why some cancer patients receiving a type of immunotherapy called checkpoint inhibitors experience increased susceptibility to common infections. The findings, published in the journal Immunity, provide new insights into immune responses and reveal a potential approach to preventing the common cancer therapy side effect. “Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies have revolutionised cancer treatment ...

New era in amphibian biology

New era in amphibian biology
2024-11-26
Amphibians hold a significant place in evolution, representing the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. They are crucial for understanding the brain and spinal cord of tetrapods—animals with four limbs, including humans. A group of scientists led by a team at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now shows how harmless viruses can be used to illuminate the development of the frog nervous system. The results have now been published in Developmental Cell. Virus. When you hear the word, you probably shudder. But not all viruses are bad or cause disease. Some are even used for therapeutic ...

Harbor service, VAST Data provide boost for NCSA systems

2024-11-26
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications and VAST Data are giving supercomputing system Delta and the newly launched DeltaAI a boost in their storage and application performance. NCSA launched Harbor, a service that provides very fast storage for global home and software directories across all NCSA open-science resources. Its deployment has led to a 400% increase in application launch performance for the Delta system, among many other gains. Over the last two years, we’ve seen a significant increase in ...

New prognostic model enhances survival prediction in liver failure

New prognostic model enhances survival prediction in liver failure
2024-11-26
Researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking advancement in liver failure care: the CATCH-LIFE-MELD score (Chinese Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure Consortium (CATCH-LIFE)-MELD score). This innovative tool, developed by an international team led by Xia Yu and colleagues, enhances the accuracy of predicting short-term survival outcomes for patients suffering from acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). The study, published in eGastroenterology, promises to revolutionize patient management and treatment planning for this life-threatening condition. “ACLF presents unique challenges due to its rapid progression and high mortality rates,” said Dr. Yu Shi, senior researcher at Zhejiang University ...

China focuses on improving air quality via the coordinated control of fine particles and ozone

China focuses on improving air quality via the coordinated control of fine particles and ozone
2024-11-26
A recent special issue of the journal Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters has brought together some of China's top scientists to provide a picture of the latest progress in understanding and controlling air pollution. Fine particulate matter, referred to as PM2.5, and ground-level ozone (O3) are the main pollutants degrading the air quality of China’s cities and wider urban regions. Both have serious human health effects, such as heart disease, asthma, and lung damage. The World Health Organization (WHO) provides clear guidelines regarding acceptable concentrations ...

Machine learning reveals behaviors linked with early Alzheimer’s, points to new treatments

Machine learning reveals behaviors linked with early Alzheimer’s, points to new treatments
2024-11-26
SAN FRANCISCO—November 26, 2024—Subtle signs of Alzheimer’s disease can emerge decades before a diagnosis—often in the form of irregular behaviors that reflect very early stages of brain dysfunction. But until now, identifying and measuring these slight behavioral changes in a scientific way hasn’t been feasible, not even when studying Alzheimer’s in mice.   In a study published in Cell Reports, a team of scientists at Gladstone Institutes used a new video-based machine learning tool to pinpoint ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Are lifetimes of big appliances really shrinking?

Pink skies

Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research

Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered

% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?

An app can change how you see yourself at work

NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals

New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes

Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others

Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke

Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition

Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly

Alcohol makes male flies sexy

TB patients globally often incur "catastrophic costs" of up to $11,329 USD, despite many countries offering free treatment, with predominant drivers of cost being hospitalization and loss of income

Study links teen girls’ screen time to sleep disruptions and depression

Scientists unveil starfish-inspired wearable tech for heart monitoring

Footprints reveal prehistoric Scottish lagoons were stomping grounds for giant Jurassic dinosaurs

AI effectively predicts dementia risk in American Indian/Alaska Native elders

First guideline on newborn screening for cystic fibrosis calls for changes in practice to improve outcomes

Existing international law can help secure peace and security in outer space, study shows

Pinning down the process of West Nile virus transmission

UTA-backed research tackles health challenges across ages

In pancreatic cancer, a race against time

[Press-News.org] Recovery of testing for heart disease risk factors post-COVID remains patchy
Analysis of 49 million patients finds that the number of blood pressure readings taken in England may still be below expected levels in 2024