News in brief - April 4, 2011

Mini-stroke patients at greater risk of heart attack

Patients who have had ministrokes, or transient ischemic attacks, are more likely to die of a heart attack than a subsequent, more serious stroke, says an American Heart Assn. study. Transient ischemic attack patients have double the risk of a heart attack than the general population.

"We should use the TIA event not only to provide a warning sign that patients are at heightened risk of stroke, but are also at increased risk of heart attack, an event that will increase their risk of death after the TIA," said Robert D. Brown Jr., MD, MPH, the study's principal investigator and chair of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Researchers found the risk of heart attack among TIA patients was about 1% annually. TIA patients who later had a heart attack were three times more likely to die than those who didn't have a heart attack, according to the study published online March 24 in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association (stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/short/42/4/935/).

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Asthma leads to higher risk of diabetes, heart disease

People with asthma have increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, according to a study examining the connection between asthma and inflammatory conditions.

The study, presented at a March conference of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, analyzed medical records for 2,392 asthmatics and 4,784 nonasthmatics from 1964 to 1983. Researchers found that patients with asthma had higher rates of diabetes and heart conditions compared with those without asthma (www.jacionline.org/webfiles/images/journals/ymai/sunday_march_20.pdf).

Asthmatics, however, were not more likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease or rheumatoid arthritis.

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