Researchers studied 6,400 patients for a period of six years. They found that the blood pressure range considered normal for healthy individuals may actually be risky for those with a combined diagnosis of diabetes and coronary artery disease.

"Our data suggest that in patients with both diabetes and coronary artery disease, there is a blood pressure threshold below which cardiovascular risk increases," lead researcher Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff said.

Instead of aiming for a systolic blood pressure reading of 120, Cooper-DeHoff says that levels between 130 and 140 appear to be the most healthful for these individuals. She also says that this group of patients showed an increased risk for heart attack, stroke or death when their blood pressure was controlled to lower than 115 systolic, which is the range recommended as normal by the American Heart Association.

High blood pressure, which is a common condition among diabetics, doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition to lifestyle changes like weight loss and exercise, supplements containing potassium, calcium, fish oil, magnesium and garlic may help high blood pressure.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston followed more than 19,000 women over the age of 38 for nearly 13 years. Over the course of the study, they found that women who didn’t drink at all gained an average of about 8 pounds, while moderate drinkers gained about 3 and a half pounds.

"Weight gain was largest for women who did not consume alcohol and then monotonously decreased with increasing total alcohol intake," the researchers wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

They also said that red wine was best for keeping weight in check, but drinking white wine, beer and other alcohol also showed some benefit for weight.

Despite their findings, however, the scientists say they discourage women from using drinking as a weight control measure.

"Taking into account the potential medical and psychosocial problems related to drinking alcohol, any recommendation on alcohol use should be made for the individual after carefully evaluating both adverse and beneficial effects of the drinking behavior in broad context," they wrote.

Researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center randomly assigned 43 women receiving an aromatase inhibitor for early breast cancer to receive either true acupuncture or sham acupuncture twice a week for six weeks. All had also reported musculoskeletal pain.

They found that the participants being treated with true acupuncture experienced a significant improvement in joint pain and stiffness over the course of the study. In addition, 20 percent of the patients who had reported taking pain relief medications reported that they no longer needed to take these medications following acupuncture treatment.
Participants who received the sham acupuncture did not report improvements in their pain.

"This study suggests that acupuncture may help women manage the joint pain and stiffness that can accompany aromatase inhibitor treatment," said the study’s lead author, Dr. Katherine Crew.

Aromatase inhibitor therapy is a common and effective treatment for early-stage, hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Previous studies have found that about half of women undergoing the treatment report joint pain and stiffness.

The study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine notes that red yeast rice may be a safe and effective alternative to statins, which are used in conventional medicine to treat high cholesterol.

Although statins like Zocor^®, Mevacor^® and Lipitor^® have proven effective in dealing with high cholesterol, they also cause a side effect of muscle pain in as many as 10 percent of users.

The participants in the study were individuals with a poor tolerance to statins, and they were given either a placebo or a dose of red yeast rice equivalent to their statin dosage, which revealed a notable drop in cholesterol levels among those who were given the actual supplement.

Whether taking statins or red yeast rice to reduce cholesterol, Drs. Kay Judge and Maxine Barish-Wredden recommend healthy eating habits and regular exercise as part of any cholesterol-reduction regiment.

There are other nutritional supplements people can take as well. The Mayo Clinic recommends artichoke extract, garlic extract or fish oil to help reduce cholesterol levels.

Researchers from the Division of Diabetes Translation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, studied more than 1,400 adults with the condition. Participants were interviewed on their weight loss and exercise attempts and were given both a fasting plasma glucose test and an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test.

They found that more than 90 percent of Americans with prediabetes don’t know that they have the condition. In addition, only about half of the individuals with prediabetes said they were taking steps to reduce their risk, like losing weight or exercising more.

According to the American Diabetes Association, prediabetics have blood glucose levels that are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Recent research has shown that some long-term damage to the body, especially the heart and circulatory system, may already be occurring during prediabetes.

In addition to weight loss and exercise, nutritional supplements containing cassia cinnamon, chromium, ginseng, glucomannan, guar gum, gymnema, magnesium, milk thistle, prickly pear cactus, soy and stevia may be used to treat or prevent type 2 diabetes.

Researchers at Stanford University had undergraduate students enroll in a class about societal issues relating to food and agriculture or one of three different classes about health-related issues. At the beginning and end of the study, both groups were asked about their consumption of foods in six food groups including vegetables, fruits, high-fat meat, high-fat dairy, processed foods and sweets.

They found that the students who took the "Food and Society" course had an overall improvement in their healthful eating diet score, while the general health students reported no significant changes in eating habits. The students in this group were also able to increase their consumption of vegetables and decrease their consumption of high-fat dairy foods.

"We believe that this approach may produce larger and more sustained changes in eating behaviors than traditional educational approaches focusing on health as a motivator," said the study’s lead author, Eric Hekler. "The study suggests that interventions may promote greater behavior change when focusing on processes that motivate the behavior rather than on outcomes."

The study’s authors say they plan to investigate how to apply this program to other groups of people at high risk for weight gain and obesity, including community college students, low-income communities, children, teens and parents.

"Hypertension as a disease is relatively easy to diagnose and it’s inexpensive to treat," the report committee’s chairman, Dr. David Fleming, told Reuters. "Yet despite that, one in six deaths in the U.S. is due to hypertension, and it costs our healthcare system $73 billion each year in expenses. In that context, hypertension is really a neglected disease in this country. There’s a huge gap between what we could do and what we are doing."

Among the ways the report committee suggested to lower the widespread occurrence of hypertension in the U.S. is to reduce the recommended daily intake of salt. Current guidelines suggest adults get no more than 2,300 milligrams, or about a teaspoon, of salt each day. Individuals with hypertension, middle-aged and older adults, and African-Americans, are advised to consume 1,500 milligrams each day.

As many as one out of every three American adults has hypertension.

According to the American Heart Association, high blood pressure increases the risk for heart attack, angina, stroke, kidney failure and peripheral artery disease. In addition to lifestyle changes like weight loss and exercise, supplements containing potassium, calcium, fish oil, magnesium and garlic may help prevent it.

According to Reuters, researchers in Canada have found that serious bacterial or viral infections of the digestive system may lead to irritable bowel syndrome or functional dyspepsia, which includes the symptoms of heartburn, indigestion and fullness.

The research team followed nearly 1,100 individuals who lived in Walkerton, Ontario during an outbreak of bacterial gastroenteritis when the town’s water supply was contaminated with cow manure.

They found that among those who became sickened during the outbreak, 50 percent had symptoms of dyspepsia eight years afterwards, compared to 30 percent of the people who didn’t get sick during the original outbreak.

The researchers write in the journal Gastroenterology that severe stomach viruses "have the ability to trigger symptoms that affect the upper, as well as the lower gastrointestinal tract, with long-lasting consequences."

Among some ways to combat heartburn include avoiding acidic and other foods known to trigger symptoms, cutting back on portion sizes, eating slowly, avoiding eating within a few hours of going to sleep, adding living enzymes to the diet and wearing loose-fitting clothing.

Researchers in Montreal say practicing Zen meditation can reinforce a central brain region (anterior cingulate) that regulates pain.

They studied 17 meditators and 18 non-meditators who had never practiced yoga, experienced chronic pain, neurological or psychological illness. The research team measured participants’ thermal pain sensitivity by applying a heated plate to their calves. Subjects then had their brains scanned using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). According to the MRI results, central brain regions that regulate emotion and pain were significantly thicker in meditators compared to non-meditators.

"We found a relationship between cortical thickness and pain sensitivity," said the study’s lead author, Joshua Grant. "The often painful posture associated with Zen meditation may lead to thicker cortex and lower pain sensitivity."

He added that meditative practices may be helpful in general for pain management, for preventing normal age-related grey matter reductions in the brain or potentially for any condition where the brain’s structure is compromised, such as stroke.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley conducted a sleep study of 39 healthy young adults. Half of the participants were allowed to nap and half were kept awake throughout the day.

They found that early in the afternoon, both groups performed at comparable levels on a rigorous learning task. However, individuals who took a 90-minute rest in the middle of the day performed better on a new round of learning exercises later in the day while those who did not nap actually became worse at learning.

Researchers say the findings reinforce their hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain’s short-term memory storage and make room for new information.

"It’s as though the email inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact emails, you’re not going to receive any more mail. It’s just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder," said the study’s lead author, Matthew Walker.