Short Folks May Face Heart Problems
A new review of studies suggests that the shorter you are, the more likely you may be to battle heart disease, HealthDay reports. Short people, defined by researchers as those under 5 feet 3 inches, were nearly 1.5 times more likely to develop heart disease or die from the condition when compared to taller individuals, or those who stood over 5-8. The link between height and heart disease might be explained by the size of one's arteries. According to HealthDay, researchers speculated that, "shorter people have smaller coronary arteries that may get blocked earlier in life due to other risk factors, such as poverty, poor nutrition, and infections that result in poor early life growth."
Patients Report Having Sex While Asleep
Sexsomnia, a disorder that leads people to engage in sexual behaviors while asleep, appears to be more common than we would dream, suggests a new study presented Monday at a meeting of sleep experts. Nearly 8 percent of the 832 patients evaluated at a sleep disorders clinic said they had experienced "sleep sex," according to HealthDay. Researchers were surprised at how many subjects reported sexsomnia, though they believe sexsomniacs are probably fewer in the general population.
Sleep sex is a parasomnia, or involuntary behavior people act out during sleep. While it's rare for parasomniacs to get entangled with the law, sometimes they do, U.S. News's Lindsay Lyon wrote last year. In fact, sleep sex may have played a factor in dozens of legal cases that have been referred to Sleep Forensics Associates, a group formed by experts at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. While sexsomnia might not have caused the alleged criminal act in every case, sleep sex does seem to be among the most legally problematic of parasomnias. [Read more: How Sleep Sex (and Other Parasomnias) Can Get You in Trouble with the Law.]
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Painkillers May Harm Cardiovascular Health
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen, may put healthy people at risk of cardiovascular problems, according to a study newly published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. People taking high doses of ibuprofen had a nearly 30 percent greater risk of stroke than those who weren't taking the drug, researchers in Denmark found after analyzing more than 1 million health records, HealthDay reports. Diclofenac, an NSAID sold under brand names Voltaren and Cataflam, appeared to raise the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 91 percent, while rofecoxib (Vioxx) was associated with a 66 percent greater risk, according to HealthDay.
U.S. News's January Payne has written about the potential health risks of other prescription and over-the-counter painkillers. [Read more: Pain Medications: What You Need to Know About Acetaminophen, Darvon, and Darvocet.]
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