A new vaccine designed to lower cholesterol and help prevent heart disease is currently being tested in a clinical trial at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria. After successful animal studies, researchers are now studying the effects of the vaccine in 72 volunteers. If the vaccine is found to be safe and effective, it could one day provide an alternative to traditional treatments like statin therapy.

The vaccine helps the immune system attack a protein called PCSK9, which allows low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol to build up in the bloodstream. In animal studies, the vaccine reduced LDL cholesterol up to 50 percent over one year and appeared to protect against plaque build-up in the arteries.

The study is expected to last several years and many questions about the vaccine remain. If successful in human trials, treatment would most likely require yearly booster shots, according to researchers.

Sourced from: BBC

Low back pain is common—it affects about 80 percent of men and women at some point in their lifetime, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—and traditional back pain treatments, such as pain medication, muscle strengthening exercises, and physical therapy are often ineffective. Research suggests yoga may help relieve back pain at least as well as traditional therapies and can provide “short- and long-term benefits” for people with back pain.

Chronic low back pain—pain that lasts longer than 12 weeks, may recur for years, and can be difficult to treat—develops in about 20 percent of people with low back pain and affects racial and ethnic minorities and those from a lower socioeconomic background more often. A new study conducted by the Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts and recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine looked at the effects of yoga on these populations.

The study involved 320 people with low back pain, divided into three groups. One group attended weekly yoga classes for 12 weeks, another group received 15 physical therapy sessions, and the third group was given an educational book and newsletters on managing chronic back pain. The study also included a 40-week maintenance phase and one-year follow-up. According to researchers, yoga was as effective as physical therapy for low back pain.

Sourced from: MNT

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products, the number of middle and high school students who say they have used a tobacco product in the past 30 days fell from 4.7 million in 2015 to 3.9 million in 2016.

During the same period, e-cigarette use among middle and high school students dropped from 3 million to just under 2.2 million. The number of high school students who used two or more tobacco products, any combustible tobacco products, and hookah also declined, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

CDC Acting Director Anne Schuchat, M.D. says that far too many young people are still using tobacco products and it’s crucial for this decline to continue. Strategies include funding tobacco control programs, increasing prices of tobacco products, reducing exposure to secondhand smoke and e-cigarette aerosol, and developing media campaigns that warn about the dangers of tobacco products.

Sourced from: CDC