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HealthBeat Wrap: Weight And Kidney Stones, CT Scans, GIK Treatment
POSTED: 2:11 pm EST January 25,
2005
UPDATED: 5:21 pm EST January 25,
2005
BOSTON -- On the HealthBeat Wrap, NewsCenter 5's medical reporter Heather Unruh reported on new concerns if you are overweight, a widely used treatment for heart attacks, and full body CT scans.GIK TreatmentResearchers speculated for decades that an intravenous solution called GIK gave people a better shot at surviving acute heart attacks by stabilizing the heart muscle, but a new study is questioning the benefits.
The G stands for glucose, or sugar, the I is insulin, and the K is the chemical symbol for potassium.A large study of over 20,000 patients found while GIK caused no harm, it also gave no benefit, and did nothing to help patients survive a heart attack.CT ScansWhole body CT scans are gaining popularity for people who want to know if they have an undiagnosed disease. But according to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, which offers the scan, it's not cost-effective. Compared to routine care, researchers say, a onetime scan on average would do little to help life expectancy.Weight And Kidney StonesA new study from Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers found that obesity increases your chance of developing kidney stones, which must pass through the urinary tract. The risk was especially high for women."Men who gained 35 pounds since early adulthood were about 40 percent more likely to suffer from kidney stone formation. Women who gained over 35 pounds were about 75 percent more likely to suffer from a stone," said Dr. Eric Taylor, of Brigham and Women's.The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association did not look at the effect weight loss may have on kidney stones. But this is certainly more evidence, Unruh said, that you should maintain a healthy body weight.
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