Vitamin C Deficiency in Women Linked to Gallbladder Disease
Women who get too little vitamin C in their diet may be at greater risk of gallbladder disease, according to UC San Francisco researchers.
Gallstones can form when bile, a liquid with enzymes that help digest dietary fat, becomes oversaturated with cholesterol. The cholesterol eventually hardens into stone-like material called gallstones. Vitamin C stimulates the conversion of cholesterol into bile acids, so low levels could enhance formation of stones.
Dr. Joel Simon of UCSF and his associates analyzed data from 13,130 men and women in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted between 1988 and 1994. The study measured levels of vitamin C in the blood and used ultrasound exams to check for gallstones.
They reported in today’s Archives of Internal Medicine that low levels of vitamin C in the blood were associated with increased numbers of gallstones in women, but not in men. Women who used supplements containing vitamin C had a 34% lower incidence of gallbladder disease. The absence of a link in men suggests that men and women process bile acids differently.
Study Rates Single Moms’ Risk of Early Death
Single mothers are more likely to die prematurely than mothers living with a partner, according to a new Swedish study. In particular, the rate of suicides and deaths linked to alcohol and violence were higher among the single women, according to the report in Saturday’s Lancet.
Dr. Gunilla Ringback Weitoft and colleagues from the Swedish National Board of Health & Welfare studied 90,000 single mothers and more than 620,000 mothers with partners, finding that the single mothers’ risk of premature death was more than 70% higher than that of mothers with partners.
“Our findings may be due to economic constraints and stresses due to combining work and parental roles without either the emotional or financial support of a partner,” Weitoft said.
Men May Be More Likely to Undergo Hip Surgery
Women are three times as likely as men to require a hip or knee replacement as a result of severe arthritis, but a much higher percentage of men actually undergo the procedures, according to a new Canadian study. Dr. Gillian Hawker and her colleagues at the University of Toronto contacted 48,218 people older than 55 in the Toronto area to locate those with hip or knee problems.
They reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine that 5.3 women out of every 1,000 in the group needed joint replacement, compared with only 1.6 men out of 1,000. But the actual replacement rate for both men and women was 0.7 per 1,000. The team suggested that family doctors may see the problem as “less significant” for women or that women may be less aggressive in bringing up the subject of their pain and the need for action.
In the United States in 1994, 49,000 men and 75,000 women underwent hip replacements, while 78,000 men and 130,000 women had knee replacements, according to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
Blood-Thinning Drug Underused for Seniors
Using the blood-thinning drug warfarin in elderly people with atrial fibrillation--an irregular heartbeat, also called arrhythmia--is an effective way to prevent strokes, but the drug is underused in the elderly, according to Missouri researchers.
The drug is widely used in younger people but has not been studied in the elderly, even though they have a higher risk of stroke. Atrial fibrillation increases the risk further because the irregular heartbeats allow clots to form more easily.
Dr. Brian F. Gage and associates at Washington University in St. Louis studied 597 Medicare recipients who had atrial fibrillation, and found that those getting warfarin had a 24% lower risk of death or hospitalization as a result of stroke. But only about half the ideal candidates for the drug received it, the researchers reported in Friday’s Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Assn. People who were older, female and living in rural areas were less likely to receive the drug.
Breast Cancer Less Lethal to Older Patients
Even though elderly women are less likely to receive aggressive treatment for breast cancer, they tend to live as long as women without the disease, according to a new study.
Researchers explained that finding by noting that the older a woman is at the age of diagnosis, the more likely it is that the breast tumor will have favorable biological characteristics. Favorable factors include lower tumor growth rates and normal numbers of chromosomes. The older women also tended to have fewer unfavorable biological characteristics that would make tumors grow more aggressively.
Dr. Sami Diab and colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers in Aurora and the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston studied 50,828 patients in a San Antonio breast cancer database and 256,287 patients in a federal registry. They reported in Wednesday’s Journal of the National Cancer Institute that women over the age of 70 who had breast cancer that had not spread to the lymph nodes live as long as women without breast cancer.
Breast cancer was responsible for 73% of deaths in breast cancer patients between 50 and 54, but the percentage declined with increasing age. Among breast cancer patients 85 years or older, the disease accounted for only 29% of deaths.
Redux, Fen-Phen and Heart Abnormalities
The latest study on obese patients who took the diet drugs Redux and fen-phen shows that the drugs more than doubled the risk of mild heart valve abnormalities, but that there were few serious problems caused by the abnormalities.
A team led by Dr. Julius M. Gardin of UC Irvine studied 1,473 patients nationwide who had taken dexfenfluramine (Redux) or a combination of fenfluramin and phentermine for more than six months.
They reported in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Assn. that 15% of the fen-phen users and 11% of the dexfenfluramine users had mildly leaky heart valves, compared with only 4% of nonusers. The incidence of serious heart problems was the same in all three groups, however.
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Medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II can be reached at thomas.maugh@latimes.com.
