New research published today on bmj.com reports that older people who walk slowly are three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those who walk faster.

The authors say these findings underline the essential role of fitness in preserving life and function in older age.

Earlier studies have revealed that low walking speed can predict adverse health related events, including death. However, it is unclear whether particular causes of death account for this increased mortality.

In order to find out more, a team of researchers from France investigated the relationship between low walking speed and the risk of death in older people. They considered both variables in general and with regard to the major underlying causes of death which were defined as cancer, cardiovascular, and other causes such as infectious diseases or respiratory failure.

The Bellevue Birth Center in New York City, the city's only in-hospital natural-birthing center primarily dedicated to Medicaid beneficiaries, closed in September without public notice, the New York Times reports. The center served low-income, mostly immigrant women. Around 85% of patients were Chinese- or Spanish-speaking immigrants, a majority of whom were referred through Gouverneur Healthcare Services on the Lower East Side.

Although the center was part of Bellevue Hospital, it was "designed to feel more like a home than a hospital," the Times reports. Patients were allowed to walk around or bathe in a Jacuzzi to reduce labor pain, and they could choose to forgo invasive medical techniques like induced labor and epidural blocks. If complications arose, patients had immediate access to hospital facilities. Supporters of the center said statistics show that births at the facility were less costly and less likely to result in complications than those in Bellevue's regular labor and delivery ward. They also said the center had a caesarean section rate of less than 4% over its lifetime. Citywide, c-section rates in New York hospitals increased from 22.3% in 1998 to 31.8% in 2007, according to the state Health Department.

Bellevue in August announced the center's closure to employees but not to the hospital's community advisory board, which learned of the decision after inquiries from politicians and members of the media. Patients have been redirected to the hospital's 12-bed labor and delivery ward, where they can still choose some natural-birth techniques but do not have access to midwives on all shifts.

If you have diabetes, a dilated eye exam should be at the top of your yearly health care to-do list. Diabetic eye disease, also known as diabetic retinopathy, is the leading cause of vision loss in American adults.

As part of November's Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month, ophthalmologists at the Glick Eye Institute at the Indiana University School of Medicine encourage diabetics and all at-risk adults to make eye care a priority. The American Academy of Ophthalmology estimates that more than 29 million Americans age 20 and older have diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes. About one-third of those individuals are at risk for vision loss because they don't know they have the disease.

Diabetic eye disease is one of the most common problems affecting people with diabetes and is the leading cause of blindness among working-age adults.

Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN) announced the discovery and experimental confirmation of a genetic biomarker, CGEN-40001 for predisposition to type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes. This new biomarker was discovered using Compugen's GeneVa® platform, which consists of an in silico database of approximately 350,000 predicted genetic variations in the human genome, with each predicted variation consisting of multiple consecutive nucleotides.

Predisposition markers are of particular value in diseases like type 2 diabetes, where specific lifestyle and health factors are known to play an important role. Following diagnosis, high-risk patients may benefit from more aggressive management either through lifestyle modification or drug treatment. There are an estimated 24 million people in the U.S. with diabetes, 90% of whom are affected by type 2 diabetes. During the past few years, extensive efforts by others searching for genetic markers for type 2 diabetes have utilized numerous genome-wide association studies, involving thousands of patients globally. Several validated genetic markers have been found; however, combining all the discovered biomarkers still explains only a small fraction of the heritability of the disease, so the need for additional markers continues to exist.

Depression occurs in as many as one-third of patients after a stroke, and women are at somewhat higher risk, according to a large new review of studies. Post-stroke depression is associated with greater disability, reduced quality of life and an increased risk of death.

The systematic review appears in the November-December issue of the journal Psychosomatics.

Brittany Poynter, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Toronto looked at 56 studies on stroke and depression comprising more than 75,000 people, about 12,000 of them women. The time between the stroke and onset of depression ranged from less than two weeks to 15 years.

Emory University Rollins School of Public Health researchers presented on a range of topics at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, including a study that examined compliance with national recommendations that a physician screen chest pain patients within 10 minutes of their arrival to the Emergency Department (ED).

A woman is six times more likely to be separated or divorced soon after a diagnosis of cancer or multiple sclerosis than if a man in the relationship is the patient, according to a study that examined the role gender played in so-called "partner abandonment." The study also found that the longer the marriage the more likely it would remain intact.

The study confirmed earlier research that put the overall divorce or separation rate among cancer patients at 11.6 percent, similar to the population as a whole. However, researchers were surprised by the difference in separation and divorce rates by gender. The rate when the woman was the patient was 20.8 percent compared to 2.9 percent when the man was the patient.

"Female gender was the strongest predictor of separation or divorce in each of the patient groups we studied," said Marc Chamberlain, M.D., a co-corresponding author and director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA). Chamberlain is also a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the University of Washington, School of Medicine.

Lack of muscle strength could be one of the early signs of dementia according to a study published in Archives of Neurology.

Researchers at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago discussed whether muscle weakness may be an independent risk factor for Alzheimer's or whether it may be directly caused by some of the changes in the brain that start many years before the dementia symptoms become apparent. Less likely, lack of muscle strength and associated metabolism could be a contributing factor to the development of Alzheimer's disease.

'In Alzheimer's disease, changes in the brain begin many years before a person begins to develop symptoms of dementia. This study provides a statistical link between weak muscles and increased risk of dementia. Observation of increasing muscle weakness may serve as one of the indicators that could alert GPs to the need for a cognitive assessment.

Kaiser Health News staff writer Julie Appleby reports on the details of the House bill's abortion restrictions. "The House-passed health bill bars insurers from selling policies that cover abortion to anyone who gets a federal subsidy. But it does allow insurers to offer optional abortion coverage that consumers could purchase with their own money. Based on some states' experiences, it's unlikely insurers would sell such coverage" (11/10). Read entire story.

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

With about 35 million people around the world suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD) by the year 2010 and an expectation that these numbers will double every twenty years with approximately 115 million cases by 2050, pressure on healthcare systems worldwide will be intense. In a special issue of the journal Behavioural Neurology, twelve contributions from an international group of researchers discuss imaging techniques that may contribute to early diagnosis and advancements in treatment for this devastating disease.

As life expectancy increases across the globe, the incidence of AD rises dramatically. Currently, AD care costs US Medicare and Medicaid and businesses over $148 billion dollars per year. With an aging population, these costs could potentially triple by 2050. With the prevalence of AD doubling with every decade of life after age 75, merely delaying the onset of AD by five years would produce a 50% decrease in the prevalence of disease.