{"id":44086,"date":"2014-07-14T07:50:24","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T11:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=voices&p=44086"},"modified":"2014-07-14T07:50:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T11:50:24","slug":"selections-from-richard-lehmans-literature-review-july-14th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2014\/07\/14\/selections-from-richard-lehmans-literature-review-july-14th\/","title":{"rendered":"Selections from Richard Lehman\u2019s Literature Review: July 14th"},"content":{"rendered":"

CardioExchange is pleased to reprint this selection from Dr. Richard Lehman\u2019s\u00a0weekly journal review blog<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0BMJ.com<\/a>. Selected summaries are relevant to our audience, but we encourage members to engage with the\u00a0entire blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The BMJ<\/em> 12 July 2014 Vol 349<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leucocyte Telomere Length and Risk of CVD:<\/strong> This issue of The BMJ<\/em> makes me wonder if the words \u201ctelomere\u201d and \u201cMendelian randomisation\u201d are just ways of making readers\u2019 eyes glaze over. Telomeres are the things at the end of your chromosomes that show how much longer you have left to live. They do not cause anything. A study here finds that<\/a> \u201cavailable observational data show an inverse association between leucocyte telomere length and risk of coronary heart disease independent of conventional vascular risk factors. The association with cerebrovascular disease is less certain.\u201d Is this interesting? Well, maybe, in a spooky kind of way. Short telomeres=earlier death. Man with sickle has many blades. Hah!<\/p>\n

Association Between Alcohol and CVD:<\/strong> Someone recently told me that the link between alcohol and reduced coronary disease is purely observational, and that therefore we should not recommend alcohol as part of the \u201cMediterranean\u201d diet. I didn\u2019t want to argue, but you could say much the same about smoking and cardiovascular disease. The evidence of benefit from alcohol is solid, robust, and repeatedly found wherever you look, but almost impossible to replicate experimentally for the very good reason that people who drink do so as part of their daily pleasure. Yet the several hundred authors of this paper <\/a>have tried to do something even more impossible: make this evidence disappear by a Mendelian hat trick. I am completely baffled that they should (a) want to do it and (b) think this is good enough: \u201cIndividuals with a genetic variant associated with non-drinking and lower alcohol consumption had a more favourable cardiovascular profile and a reduced risk of coronary heart disease than those without the genetic variant. This suggests that reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health.\u201d No it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s topics are leucocyte telomere length and the risk for CVD, and the association between alcohol and CVD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2224,2307,329,1973],"class_list":["post-44086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-alcohol","tag-cardiovacular-disease","tag-cardiovascular-risk","tag-telomeres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}