Trending News Today: Heart Disease Death Rate Grows as Cancer Deaths Drop

As the mortality rate for cancer decreases, the rate for heart disease is steadily growing, as reported by CNN. Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics examined death certificates in the United States from 1999 to 2017 for adults aged 45 to 64 years. They found that cancer deaths dropped 19% within those years, and that the deaths due to heart disease dropped 22% between 1999 and 2011 but increased a total of 4% by 2017, according to CNN.

A new recovery protocol through the University of Pennsylvania for patients who underwent robotic surgery for urologic cancer resulted in just 8% going home with narcotics, compared with the 100% of patients before the new pain management system, according to a press release by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Within this new system, patients received gabapentin and acetaminophen before surgery, then received the drugs again every eight hours after surgery, along with an IV dose of ketorolac. Out of 170 patients between September 2018 and January 2019, 115 (68%) were discharged without prescriptions for opioids.

A new study presented at Digestive Disease Week 2019 found that dawn to sunset fasting for 30 days increased levels of proteins that play a crucial role in improving insulin resistance and protecting against the risk from a high fat, high sugar diet, according to MD Magazine. The study involved 14 subjects between ages 21 and 62 years old, 13 of whom were men who fast 15 hours a day for 30 days during Ramadan. Investigators found that blood samples showed increased levels of tropomyosin 1, 3, and 4, which facilitate glucose uptake in white adipose tissue and remodeling insulin-induced actin.