Almost four in every 10 new cases of cancer in Germany are attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors. These include primarily smoking, low physical activity, overweight, and infections. Hermann Brenner and his group of authors from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) report on how these risk factors affect the number of cancer cases in Germany in concrete terms, in this themed issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int; 115: 571–593).

Fluctuations in weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and/or blood sugar levels in otherwise healthy people may be associated with a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death from any cause compared to people with more stable readings, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

Aspirin prevented serious vascular events in patients with diabetes who did not already have cardiovascular disease, but it caused almost as many major bleeds and there was no effect on cancers. These findings were presented ESC Congress 2018 1 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Properly composed treatment and refraining from cigarette consumption can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease resulting from type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In some cases, the increased risks could theoretically be eliminated.

Findings could lead to increased screening for PD patients to detect and correct insulin resistance, reports the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease

Pregnant women with type 1 diabetes run a higher risk of having babies with heart defects, especially women with high blood glucose levels during early pregnancy, a study from Karolinska Institutet and the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden published in The BMJ shows.