Author Archives: markdowe1

Medical, Research, Science

Study shows heart attack risk up 40% for years after an infection

MEDICAL

PATIENTS who suffer common infections have a much greater risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the years to come, a major study has found.

The findings suggest hundreds of thousands should be given statins or other heart pills if they suffer a chest infection or bladder problem.

A project tracking 1.2million patients found those admitted to hospital for pneumonia or urinary tract infections were 40 per cent more likely to have a heart attack within eight years. They were also 150 per cent more likely to suffer a stroke.

This suggests infections have an even greater impact on heart health than obesity, which raises the risk of strokes and heart attacks by about 25 per cent.

The research team, from Aston Medical School in Birmingham and the University of Cambridge, believe this is because infections cause long-term inflammation in blood vessels – making them more prone to clotting and clogging.

Patients who suffer an infection should be treated in the same way as someone with high blood pressure, raised cholesterol or diabetes, the researchers said. This could involve prescribing statins or aspirin as a preventative measure to cut the risk to their heart.

Nearly 600,000 people are admitted to hospital with chest infections such as pneumonia in England alone every year. Some 300,000 are admitted with urinary infections.

The study, which has been presented to the American College of Cardiology in Orlando, also found that those who had (had) infections were more likely to die if they did suffer a heart attack or stroke.

They were three times more likely to die from a heart attack than those who had not had infections, and almost twice as likely to die if they had a stroke.

Cardiologist Dr Rahul Potluri of Aston University, said: “Our figures suggest that those who are admitted to hospital with a respiratory or urinary tract infection are 40 per cent more likely to suffer a subsequent heart attack, and 2.5 times more likely to have a stroke, than patients who have had no such infection – and are considerably less likely to survive from these conditions.”

Experts have shown greater interest in the role of inflammation in heart disease after a study last year found that treating patients with anti-inflammatory canakinumab could cut their risk of having a heart attack by 24 per cent. Doctors say this drug – not yet available for heart patients – could represent the biggest breakthrough in cardiovascular medicine since statins were developed 30 years ago.

Dr Potluri said: “Infection appears to confer as much, if not more, of a risk for future heart disease and stroke as very well-established risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

“Although inflammation has been linked to atherosclerosis [when plaque builds up in arteries], this is the largest study to showing that common infection is such a significant risk factor.”

Lead author Dr Paul Carter, an academic clinical fellow at the University of Cambridge, said: “The data illustrates a clear association between infections and life-threatening heart conditions and strokes – and the figures are too huge to ignore.

“Serious infections are amongst the biggest causes of death in the UK directly, but our research shows infections that are severe enough to lead to hospitalisation may present a delayed risk in the form of atherosclerotic diseases.

“The sheer number of people who could be affected presents a challenge that needs investigation.”

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Britain, Government, NBC Warfare, Russia, Society, United Nations, United States

Britain expels 23 Russian spies in biggest reprisal since Cold War

BRITAIN

MOSCOW has vowed revenge against Britain after Theresa May ordered the biggest purge of Russian spies since the Cold War.

In a barely-veiled threat, the Kremlin said its response to what it described as a “hostile” package of measures announced by the Prime Minister “would not be long in coming”.

The United States has vowed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the UK in its response to Russian involvement in the Salisbury chemical attack.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said: “If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used. They could be used here in New York, or in cities of any country that sits on this council. This is a defining moment.”

Britain’s deputy UN ambassador Jonathan Allen accused Russia of deploying “a weapon so horrific it is banned from use in war”.

In a forceful statement to MPs, Mrs May said the Kremlin would be made to pay for its role in the Salisbury attack.

She confirmed that Moscow had failed to meet a deadline to explain how the Russian-produced military nerve agent Novichok came to be used in the attempt to murder former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

She said Russia had “treated the use of a military-grade nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defiance”. She added: “There is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder.”

The PM outlined a series of tough sanctions, including the expulsion of 23 suspected spies posing as diplomats as well as the threat of financial sanctions against Russian oligarchs and cronies of President Putin with assets in London.

The expulsion of diplomats is the biggest since 1985 and is designed to “fundamentally degrade Russian intelligence capability in the UK for years to come”.

High-level diplomatic relations will be scrapped, with an invitation to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to visit the UK revoked.

Mrs May also suggested that covert reprisals would be undertaken – in an apparent hint at cyber attacks aimed at damaging the Russian state’s propaganda machine.

British sources said Mrs May was willing to unveil even tougher sanctions if the Kremlin hit back.

A senior government official said: “We are responding in a way that is robust, it gives us the ability to respond if the Russians escalate but it is also in line with the rule of law, all of which is in stark contrast to the way the Russian state has behaved both in this instance and wider areas of policy. Further options remain on the table.” The official said that if the measures fail to produce a change in behaviour from the Kremlin… “we will look again.”

But Moscow has warned that the UK would face reprisals for the “groundless anti-Russian campaign.” The Prime Minister told MPs that the UK “does not stand alone in confronting Russian aggression”, with messages of support already received from key allies such as the US, France, Germany and NATO.

She added: “This was not just an act of attempted murder in Salisbury, nor just an act against the UK. It is an affront to the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons, and it is an affront to the rules-based system on which we and our international partners depend.”

Veteran Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke said the “bizarre and dreadful” use of a nerve agent appeared to be “a deliberate choice by the Russian government to put their signature on a particular killing so that other defectors are left in no doubt that it is the Russian government”.

Mrs May confirmed that Prince William and Prince Harry will join ministers in boycotting this summers football World Cup in Russia, but Government sources say that, although she called on the FA “to consider their position”, she will not order the England team to withdraw as there is no sign that other countries would join a walkout.

Labour MP Stephen Kinnock said: “The Russia World Cup risks vindicating the Putin regime. We should look at postponing the World Cup and hosting it in another country.”

Revised Foreign Office travel advice for Russia has warned of an upsurge in “anti-British sentiment or harassment” in a country plagued by violent football hooliganism. A Whitehall source said the estimated 2,000 fans who have bought tickets were likely to be issued with “very robust” travel advice.

 

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China, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

Essay: The West can no longer be complacent with China

CHINA

WHEN Xi Jinping was a child, his father – then, a high-ranking government minister – fell out of favour with the founder of the People’s Republic, Chairman Mao.

As part of his family’s humiliation, Xi, as an eight-year-old, was paraded on a school stage in a metal dunce’s cap. The audience raised their arms and shouted, “Down with Xi Jinping!” Even Xi’s mother was forced to join in the chanting.

Later, Xi was sent to be “reformed” in an impoverished, rural commune.

Earlier this week, in an extraordinary reversal of fate, that humiliated schoolboy was affirmed as the most powerful man in China since Mao when the People’s Congress in Beijing rubber-stamped a constitutional amendment. In effect, it abolishes the legal limit of two terms on China’s presidency. Xi is now the country’s leader in perpetuity – or as some might have it, dictator.

With cunning ruthlessness, he worked his way through the ranks of the party that treated his family so abhorrently, from local to national politics, and saw off rivals while establishing political and popular support with his war on corruption. And as a former peasant who toiled hard labour in the fields, his “man of the people” credentials have done him no harm.

He has already decreed that his own name and ideas are written into the nation’s constitution, as “Xi Jinping Thought” – an honour he shares only with Mao. We in the complacent West would do well to wake up to the vaulting ambition of the leader of the world’s most populous state. The lingering question now is whether power will go to his head.

We have become used to expansionist threats and sabre-rattling from countries such as Russia and North Korea, but we don’t really expect it from China, which is traditionally insular and inward-looking. It is, after all, the country that built a Great Wall around its borders to keep out foreign influences.

Xi is intent, however, on reversing that centuries-old trend. China has established itself as a global player in trade, is massively expanding its military and now wants global political influence to match. In some ways, this can benefit the West. For example, Xi has put pressure on North Korea’s unstable leader, Kim Jong-un, to halt his erratic missile tests and even to roll back Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. Donald Trump’s boastful remarks recently of a diplomatic breakthrough (with arms talks to come), would have been impossible without Xi’s influence.

If the world becomes a safer place in the short-term as a result of this new willingness on China’s part to play the role of a global power-broker, we should all sigh a sense of huge relief. But as this week’s declaration reveals, Xi isn’t interested in the short-term. His plans are for the much longer-term. He certainly has had several opportunities to get the measure of Trump: First at a meeting last April in Florida at the President’s Mar-a-Lago resort, later at the G20 talks in Hamburg, and then again when the two met in Beijing last November. Whilst they did seem to hit it off on strategic issues, the relationship between them is a strange one. Neither will feel comfortable in a partnership of equals.

President Trump has already asserted his independence by announcing serious trade restrictions on Chinese steel and other imports. Yet, China is not only a major trading partner of the US, but a colossal underwriter of American debt. The government in Washington could not function without borrowing hundreds of billions, financed largely by Chinese loans. If China withdraws that support, in direct retribution for Trump’s trade blockade, what will happen to the US economy?

And, if Xi stops applying pressure on North Korea, what happens to Trump’s much vaunted peace talks? The Chinese President has manoeuvred himself, not just into one commanding position, but into a whole array of them.

It is not only America that is suddenly uncomfortably aware of Chinese strength. India, too, is eyeing its immense neighbour with unease after Xi sent China’s new navy into the Indian Ocean. This none-too-subtle display was prompted by a dispute over international policies concerning the Maldives. China, which has committed huge investment into developing its naval fleet, knows the world will take notice of a fleet of modern battleships. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, Xi has been the driving force for a new Silk Road linking China’s factories to Western Europe via Putin’s Russia, making Moscow the willing junior partner of Beijing.

All this confirms Xi Jinping as the most powerful and ambitious man in Chinese politics since the death of Chairman Mao more than 40 years ago – with one significant difference. Mao wanted to break completely with China’s cultural past – the hallmark of the bourgeoise – Xi has a different strategy and wants to celebrate it.

XI is determined to restore the country’s links to its heritage and arts by fostering a new creed of nationalism in place of Communism. Chinese artworks and treasures, which were scattered to the winds during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, are being brought back from the West by Chinese multimillionaires who see themselves as nationalist champions. Xi’s own wife, Peng Liyuan, a singer who entertained the troops after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, is at the forefront of this movement.

From the arts to geopolitics, trade wars to nuclear peace talks, Xi seems to have thought of everything. His carefully constructed powerbase may have one weak point: If he is president for life, then the ambitions of the country’s rising stars below him could be thwarted. That would risk political stagnation and infighting.

But for now, the West cannot risk complacency, especially now that China is controlled by the Thoughts of President Xi. If Mao gave China independence, and former leader Deng Xiaoping rebuilt the economy, then Xi is dedicated to making it a force to be reckoned with once more.

 

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