-- Scientists at IBM used a Scanning Tunneling Microscope to build images with individual atoms, such as the 'quantum corral' (above) made of iron atoms. This image is part of "The Art of Invention" exhibit at the United States Patent and Trademark Museum in Alexandria, Va.
(IBM/ via Associated Press)
Discoveries
Death from heart disease twice as likely for diabetics
-- Scientists at IBM used a Scanning Tunneling Microscope to build images with individual atoms, such as the 'quantum corral' (above) made of iron atoms. This image is part of "The Art of Invention" exhibit at the United States Patent and Trademark Museum in Alexandria, Va.
(IBM/ via Associated Press)
DIABETES
To better understand the link between heart disease and diabetes, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital examined the death rates of more than 60,000 heart disease patients who had a cardiac event such as a heart attack. Researchers found that those patients who also had diabetes were twice as likely to die in the first 30 days after the heart event than those without diabetes. In addition, at one year, a person with diabetes who had a less serious cardiac event was as likely to be dead as a person without diabetes who had a more severe cardiac event. "We need to focus on establishing better treatments for diabetes to lower the risks of death following heart disease," said senior author Dr. Elliott Antman, director of the Samuel A. Levine Cardiac Unit at the Brigham.
BOTTOM LINE: Since diabetics are at higher risk of death from heart disease than non-diabetics, doctors need to aggressively identify and reduce risk factors for diabetics.
CAUTIONS: The study did not account for control of diabetes -- for example, some patients may have had diabetes that was being tightly managed, whereas other patients may not have had their sugars appropriately controlled -- which may have affected the outcome of the study.
WHAT'S NEXT: A trial to test whether tight management of diabetes decreases the death rate from heart disease is needed.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug. 15
SUSHRUT JANGI 
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
