WESTON, Fla. – Researchers at the National Institutes of Health are expressing optimism about an Italian study into a new treatment option for people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD.
Dr. Samuel Gurevich, a pulmonologist with Cleveland Clinic Weston said the study found that inhaling a nebulized form of Hyaluronan, a sugar secreted by living tissue, could shorten the amount of time patients spend needing intensive care for breathing support and decrease the number of days in the hospital.
“This is what’s called an exploratory study to see if this could be helpful. It really wasn’t powered to find out if those patients had a mortality benefit or if they ended up on a ventilator or not, it just was a proof of function study,” Gurevich said.
He said the promising findings of the small study may lead to a larger investigation here in the U. S.
And dietary information from three large heart disease studies suggests that drinking one or more cups of regular coffee every day could reduce the risk of heart failure.
In all three studies, drinking decaffeinated coffee appeared to have the opposite effect on heart failure risk. Coronary artery disease, heart failure and stroke are among the top causes of death from heart disease in the U.S.