female diabetics have heart risk

Type 2 diabetes substantially increases the risk for heart disease, but a large review of studies has found that women with diabetes are at much higher risk than men.

The meta-analysis, published in Diabetologia, included 64 studies with 858,507 subjects and 28,203 heart attacks and other coronary events. The research by the University Medical Center Utrecht found that compared with diabetic men, diabetic women were at a 44 percent higher risk for both fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events. The reasons remain unclear, but researchers stressed that diabetes screening should be different in women than in men.

Newborns benefit from mom's Vaccine

All pregnant women are advised to get the Tdap vaccine, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, or whooping cough. A small study suggests the vaccine may have benefits for newborns as well. "This is likely to be protective during the first two months, before they are able to get their own vaccinations," said Flor M. Munoz of Baylor College of Medicine, the lead author of the article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

dialysis machine created for babies

Doctors in Italy have designed a miniature dialysis machine for babies, used for the first time last year to save a newborn girl, doctors reported online in the journal Lancet.

Usually, doctors adapt standard dialysis machines for babies, but that can be risky since the devices can't always be accurately tweaked. About 1 to 2 percent of hospitalized infants have kidney problems that may require dialysis, which cleans toxins from the blood when the kidneys aren't working.

The mini-dialysis machine, meant for babies less than 22 pounds, was conceived by Dr. Claudio Ronco of the San Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza, Italy and colleagues. Just weeks after it was licensed by European authorities, they got their first patient: a 3-day-old baby girl weighing about 6.6 pounds with multiple organ failure.

"Her parents had already reserved the funeral," Ronco said. Instead, the baby was treated for nearly a month and now "she's doing great."

Since then, about 10 other babies have been treated with the machine across Europe.

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