The European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA) welcomes the UN High Level Meeting on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) to address the world biggest killers

The European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA)1 welcomes the UN High Level Meeting on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) to address the world's biggest killers.  “It is a memorable day in the history of public health. Discussing non communicable diseases at the UN table gives a strong sense of the burden it represents to human kind and the recognition that NCDs is a challenge for all nations in the world2”, declared Professor Michel Komajda, President of the European Society of Cardiology, an active member of the ECDA.

Eating high levels of chocolate could be associated with a significant reduction in the risk of certain cardiovascular disorders, reveals Cambridge research published in the British Medical Journal this week.

The researchers compiled a systematic review of seven studies using data from 114,000 patients and found that people who consumed the most chocolate had a 37 per cent lower risk of developing heart disease and a 29 per cent lower risk of suffering a stroke than those who consumed less chocolate.

The studies looked at the consumption of dark chocolate as well as milk chocolate, chocolate drinks and other chocolate confectionaries.

Although the analysis suggests a certain benefit to eating higher quantities of chocolate, the findings still need to be interpreted with caution, in particular because commercially available chocolate is very calorific and eating too much of it could in itself lead to weight gain, which increases various health risks.

Topics: Valvular Heart Diseases

Paris, France – Aug. 30, 2011: Since 2007 Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) has become an alternative treatment for elderly patients with severe aortic stenosis at high risk for surgical aortic valve replacement.

At present, durability and hemodynamic performance of transcatheter aortic valves remain unclear. Our single center data of the German Heart Center in Munich demonstrates a sustained improvement of hemodynamic performance up to 3 years after CoreValve implantation.