Chocolate may cut the risk of pregnancy preeclampsia

It's long been known that chocolate can contribute to a healthy heart and reduce hypertension because it contains a chemical called theobromine, a natural blood-vessel dilator and muscle relaxer.

Preeclampsia occurs when a pregnant woman's blood pressure skyrockets and protein spills into the urine. The condition shares many of the same characteristics as heart disease and hypertension. It affects 3 percent to 8 percent of pregnancies.

A Yale research study published in the May issue of Epidemiology tracked chocolate consumption in more than 2,000 women during their first and third trimesters and later analyzed umbilical-cord blood to determine the levels of theobromine.

Women who ate the most chocolate as measured by cord blood concentrations (about 5 or more servings per week) had a lower risk of preeclampsia, the study found. Women who had the highest theobromine levels were 69 percent less likely to develop the condition than those who consumed the least, according to the report.

Study author Elizabeth W. Triche hypothesized that theobromine may improve circulation in the placenta and reduce damage caused by having low antioxidant levels.

- John Sullivan

Insulin-sensitivity medicine linked to higher fracture risk

Researchers of Boston University and Switzerland examined 1,020 patients who had fractures matched with 3,728 people who did not have the problem. Diabetics who used GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia and Japanese drugmaker Takeda's Actos for a year or more were two to three times more likely to suffer a leg or arm fracture than those not on those drugs.

The two drugs are part of a class of medications known as thiazolidinediones, or TZDs, which are used, usually with other medicines, to treat Type 2 diabetes. Both pills are taken orally.

Last year, Steven Nissen and a colleague at the Cleveland Clinic reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that Avandia significantly increased the risk of heart attacks and death from cardiovascular problems. Sales of the drug plummeted since the Nissen study was published. Actos has been less affected.

The fracture study of Avandia and Actos found that the risk was small after short-term use of less than a year, but increased over time and was highest for those who used the medications for two or more years.

The authors concluded that their study provided evidence of the association between the TZDs and factures "particularly of the hip and wrist. . . . No such effect was seen for other antidiabetic drugs in this study."

- Josh Goldstein

Study hints aspirin compound forestalls diabetes in the obese

Insulin is crucial to metabolizing blood sugar. In Type 2 diabetes, cells - especially fat cells - become resistant to insulin, so the body needs more of it to keep blood sugar levels from staying harmfully high.

While previous studies have shown aspirin reduces blood sugar in diabetics, the effects on obese people were not known.

Researchers at the Institut d'Investigacio Biomedica de Girona in Spain gave triflusal, a salicylate derivative, to 28 middle-aged people with a body mass index of about 40. (A BMI of 30 is considered obese). For 12 weeks, they received a daily dose of 600 milligrams of triflusal, 900 milligrams, or a placebo.

The subjects' fasting blood sugar levels dropped significantly. Contrary to expectations, this decrease was because the subjects secreted more insulin, not because their cells grew more sensitive to insulin.

More studies are needed "on the possible therapeutic benefit of aspirin in the fight against Type 2 diabetes," the researchers said. Their study is in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

- Marie McCullough