Pharmacy Daily | DISPENSARY CORNER 26 Nov 15

RACING heart limits. The speed of your heartbeat could help predict whether you will die early, say Chinese researchers who have correlated heart rate with the risk of dying from any illness. Intriguingly, for every extra ten beats per minute of your resting heartrate the chance of dying within the next two decades rises by 9%. That means people who have a heart rate of 80 beats per minute are 45% more likely to die of any cause in the next 20 years than those with the lowest measured heart rate of 45 beats per minute. Dr Dongfeng Zhang from Qingdao University in Shandong, China said the association of resting heart rate with risk of allcause mortality was “independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors”. MUTANT mozzies could be the key to malaria, with US scientists from the University of California saying they have created a genetically modified mosquito which is a poor host for the malaria parasite. They were able to edit the DNA in the Anopheles stephensi mosquito found in India, with the change meaning the modified form had antibodies which combat the parasite. According to a report in the PNAS journal the genetic change was inherited by almost 100% of the mosquito’s offspring across three generations, meaning if these insects bite people they would not pass on the disease. The researchers said they believe the technique could work in other mosquito species to form a “useful additional weapon” in the fight against the scourge - alongside bed nets, repellents and insecticides.

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