A troublingly high number of U.S. patients who are given angiograms to check for heart disease turn out not to have a significant problem, according to the latest study to suggest Americans get an excess of medical tests.

Results reported here Sunday may not put the nail in the coffin for a once wildly popular cholesterol-lowering drug, but they do put Zetia at the bottom of the list of medications that doctors will be using. So said Dr. Anthony DeMaria, a leading cardiologist who is also the editor in chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have learned how an interval of DNA in an unexplored region of the human genome increases the risk for coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.Their research paints a fuller picture of a genetic risk for the disease that was discovered only three years ago and which lurks in one out of two people.

A diabetes drug used by tens of thousands of Britons increases the risk of heart disease and death, US senators have claimed.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the medicines safety watchdog, has asked an advisory committee to look again at the safety of the drug.

Hypertension appeared to predict the progression of dementia among older adults with certain cognitive deficits, including the ability to organize thoughts and make decisions, but not others, such as those with memory dysfunction.