Intended for healthcare professionals

Minerva

Minerva

BMJ 2002; 325 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.325.7362.502 (Published 31 August 2002) Cite this as: BMJ 2002;325:502

Despite all the efforts made to get people who've had a heart attack to stick to the drug regimens they've started in hospital, many don't. One large Scottish study found that only 7.7% of patients continued to take statins after their myocardial infarction. There's a definite penalty to pay for stopping: those who took statins had a significant reduction in their risk of a further infarct compared to those who stopped (Heart2002;88:229-33)

When laparoscopic technology started, nitrous oxide (N2O) was the gas of choice for creating a therapeutic pneumoperitoneum. But two reports of intraoperative explosions put a virtual stop to its use, and carbon dioxide (CO2) replaced it. A prospective randomised clinical trial comparing the two gases now concludes that N2O has sufficient advantages and should be reinstated as the gas of choice. Everything else being equal (and no explosions), patients in the N2O group had less postoperative pain (Journal of the American College of Surgeons 2002;195:173-80)

In field experiments female lions tend to choose male partners with the darkest manes. Darker manes indicate better nutrition and higher testosterone, and are associated with longer reproductive lives …

View Full Text

Log in

Log in through your institution

Subscribe

* For online subscription