(February 8, 2010 - Insidermedicine)

From London - According to a report published in the Archives of Neurology, high blood pressure may be a predictor of dementia in some older adults. For five years, researchers studied nearly 1,000 elderly people suffering from cognitive impairment, but not dementia. They found that hypertension was associated with an increased risk of developing dementia in those adults who were unable to organize thoughts and make decisions, but not in those who suffered from memory dysfunction.

From California - A new report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences outlines the hazards of third hand smoke. Residual nicotine from burning tobacco attaches to almost every surface--lasting days, weeks and even months. Lab tests revealed that when this leftover nicotine interacted with a common ambient air pollutant nitrous acid, it created a carcinogen known as tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNA).

And finally, from Nottingham - According to a report published in The Lancet, people suffering from inflammatory bowel disease face a significant increased risk of blood clots. Researchers compared over 13, 500 IBD patients with over 70,000 healthy controls. They found that non-hospitalized patients with active IBD were 16x more likely to suffer a blood clot when compared to non-hospitalized controls.