Amid growing incidents of heart disease, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has put together new guidelines for the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins.

According to the new guidelines, people between the ages of 40 and 75 years should use statins if they have at least one of these risk factors: high cholesterol level, high blood pressure, diabetes.

Smokers and those who have a 10 per cent or higher risk of heart attack or stroke over the next ten years should also use statins.

Cholesterol-lowering statins can significantly trim down the mortality risk in ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis patients, a new study indicated.

In a population-based study, led by Dr. Amar Oza of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the researchers found that statins lowered the risk for mortality in ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis patients by up to 32 per cent.

Sharing the results of the study, Dr. Oza said, “With this amount of mortality benefit, if there are other reasons to start a statin, I certainly would have a lower threshold.”

Celebrex (celecoxib), a pain-relieving nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), is marginally safer than older NSAIDs, a new study suggested.

Over the past many years, doctors suspected that Celebrex would increase risk of heart attack or stroke risks in arthritis patients. But, a three-way comparison of prescription doses of Celebrex, Motrin (ibuprofen) and Naprosyn (naproxen) showed negligible difference in patients' risk of heart attack or stroke, with Celebrex doing slightly better than the other two drugs.

Kids with lazy eye or amblyopia, a condition in which the brain favors one eye over the other, are normally treated eye-patching. But a new study has suggested that a special iPad game may be even better to improve vision.

Researchers divided 28 kids with a lazy eye into two groups. Kids in one group were asked to play an iPad game, while kids in the other group were given eye-patching treatment. The children ranged in age from 4 to 10 years.