The Facts About the Morning Sickness Drug Kim Kardashian Is Taking

 

Kim Kardashian West has found the perfect “kure” for her nuisance morning sickness. That, and a new endorsement deal.

The 34-year-old reality star took to Instagram on Sunday to promote Diclegis, a prescription medication that helps treat nausea during pregnancy if diet and lifestyle changes are still leaving you up close and personal with the toilet. (Representatives for the drug’s maker confirmed to Health that she’s being paid to promote it on social media.)

“OMG. Have you heard about this? As you guys know my #morningsickness has been pretty bad. I tried changing things about my lifestyle, like my diet, but nothing helped, so I talked to my doctor. He prescribed me #Diclegis, and I felt a lot better and most importantly, it’s been studied and there was no increased risk to the baby,” the famous mommy captioned a snapshot of herself holding up the bottle.

RELATED: Here’s How Much Kim Kardashian Works Out

So what exactly is this Kardashian-approved Rx? It’s a delayed-release drug made up of a combination of two substances, the antihistamine doxylamine and vitamin B6. But in case you’ve already hunted around the Internet to get the lowdown on the medication, you may have discovered that it temporarily got a bad rep back in the ’80s.

“[The medicine] used to be sold in the U.S. under the name of Bendectin,” explains Jan Rydfors, MD, a California-based board certified ob/gyn and co-creator of the popular app Pregnancy Companion MD. “Bendectin was taken off the market in 1983 due to unsubstantiated lawsuits which made it too expensive for the manufacturer to keep on selling it. It continued to, however, be sold successfully around the world.”

After more recent studies proved the medicine was safe and did not cause any birth defects or harm to the baby, it was reintroduced to the U.S. market under its new name, Diclegis, in 2013. Now, the little white tablet, identifiable by the purple image of a pregnant woman on the pill, not only has Kim’s stamp of approval, but also the FDA. The government agency considers it a “pregnancy category A” drug, meaning there’s good evidence it won’t harm you or the baby.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should take medical advice from Mrs. Kardashian-West. (Though we’ll give her credit: she’s at least promoting something with research behind it this time.) Instead, here are the facts, straight from the experts.

RELATED: Pregnant? Diet Changes to Make Right Now

Who should be prescribed Diclegis?

“Any woman who has significant nausea and vomiting to the point where it affects her quality of life is a candidate for it,” Dr. Rydfors adds. “It is a very safe drug, and many women wait too long to start it due to unsubstantiated safety concerns regarding their baby.”

What are the risks?

Drowsiness is the main side effect, explains Joshua U. Klein, MD, assistant clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “If a woman’s job or lifestyle requires her to be on constant alert, this may not be suitable,” he says. It has similar effects as other antihistamines (Benadryl or Dramamine, for example).

Diclegis is not recommended for women with severe asthma or those also taking antidepressants. Also: If you’ve been told during an eye exam that you have high eye pressure or narrow-angle glaucoma, your doctor may think it’s too risky for you.

RELATED: Pregnancy 101

What are the best natural remedies for morning sickness?

Before heading straight to your doctor for an Rx, first try to eat small meals consisting of crackers, bread, and other bland foods when nausea kicks in. Coconut juice, chicken soup, sports drinks, and ginger ale can also be helpful. And stock up on candy to carry with you, for those times when it happens randomly; sucking on a sweet can help: “There are ginger lollipops that are becoming increasingly popular,” Dr. Klein says.

Also worth a try in the moment: “[Press and hold for a few breaths] on an acupuncture point on the wrist near the palm,” Dr. Rydfors says.

RELATED: 15 Factors That Affect a Woman’s Fertility

Now, how do we feel about big celebrity endorsements?

“Celebrities have potential to do a lot of good with their status, and can also do harm,” Dr. Klein says. “The main potential for good in this case is that if there is a woman who is suffering from nausea and her doctor hasn’t brought up the option of a safe medication, she can then raise the conversation after coming across the endorsement online. And with someone as big as Kim Kardashian, it’s inevitable that the word will spread in a powerful way.”

But keep in mind, each patient is going to have different biological conditions that determine how medication works in the body. “Not everyone is Kim Kardashian,” Dr. Klein says.

“A celebrity who takes a stand in a major way against proven, researched science is obviously very problematic,” Dr. Klein says. “It’s a potentially harmful thing to do. But I think it’s much more okay for a celebrity to say, like in this case, ‘I’m pregnant, this is safe, it works for me, but always talk to your medical provider.’ ”

RELATED: 10 Foods Pregnant Women Shouldn’t Eat

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Rugby Takes Toll on Spine, Scans Show

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Retired professional rugby players have more symptoms of cervical spine degeneration than those who don’t play the sport, a new study finds.

French researchers compared 101 men, aged 35 to 47, who were retired professional rugby players with a control group of 85 people of similar ages who never played a professional sport.

“A few years after the end of their careers, professional rugby players seem to have more degenerative symptoms and lesions on the cervical spine. These symptoms are exceptionally disabling [3 of 101 cases in this study,” said study author Dr. David Brauge.

The former rugby players reported chronic neck pain and reduced neck mobility far more often than those in the control group — more than 50 percent versus nearly 32 percent. However, both groups had similar levels of pain in an evaluation of neck pain.

MRI scans showed that the former rugby players had much narrower vertebral canals, which house the spinal cord. They also had greater foraminal stenosis — narrowing of cervical disc space — compared to those in the control group.

The retired rugby players also had much more muscle and much less fat in the vicinity of the spine, which may help control their levels of spinal pain, the researchers said.

Many more of the former rugby players had undergone surgeries for degenerative spine conditions — nearly 10 percent vs. none in the control group, according to the study published online July 21 in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

“Our definitive conclusion should be reasonably prudent; we still can’t assert that the lesions worsen with time or that the disease stabilizes with the end of the rugby activity,” Brauge said in a journal news release.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about spine injuries and disorders.

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Common Diabetes Meds Tied to Lower Risk for Parkinson’s

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A class of diabetes meds that include widely used drugs such as Actos and Avandia may help protect users against Parkinson’s disease, a new study suggests.

The study included nearly 44,600 British diabetes patients who took what are known as glitazone drugs — Avandia’s generic name is rosiglitazone, while pioglitazone is the generic name for Actos.

Researchers compared the medical records of those diabetes patients against the records of more than 120,000 diabetes patients who did not take a glitazone. The investigators tracked these records from 1999 — when glitazones were introduced to treat diabetes — until 2013.

During that time, patients who used glitazones were 28 percent less likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease than those who never took one of the meds, the study found. This association between glitazones and lower risk of Parkinson’s remained even after the researchers adjusted for known predictors of Parkinson’s, such as smoking and head injury.

However, when the investigators looked at past and current glitazone users separately, they found that the lower risk of Parkinson’s was seen only in people currently using a glitazone (a 41 percent lower risk of Parkinson’s), not in those who had previously used glitazones but had stopped or switched to another class of diabetes drugs.

This suggests that any benefit wears off once a person goes off the drugs, according to the team led by Dr. Ruth Brauer of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, in London.

Dr. Minisha Sood is a diabetes expert and an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She called the new finding “an exciting development because it suggests that glitazones may prevent the onset of Parkinson’s disease in patients with diabetes.”

However, “more studies are needed to confirm this finding,” she added, “and studies in non-diabetic patients should be conducted to examine whether glitazone medications would be effective for that population in the prevention of Parkinson’s disease.”

The study was funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and was published July 21 in the journal PLoS Medicine.

While the study can’t prove cause and effect, the researchers said the findings are in line with prior animal and laboratory tests showing that glitazones might help protect the brain.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about Parkinson’s disease.

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Dad Bod Is Explained By Science In a New Study

Photo: Getty Images

According to Clemson student Mackenzie Pearson, who wrote a viral essay on the appeal of the dad bod, it’s a physique that’s a “nice balance between a beer gut and working out,” the result of going to gym but indulging in a few pizzas once in a while and being okay with that. (Think John Hamm, and Chris Pratt before he went Jurassic.)

And according to scientists, Pearson and her demographic have pretty much nailed it. The source of that “more human, natural and attractive” body is unique to fathers and can be traced to simply having kids.

In a study published in the American Journal of Men’s Health, Dr. Craig Garfield, a pediatrician at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and his colleagues dove into a database of 10,263 men beginning when they were 12 years old and followed them for up to 20 years. They looked specifically at how body mass index (BMI), a combination of height and weight, changed over time as the men either became fathers or did not, and for those who did, whether they were what the researchers called resident fathers who lived with their children, or non-residents who lived separately.

Whether or not they lived with their kids, becoming a father was linked to around a four pound increase in weight over the study period, while remaining child-free was associated with a 1.4 pound weight loss for a six-foot-tall man.

“It’s a unique look at the influence that a social phenomenon, becoming a father, has on a biological marker, namely BMI,” says Garfield. “It really plants fatherhood as a potential social determinant of health for men.”

That’s a critical finding, especially since men, and in particular young men, are typically less proactive about taking care of their health. Garfield notes that while many men will quit smoking and drink less and otherwise try to become healthier when they become fathers, there may be other factors associated with caring for kids that counteract those good intentions, such as being surrounded by more kid-friendly, high calorie foods and snacks, as well as their leftovers.

“From my own point of view, we wouldn’t have as many pizzas in the house if the kids weren’t around, and we wouldn’t have the brownies my wife makes if the kids weren’t around,” says Garfield. “Having kids around changes not only the food in the house and what is available to you for meal, but also for snacks. It also changes whether you are able to find time to get out and exercise and get enough sleep and take care of yourself.”

Dads, of course, are not alone in experiencing these effects of parenthood. But this is the first study to tease out specifically the effects of fatherhood on weight gain over time. Since men are less likely to be seeing doctors regularly, if they are joining their partners during prenatal visits or pediatric visits, says Garfield, those are good opportunities to talk to them about their own eating, exercise and sleep habits to make them aware of the sneaky way that pounds can creep up on dads and potentially affect their health (even if the look seems to have its own kind of physical appeal).

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Here Are the Best Hospitals in America, According to a New Report

Photo: Getty Images

In an emergency the best hospital is the one that’s closest. But what about when you need (for yourself or a loved one) hospital care for a complex diagnosis or rare condition? How about when you need an elective surgery, like a knee replacement or a hysterectomy? Here are two resources for starting your search for the best healthcare for you.

RELATED: Why More Hospitals Are Saying Goodbye to Old-School Gowns

U.S. News & World Report released their annual hospital rankings Tuesday, revealing the top 15 medical centers in the country. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston tops the list, with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in second, and Johns Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore and UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles sharing the third place position.

U.S. News measured the hospitals by analyzing the number of patients each hospital cares for, the “risk-adjusted survival rates” of those patients, how adequate their nurses staffing is, as well as a large survey of the physicians working at these hospitals, among other things.

“Patients deserve high-quality information on hospitals,” Ben Harder, chief of health analysis at U.S. News, said in a press release e-mailed to Health. “We strive to provide them with the most comprehensive data available so they can make more informed decisions together with their doctor about where to undergo treatment.”

Along with their 2015-2016 Honor Roll list, the publication also singled out the best hospitals based on 16 specialties, such as cancer care (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, took the top spot), orthopedics (Hospital for Special Surgery, in New York City), cardiology and heart surgery (Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio), and more. In addition, they highlighted 520 of the best regional hospitals based on their complex and common care, separated by state and metro area, so patients can get a sense of how their local hospitals are doing.

RELATED: 8 Things You Must Do to Prevent Hospital Overcharges

Top hospitals

The 2015-16 Honor Roll

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

(tie) Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

(tie) UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles

Cleveland Clinic

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, New York

UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia

Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis

Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

NYU Langone Medical Center, New York

UPMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Duke University Hospital, Durham, North Carolina

Stanford Health-Stanford Hospital, Stanford, California

Looking for a surgeon?

The annual rankings from U.S. News follow a major ProPublica analysis of 17,000 surgeons from across the country, released last week. The ProPublica app allows users to search for a particular surgeon or hospital to see how they stack up in terms of experience and complication rates when it comes to elective surgeries. The publication based their analysis on Medicare billing data for in-patient hospital stays from 2009 through 2013.

RELATED: How to Give Your Doctor and Hospital a Fiscal Checkup

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Minds of Older Women Fuzzier After General Anesthesia Than Men’s

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Older women are much more likely than men to suffer brain dysfunction after surgery with general anesthesia, a new study finds.

Researchers who analyzed data from hundreds of older adults in the United States found faster declines in mental function and brain volume for both women and men who had surgery with general anesthesia compared to those who had no surgery.

But the long-term decline was much greater in women than in men. The mental fall-off was especially severe among women who had multiple surgeries with general anesthesia, the researchers said.

“This is one of the first studies to suggest that among older adults, women are at a higher risk for postoperative brain dysfunction than men,” study author Dr. Katie Schenning of Oregon Health & Science University, said in an association news release.

“Our research clearly shows an association between surgery, general anesthesia and cognitive decline in older adults,” she added.

This not to say that women should avoid having surgery. For one thing, the study only finds an association, not proof that general anesthesia prompts mental decline in women.

Also, more studies are needed to confirm this observation and to identify ways to minimize the effects of surgery and general anesthesia on older adults, she said.

“Future research should focus on whether certain people are more susceptible to postoperative cognitive decline by virtue of sex or genetic risk factors,” Schenning concluded.

The study was to be presented Tuesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Washington, D.C. Data and conclusions presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences has more about anesthesia.

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Psoriasis Drug May Help Preserve Pancreas Cells in Type 1 Diabetes

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Taking two 12-week courses of alefacept — a drug already approved to treat the skin condition psoriasis — may help people with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes preserve some function in the beta cells in the pancreas, a new study suggests.

People taking the drug needed about 25 percent less insulin, and they had about half the rate of major low blood sugar episodes (hypoglycemia) compared to those who took a placebo, the study revealed.

“This is the first time that documented rates of hypoglycemia — using standardized home glucometers in all patients — have shown a reduction in major hypoglycemia events following an immune intervention in new-onset [type 1 diabetes] patients,” lead researcher Dr. Mario Ehlers, of the Immune Tolerance Network, said in a network news release.

“This is important because frequent hypoglycemia is a common and serious complication in this disease,” Ehlers added.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes the body’s immune system to mistakenly attack the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Specifically, certain T-cells in the immune system lead the attack. When enough beta cells have been destroyed, a person can no longer produce enough insulin. Insulin is necessary to help the sugars in foods get into the body’s cells to be used as fuel.

When used early after diagnosis, alefacept may interfere with the action of the destructive T-cells. And the drug appears to do this without affecting another type of T-cell that is protective, the researchers noted.

The current clinical trial — the second of three required for approval — included 49 people between the ages of 12 and 35 who were newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Patients were randomly selected to receive the drug or a placebo. Thirty-three people were given the drug for two 12-week courses, with a 12-week gap in between the courses.

Over two years of follow-up, the group that received the drug had a lower decline in a marker of beta cell function known as C-peptide. Moreover, nine out of 30 patients evaluated for C-peptide function showed no decline in C-peptide production, compared to just one of 12 people evaluated in the placebo group. Preservation of C-peptide lasted as long as 15 months after treatment stopped, Ehlers noted.

“Achieving long-term benefit following a short course of therapy is a challenging goal,” Dr. Gerald Nepom, director of the Immune Tolerance Network, said in the news release.

“Detailed analysis of the T-cell types present in the blood of those who responded to the treatment will help us identify the best way to improve this type of immune therapy for patients with type 1 diabetes and potentially other autoimmune diseases,” he added.

The study results were published July 20 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

More information

Learn more about type 1 diabetes from the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation.

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Study Refutes Notion That Diabetes Drug Actos Raises Bladder Cancer Risk

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Despite smaller, prior studies suggesting that the diabetes drug Actos might raise users’ risk of bladder cancer, a large new study finds no evidence for such an effect.

However, the study did find an association between the use of Actos (pioglitazone) and a rise in the risk of pancreatic cancer, although experts say it’s too early to draw any conclusive link.

As explained by the researchers, certain prior studies had suggested an increased risk of bladder cancer with the use of Actos.

Investigating further, a team led by Dr. Assiamira Ferrara of Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland looked at long-term data from nearly 200,000 diabetes patients.

They found no statistically significant association between taking Actos and increased risk of bladder cancer. However, a small increased risk could not be ruled out, the investigators said.

The also analyzed long-term data from another group of more than 236,000 diabetes patients and found that taking Actos was associated with about a 40 percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

However, further investigation is needed to learn more about this link, the researchers said.

One expert agreed, saying it’s tough to conclude from this type of study that the use of Actos in any way helps cause pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Igor Astsaturov is an attending physician of medical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. He noted that inflammation is a key risk factor for pancreatic cancer, and chronic inflammation is common in people with diabetes.

“Most likely, the diabetes linkage to pancreatic cancer has a common denominator — the presence of chronic inflammation in the pancreas,” he explained.

Sicker people with more advanced cases of diabetes may also be more likely to be prescribed Actos, so the inflammation tied to diabetes may be the culprit — not the pill, Astsaturov said.

The study, published in the July 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, was funded by drug maker Takeda, which makes Actos.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about bladder cancer.

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Antibiotic May Lower Effect of Some Blood Thinners

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The antibiotic dicloxacillin may lessen the effects of some blood-thinning medications, new research shows.

“The surprise in the study was just how much of an impact dicloxacillin had,” said study author Anton Pottegard, a pharmacist and research fellow at the University of Southern Denmark, in Odense.

“Often, the effects in these kinds of studies are quite small. But this was very pronounced: Six out of 10 patients dropped so much in their level of blood-thinning that they were no longer sufficiently protected against clotting and stroke,” Pottegard said.

Coumadin (warfarin) and similar blood thinners lower the risk of blood clots, a potential cause of strokes and heart attacks, by thinning the blood so blockages don’t form in vessels, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Patients with irregular heart rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation, and those who’ve had heart valves replaced often take these medications.

Physicians order blood tests for patients while they’re on the medication, to make sure the dose they’re taking is causing the proper level of blood-thinning.

“When its levels are too high, patients are at risk for life-threatening bleeding events. When too low, patients may be at risk for blood clots, stroke or pulmonary [clots],” said Dr. Mike Lane, an assistant professor of medicine in the infectious diseases division at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Physicians also know that a wide variety of drugs, including some antibiotics, can disrupt the effects of Coumadin.

“Unfortunately, it has many drug interactions that makes it challenging to use. Some medications may increase the effect while others decrease the effect. Unfortunately, we only know about some of these interactions through small case reports,” Lane said.

In the new study, researchers pinpointed an apparent interaction between Coumadin and dicloxacillin, a medication used to treat infections that don’t respond to penicillin.

“Although dicloxacillin is not used frequently in the United States, similar antibiotics are commonly used,” Lane noted.

In the new study, researchers looked at almost 250 people who took Coumadin and dicloxacillin. Their average age was 68, and 61 percent were male. The researchers found that blood thinning in 61 percent of the patients became less effective within two to four weeks after treatment with the antibiotic.

The reasons for the interaction aren’t clear. But, Pottegard said it appears that the antibiotic affects how the liver processes the blood thinner, which may cause faster elimination of the blood thinner from the body.

Pottegard says physicians should be cautious about prescribing dicloxacillin in patients who take Coumadin or similar blood thinners.

If the antibiotic is absolutely necessary, he said, doctors should closely monitor the level of blood thinning during treatment and for one to two weeks after patients stop taking the antibiotic.

As for the new generation of blood thinners that work in a different way than Coumadin — including Eliquis, Xarelto and Pradaxa — Pottegard said there’s no reason to think the antibiotic would have the same effect with them.

The study appears in the July 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information

For more about blood thinners, try the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

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When Bystanders Give CPR Right Away, Lives Are Saved, Study Shows

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Many lives could be saved if more people performed CPR immediately after seeing someone go into cardiac arrest, a new study contends.

To come to that conclusion, the researchers looked at the results of a four-year program in North Carolina that promoted bystander CPR.

“During that time, survival with good brain function increased from 7 to 10 percent for those who received bystander CPR,” said lead researcher Dr. Carolina Malta Hansen, of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C.

In addition, patients who received CPR or defibrillation from bystanders, or defibrillation from first responders — such as police or firefighters — were more likely to survive, she said.

“Early intervention, whether it’s by bystanders or first responders, is associated with increased survival compared to EMS [emergency medical services],” Hansen said.

Hansen pointed out that many people are reluctant to do CPR; some are afraid of legal consequences. However, in states that have “Good Samaritan” laws people are protected from being sued, she said.

Still, being afraid to do something wrong or cause harm is the biggest issue to overcome, Hansen said.

But that fear should not prevent someone from doing CPR, she said. “No matter what you do, the person in cardiac arrest is dead. The only thing you can do is increase their chance of survival,” Hansen said.

The report was published July 21 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the electrical system of the heart malfunctions. This causes the heart to beat erratically or to stop beating. As a result, blood isn’t pumped throughout the body.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a spokesman for the American Heart Association and a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said, “It is estimated that 200,000 to 400,000 individuals suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year in the United States, with survival rates of only 6 percent.”

In this study, despite intense efforts to get bystanders to give CPR and use automatic defibrillators, few patients survived, he noted.

“More advanced coordinated and collaborative efforts to improve resuscitation and to improve patient outcomes from cardiac arrest are urgently needed,” Fonarow said.

For the study, Hansen and colleagues analyzed nearly 5,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases in 11 North Carolina counties from 2010-2013. During those years, North Carolina had a campaign to encourage bystanders to perform chest compressions without having to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or use automated external defibrillators while waiting for an ambulance.

The campaign also promoted the use of portable defibrillators, which are becoming available in more public places and can be used by laypeople, to shock a heart back into normal rhythm.

The campaign increased survival with good brain function by 37 percent, the researchers said.

The program included training in defibrillators and compression-only — or “hands-only” — CPR at schools, hospitals and public events such as the North Carolina State Fair.

During the years covered by the study, slightly more than 86 percent of patients received CPR before EMS arrived, with more than 45 percent started by bystanders and more than 40 percent started by first responders.

During the study period, the proportion of patients receiving bystander CPR increased from about 39 percent in 2010 to slightly more than 49 percent in 2013.

In addition, the proportion of patients who received bystander CPR and were defibrillated by first responders increased from 14 percent in 2010 to 23 percent in 2013.

Of the more than 1,600 patients who received defibrillation, almost 54 percent were defibrillated before an ambulance arrived. Of these, almost 7 percent were defibrillated by bystanders and 47 percent were defibrillated by first responders. Defibrillation by first responders increased from almost 41 percent in 2010 to 52 percent in 2013, the researchers found.

“Cardiac arrest is a treatable condition,” said Dr. Graham Nichol, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington’s Harborview Center for Prehospital Emergency Care in Seattle and co-author of an accompanying journal editorial.

“Bystanders can save a life by performing CPR or using an automated defibrillator before EMS providers arrive on scene,” he said.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on CPR.

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