Reliable? Heart Studies Often Exclude the Elderly

More reasons to get fit and stay away from sick care.

The vast majority of heart failure cases occur in adults aged 65 and older, but a report out today says a large number of clinical trials studying the disease exclude older patients, often unnecessarily.

For more than 20 years, "regulatory agencies have been trying to include more older people in clinical trials, but the situation doesn't seem to be changing much," Dr. Antonio Cherubini, a geriatrician at the University of Perugia Medical School in Italy, told Reuters Health.

Of the 251 heart failure trials analyzed by Dr. Cherubini and colleagues, 43% unjustifiably excluded the elderly, the authors reported online today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

A quarter of the evaluated studies excluded older patients based on age alone, a practice that the American Geriatrics Society and other groups have been working to phase out for years. Other trials excluded the elderly indirectly by rejecting patients with multiple diseases or on multiple medications.

The data are corrupted.

Just like the diet data.

Get fit.

It is the best way to survive.