Doctors stumbled upon a medication that greatly reduces patients’ risk of “minor amputation” onset by diabetes. The physicians gave diabetics a drug originally intended to lower their cholesterol and were astonished to see that they were 36 percent less likely to require a limb removed, a new analysis of research says. In Australia, Finland and New Zealand, researchers studied about 10,000 patients, between 50 and 75 years old who had type 2 diabetes, the kind linked to obesity. Half of them were given fenofibrate, a drug available generically and sold as Antara, Fenoglide, Lipofen and others. The other half were given fake pills. After five years, 115 patients had at least one lower limb amputation because of diabetes, which damages nerves and blood vessels, and can lead to amputation in severe instances. About one diabetes patient in 10 loses part of a leg. The study, first published in 2005, aimed to see if fenofibrate prevented heart disease. It didn’t. But in this new analysis, experts found patients on fenofibrate had a 36 percent lower risk of a first amputation than those on placebo. Patients who lost part of their legs were more likely to have heart disease, smoking, skin ulcers or previous amputations. Amputations were labeled minor if they were below the ankle and major if they were above the ankle. The risk of minor amputations in patients without large vessel disease, the narrowing of blood vessels, was nearly 50 percent lower in the group taking fenofibrates. The risk of a major amputation was not substantially different between the two groups. Taller people were also more likely to suffer amputations. The results were published Friday in the medical journal Lancet.

After Amputations, Brazilian Model Dies
Mariana Bridi da Costa, a beautiful 20-year-old Brazilian model, was living the good life and on her way to international stardom less than one month ago. But now, even after having both hands and feet amputated to save life from a deadly rare disease, her family is mourning her death. “Unfortunately Mari couldn’t resist any longer .She passed away at 3 a.m. today,” the executive director of Miss World Brazil, Henrique Fontes, told CNN Saturday.   Da Costa’s illness is called necrosis, a disease where the body’s tissue dies rapidly. The necrosis was caused by septicemia which can lead to organ failure.  It was destroying her body so much, the doctors had to do the amputations, take out a portion of her stomach and both of her kidneys. She first came to the hospital late last month after saying she was sick. The doctors diagnosed her with a urinary tract infection, but it had developed into septicemia by the time it was found. During her rise, da Costa was recruited by the world’s top agencies. “All the agencies were very interested in knowing her. I know for a fact that they would have loved her because Mariana is beautiful,” Dilson Stein, the model scout with whom da Costa signed, told a Brazilian paper. She came in sixth in last year’s Miss Bikini International competition and came in fourth in the contests to represent Brazil in the Miss World Pageant in 2007 and 2008, reports CNN. In her last days she expressed a willingness to live to her fiancé, Thiago Simoes. “She told me she was praying to stay alive, that she still had a lot to do on this Earth, that she wanted to go on with her plans,” he said. He also denied rumors that her illness had to do with dieting. Although little is known about da Costa’s illness, in the United States, it’s the 10th-leading cause of death.

Nigerian Police Detain Goat Suspect
A goat, suspected of trying to steal a car, is being held by Nigerian police. Yes, you read that right. And the story gets stranger. A vigilante group in Nigeria’s Kwara State claims that a man attempting to steal a car used witchcraft to transform into a goat, reports the BBC. One police spokesman was quoted as saying that the “armed robbery suspect” would remain held pending investigation. A Nigerian paper has a photo of the goat and reports that the police displayed the animal before journalists in Kwara’s capital, Ilorin. But another police spokesman denies the claims, saying that the goat was only being held until an owner wanted to claim it. And about the reports that the goat “suspect” was paraded in front of the media, spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said, “The vigilante group arrested the goat and took it to the police, then they told the media.” Members of the media showed up to the station and demanded to see the goat, he said. “But of course, goats can’t commit crime.” Police reform activists say this is just further proof of how uneducated a lot of officers in the country are. “There are officers who don’t even have a secondary school education, and the police have a big job to do in finding these people and getting rid of them,” Innocent Chukwuma, an activist from the Cleen Foundation told the BBC. He also said that politicians had let some unqualified and corrupt officers in because they knew they could be easily bribed and would be able to cover up their own criminal activities. Vigilante squads, like the one that caught the “robber” goat, often patrol some areas at night where the nation’s police officers won’t. Squads are also known to have lynched suspects before the real police were able to investigate, Chukwuma said.