PR and Med Ed news in brief

What's in a name?
Specialist healthcare communications agency, The Medical Multimedia Company, has changed its name to Medixial and has incorporated Medixial Inc in the US.

The name change occurred following trademark issues that emerged when the company opened its first office in the US. The new name unifies the agency's identity across all the territories in which it now operates. The agency, which celebrated its 10^th anniversary in July, has spent three years building a customer base in North America and earlier this year opened a sales office in New York, operating out of an office on Fifth Avenue.

Shaping up
People are being encouraged to have a regular five-point heart check up, which can help to assess the risks of Type II diabetes and heart disease, following results of a survey, Shape of the Nation, revealed that the majority of respondents (11,353 people across 27 countries) are still unaware of the factors that put them at increased risk of developing these chronic diseases. Recent research has shown measuring a cluster of modifiable cardiometabolic risk factors can help to identify those most at risk and enable them to take steps to reduce these risks. The cluster of modifiable factors includes:

• High blood glucose

• Unhealthy cholesterol (ie, high levels of `bad' LDL-cholesterol or low levels of `good' HDL-cholesterol)

• High levels of triglycerides (bad blood fats)

• High blood pressure

• A large waist circumference

The survey findings demonstrate the need for education and better communication between doctors and their patients, and for regular five-point check ups to measure cardiometabolic risk factors.

Shape of the Nation 2006 is a joint initiative in the UK between sanofi-aventis, Diabetes UK and the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society.