Author: Marie Benz MD FAAD
12 Sep Emotional Lability and Insomnia Linked
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Markus Jansson-Fröjmark PhD
Associate professor, clinical psychologist
Department of Psychology
Stockholm University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: There is ample evidence suggesting that how people regulate their emotions might influence several types of psychopathology, including anxiety and mood disorders. The purpose of our longitudinal investigation was therefore to examine the association between emotion regulation and how insomnia develops over time. Our main finding was that people whose ability to regulate their emotions had diminished were more likely to develop insomnia and that it was more likely to be persistent. A reduced ability to regulate emotions was associated with an 11% increased risk of developing a new bout of insomnia or reporting persistent insomnia. For anyone that has to deal with insomnia on a daily basis, they may find that is can effect a large part of their lives. Sleep is important for even, as it allows us all to function properly throughout the day. When it comes to Insomnia, there is medication out there that people can take that may help them with this issue. A popular method of treatment is through the use of medical marijuana. If this is something that you have been planning on trying, you would need to obtain your medical marijuana card in Cincinnati (if you live in this city) before you could start receiving product. Hopefully this will help with your insomnia and provide you with a better quality of sleep.
12 Sep COMT Gene Linked To Male Homosexuality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Binbin Wang, PhD Center for Genetics, National Research Institute for Family Planning Beijing China Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr.Wang:Homosexuality has become an important issue all around the world, as well as in China. Beside of the human right problems it poses, the reality that more and more HIV cases are infected through homosexual activity,especially men who have sex with men (MSM), should be concerned. People are wondering how homosexuality develops. As a genetic researcher, I'd like to find the answers in the field of genetics. This study is based on previous evidence that genes may have impact on homosexuality. Besides, animal models have provided clues that abnormality in some neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, may alter the sex behavior of animals. Therefore, we choose COMT (the gene catechol-O-methyltransferase) as the target, which is important for the synthesis of dopamine. We find that an amino acid residue change in COMT could increase the risk of developing male homosexuality. Our results provide some evidence that male homosexuality is connected with genes.12 Sep Furry Pets May Reduce Allergies in Kids By Changing Gut Bacteria
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Merja Nermes, MD
Dept. of Pediatrics
Turku University Hospital
Turku, Finland
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Earlier it was thought that exposure to pets early in childhood was a risk factor for developing allergic disease. Later epidemiologic studies have given contradictory results and even suggested that early exposure to pets may be protective against allergies, though the mechanisms of this protective effect have remained elusive. Our results are the first to show that specific bifidobacteria present in pets can be transferred to the infant gastrointestinal tract during a close contact. Bifidobacteria in general are a part of the microbiota in healthy breast fed infants, and many studies have shown that human-specific bifidobacteria have beneficial effects to health, e.g. lower the risk of allergic disease. The same might hold true for bifidobacteria of animal origin which may enhance and strengthen the development of the infants´ immune system to be protective against allergies.
Our results showed that animal-derived bifidobacteria were found in a higher proportion in infants of pet-keeping families than in those without such exposure. We also found that B. thermophilum (pet-derived Bifidobacterium) was associated with a lower risk for atopic sensitization at 6 months of age.
12 Sep Lean Body Mass in Obese Patients Linked to Carotid Artery Thickness
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr.Manuel Fernández-Real MD, PhD
Biomedical Research Institute of Girona (IDIBGI) CIBERobn
Obesity Hospital of Girona
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Obesity is an important determinant of increased cardiovascular risk. Increased fat mass has been assumed to constitute the main prominent contributor to changes in carotid intima-media thickness (c-IMT). A link among fat free mass and total blood volume, stroke volume and cardiac output has been also previously reported.
In this manuscript we describe that carotid intima-media thickness was positively associated with lean body mass in men (r =0.328, p <0.0001) and women (r = 0.268 p =<0.0001). c-IMT values increased across lean mass quartiles (p < 0.0001). Stepwise linear regression analysis showed that age and lean mass (but not fat mass or traditional cardiovascular risk factors) contributed to 46.2% of c-IMT variance in men (p=<0.0001).
12 Sep High Fish Consumption Linked to Lower Risk of Depression
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Fang Li Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, The Medical College of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, People's Republic of China Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Fish, rich in multiple beneficial nutrients, including n-3 polyunsaturated fattyacids, high-quality protein, vitamins and minerals, have been hypothesized to protect against chronic diseases generally , such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. Depression is a common mental health disorder,with an estimated 350 million people affected. We hypothesis that fish consumption may be benefical in depression prevention. Several epidemiological studies have investigated associations between fish intake and depression risk, but the findings are inconsistent. Therefore we conducted a meta-analysis to expect to find this association. A total of 26 studies involving 150 278 participants were included in the present meta-analysis.The pooled relative risk of depression for the highest versus lowest consumption of fish was 0.83 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.93). The findings remained significant in the cohort studies.This meta-analysis indicates that high-fish consumption can reduce the risk of depression.12 Sep No Clear Standard For Measuring Health Care Quality Improvement Interventions
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Megan Colleen McHugh, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Center for Healthcare Studies
Feinberg Institute for Public Health and Medicine and Emergency Medicine
Northwestern University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. McHugh: There have been many large efforts to improve the delivery of health care in the U.S., for example, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality Program and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 100,000 Lives Campaign. One of the challenges to understanding whether these programs work is that the intervention “dose” – the quality and quantity of the intervention – often varies across different participating sites.
As evaluators of multi-site quality improvement programs, we want to better understand how to measure the dose of a quality improvement intervention at participating sites. We identified four different approaches to measuring dose. These approaches resulted in different conclusions about which sites are “low dose” and “high dose” intervention sites.
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. McHugh: The main audience for this paper is program evaluators. They should take away the following:
1) Variation in dose scores across intervention sites suggests that dose may be a contributor to the effectiveness of a quality improvement intervention.
2) It is feasible to measure the dose of a quality improvement intervention, but measuring QI dose presents many challenges, including subjective decisions about which approach to measurement to use and the need for extensive data collection.
12 Sep Adolscents Who Try E-Cigs More Likely To Become Smokers
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Brian A. Primack, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Clinical and Translational Science
Director, Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research on Health and Society
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Primack: Adolescents and young adults who have never smoked traditional cigarettes are now using e-cigarettes. It is unclear whether these people are at risk for progression to traditional cigarette smoking. Therefore, we followed 694 non-smokers ages 16-26 who did not intend on taking up smoking for 1 year.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Primack: At baseline, only 16 of the 694 participants had used e-cigarettes. However, those individuals were significantly more likely to start smoking traditional cigarettes by the 1-year follow-up. In fully adjusted models, baseline e-cigarette use was independently associated with both progression to smoking (AOR = 8.3, 95% CI = 1.2-58.6) and to susceptibility (AOR = 8.5, 95% CI = 1.3-57.2).
12 Sep Too Much and Too Little Sleep Linked To Increased Coronary Artery Calciification
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Chan-Won Kim, M.D.
Clinical Associate Professor
Center for Cohort Studies
Kangbuk Samsun Hospital
Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine
Seoul, South Korea
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Chan-Won Kim: In modern society, inadequate sleep either in quantity or in quality is a common problem and widely recognized as a potential determinant of adverse health outcomes including cardiovascular health. Very long or very short duration of sleep are associated with an increased risk for clinical cardiovascular events such as coronary heart disease and strokes. In these previous studies, however, it was possible that extreme sleep duration or poor sleep quality was a consequence of previous co-morbidities such as depression and obesity, and it was still unclear if these co-morbidities were really responsible for the effects of sleep disturbances. Therefore, we evaluated the association of sleep duration and quality with early markers of subclinical arterial disease in asymptomatic apparently healthy men and women.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Chan-Won Kim: In our study, we found that sleep duration had a U-shaped association with two early markers of vascular disease. Both short and long sleep duration were associated with a greater amount of calcification in the coronary arteries, a very good measure of subclinical atherosclerosis that predicts the risk of a heart attack. We also found a similar pattern of association with arterial stiffness, a marker of vascular aging. For both markers, we found the lowers risk in study participants who reported 7 hours of sleep. In addition, poor subjective sleep quality was also associated with these markers of vascular disease. Few studies had explored these associations before, and they were inconsistent partly because of small sample sizes. Our research also indicates that these associations were present irrespective of traditional risk factors such as hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, or diabetes.
12 Sep Kidney Injury after Heart Surgery Greater For Type 1 than Type 2 Diabetes
Posted at 12:19h
in Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Karolinski Institute, Kidney Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Daniel Hertzberg M.D., Ph.D. Student
Department of Medicine, Solna
Karolinska University Hospital
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Hertzberg: Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a common complication in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. It is associated with increased short and long-term mortality, myocardial infarction, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. Diabetes is often considered as a risk factor for AKI. However, when we searched the literature we did not find any studies which specifically studied diabetes as a risk factor for AKI. In addition, in observational studies, it is uncommon that diabetes is subtyped into type 1 or type 2 even though they have different etiologies and thus may have different impact on risk of adverse outcomes. Thus, we designed this study in order to study the association between the two subtypes of diabetes and risk of AKI.
11 Sep Elders Also Benefit When Young Adults Get Flu Vaccine
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Glen Taksler, PhD
Medicine Institute
Cleveland Clinic Main Campus
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Taksler: Although young, healthy adults who develop influenza are usually able to recover, they may spread the flu to other people in the community who have a higher risk of hospitalization or other serious complications. These higher-risk people have a limited ability to protect themselves from influenza, because flu vaccines are less effective in the elderly and in people with weakened immune systems.
To better understand whether young, healthy adults could help the community-at-large by getting a flu vaccine, we looked at data on more than 3 million Medicare beneficiaries across 8 influenza seasons.
We found that the elderly had 21% lower odds of developing influenza if they lived in areas where more nonelderly adults (people aged 18-64 years old) got a flu vaccine.
Importantly, we found these benefits even in elderly adults who obtained an influenza vaccine, perhaps because flu vaccines are less effective in the elderly. This means that elderly adults who were proactive to try to prevent influenza still benefited from communitywide vaccination.
11 Sep What Can We Learn From Small Group of Smokers Who Survive To Old Age?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Morgan Elyse Levine PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Human Genetics
University of California, Los Angeles
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Levine: Studies using mice, worms, and flies have suggested that longevity may be linked to stress resistance. All of us are constantly encountering things that damage our cells and tissue and disrupt physiological functioning. Therefore, people who are genetically predisposed to better prevent or repair this damage may age slower. Smoking is one of the most damaging things someone can do to their health, yet some smokers are able to survive to extreme ages. This study looked at long-lived smokers to see if we could identify a "genetic signature". We generated a genetic risk score that was found to be associated with longevity both in smokers and non-smokers, and also appeared to be associated with cancer risk.
10 Sep Folic Acid and B12 May Improve Assisted Reproductive Technology Results
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Audrey J. Gaskins, Sc.D. Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA 02115
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Gaskins: Infertility, defined as the inability to conceive after 12 months of unprotected intercourse, is a common reproductive disorder affecting ~15% of couples who attempt to become pregnant. Assisted reproductive technologies (ART), which include in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), have become the main treatment modalities for couples facing infertility. Pre-conceptional folate and vitamin B12 have been linked to many beneficial early pregnancy outcomes among couples undergoing assisted reproductive technologies treatment in Europe but mixed results have been found in regards to clinical pregnancy and live birth rates. Therefore, we sought to investigate whether higher levels of serum folate and vitamin B12 could increase reproductive success in a cohort of women undergoing assisted reproductive technologies at an academic medial center in the United States.
We found that high concentrations of folate and vitamin B12 in serum are associated with increased chance of live birth following assisted reproduction. Moreover, women with higher concentrations of both serum folate and vitamin B12 had the greatest likelihood of reproductive success. Analysis of intermediate endpoints suggests that folate and vitamin B12 may exert their favorable effects on pregnancy maintenance following implantation.
10 Sep HIV Self-Testing Found Safe and Acceptable in Community Setting
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Augustine T. Choko MSc Malawi–Liverpool–Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme Blantyre, Malawi Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Response: Despite rapid scale up of HIV testing in the sub Saharan African region, half of people living with HIV are unware of their status. We investigated a novel approach of HIV self testing as an additional strategy to existing HIV testing options. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Response: Population uptake of HIV self testing was high at the first offer and remained high at the second offer 12 months later. The approach saw high numbers of adolescents and men testing. Community participants with 8% illiterate were able to do the test and correctly interpret it on their own with minimal training. People who self-tested positive were able to link into the clinic for antiretroviral therapy eligibility assessment.10 Sep Opioid Buccal Delivery System May Enhance Relief of Chronic Pain
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Lynn Webster, M.D.
Vice President of Scientific Affairs
PRA Health Sciences
(lead study investigator, and former President of the American Academy of Pain Medicine)
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main advantages of the buccal film?
Dr. Webster: Because of its partial agonist activity and high affinity for mu-opioid receptors, buprenorphine has the potential to precipitate withdrawal in patients who are already on mu-opioid full agonists. As a result, the current practice is to taper patients who are on around-the-clock (ATC) opioid therapy to a morphine sulfate equivalent (MSE) dose before switching to buprenorphine. But tapering can result in a loss of pain control for patients. For this study, we wanted to determine if patients on around-the-clock opioid full agonist therapy could be safely transitioned to buprenorphine HCl buccal film – an opioid partial agonist administered through the buccal mucosa – without the need for an opioid taper, and without inducing opioid withdrawal or sacrificing pain control. Buprenorphine HCl buccal film is the first pain product in development to combine the efficacy of buprenorphine with this unique delivery system, which allows for efficient and convenient delivery of buprenorphine into the bloodstream.
10 Sep Advanced MRI Methods Can Predict Academic Difficulties in Preterm Children
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Henrik Ullman, MD, PhD Candidate
Department of Neuroscience
Karolinska Institutet
Stockholm, Sweden
Megan Spencer-Smith, PhD
School of Psychological Sciences
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Infants born preterm are at risk for school-age cognitive and academic impairments. While some will suffer severe impairments, many more will experience mild impairments, and it is these children who might not raise sufficient concern for referral and intervention. Identifying early markers and methods for classifying preterm infants at risk for school-age impairments, many years before difficulties emerge, would provide important information for clinicians in advising families regarding intervention and ongoing monitoring.
Brain alterations are common in preterm populations. Any brain alterations associated with school-age impairments are likely already present in the neonatal period but are not detected with the current standard clinical and radiological evaluations.
In this study we wanted to see how well we could use advanced analysis of volumetric and diffusion MRI collected in the neonatal period from 224 very preterm children to predict cognitive functions at five and seven years of age. We used statistical models to look for localised regions as well as machine learning methods to correlate patterns in the neonatal MRI data that could predict school-age outcomes.
We found that localised volumes in the insula and basal ganglia as well as a distributed patterns of diffusion MRI could predict working memory and early mathematical skills even after co-varying for important perinatal clinical factors.
It has previously been shown that quantitative and pattern analysis can catch subtle patterns in MRI data not easily detected by eye and may predict cognitive development. The current study builds further on these results showing clinically relevant predictions in preterm children.
10 Sep Your Heart Age May Be Older Than You Think
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Quanhe Yang PHD
Epidemiologist
CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Yang: One in every three Americans dies of cardiovascular disease. For both men and women, it is the number one cause of death. Heart age is the predicted age of a person’s vascular system based on his or her cardiovascular risk factor profile. The concept was created as a way to more effectively illustrate an individual’s future risk of developing or dying from a heart attack or stroke. Using information from the Framingham Heart Study and data collected from every U.S. state, this study is the first to provide population-level estimates of heart age and to highlight disparities in heart age nationwide.
Our research found one in two U.S. men and two in five U.S. women have a heart age that is five or more years older than their chronological age, a sign they are at higher risk for heart attacks and stroke. In all, we found nearly 69 million adults between the ages of 30 and 74 have a heart age five or more years older than their actual age. That’s about the number of people living in the 130 largest U.S. cities combined. In addition, there are variations in heart age based on gender, race/ethnicity, region and other demographics.
The good news is, heart age can be lowered through lifestyle changes or appropriate medication. U.S. adults both young and old can use this information to take charge of their own heart health and take immediate steps to prevent future heart attacks or strokes.
10 Sep Low Resting Heart Rate in Men Linked to Crime, Accidents and Antisocial Behavior
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Antti Latvala PhD
Post-doctoral researcher
Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Latvala: Motivation for the study came from the fact that antisocial and aggressive behavior has been associated with lower resting heart rate in children and adolescents. Heart rate, being regulated by the autonomic nervous system, has been viewed as an indicator of stress responding or autonomic arousal, and the association has been hypothesized to indicate low levels of stress or a chronically low level of autonomic arousal in antisocial individuals. However, empirical evidence for such an association in adulthood has been very limited.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Latvala: We found that men with lower resting heart rate had an increased risk of violent and nonviolent criminality. Specifically, men in the lowest fifth of the heart rate distribution had an estimated 39% increased risk for violent criminality and a 25% increased risk for nonviolent crimes compared with men in the highest fifth. These are estimates after adjusting for physical, cardiovascular, cognitive and socioeconomic covariates. When we further adjusted for cardiorespiratory fitness, which was available in a subsample, the associations were even stronger.
In addition to the crime outcomes, we found that low resting heart rate predicted exposure to assaults and accidents, such as traffic crashes, falls and poisonings, in a very similar fashion.
10 Sep Dysfunctional Personality Traits Linked to Homophobia
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Emmanuele A. Jannini, MD
Chair of Endocrinology and Medical Sexology
Department of Systems Medicine
Tor Vergata University of Rome
Roma, Italy
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Prof. Jannini: The background is due to the large experience of the researcher of my team, Dr. Giacomo Ciocca, on homophobia, a largely diffuse phenomenon in various forms. Although many social and cultural factors predispose to homophobic attitude, we have hypothesized that some psychological aspects of personality were in association with homophobia. Therefore, we found that psychoticism, a dysfunctional trait of thought, immature defense mechanisms, i.e., primitive responses to anxiety states, and a fearful model of relationship with other due to an insecure attachment style, could be considered risk factors for homophobic attitude.
10 Sep HIV Meds Given to HIV Negative MSM Reduced New Infections Over 80%
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Sheena McCormack
Clinical Epidemiology
Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit
University College London
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Prof. McCormack: PROUD is the first study of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV carried out in the UK. The results show that PrEP could play a major role in reducing the number of new infections among men who have sex with men who are at risk of catching HIV.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a HIV prevention strategy that involves HIV-negative people taking some of the drugs we use for treatment of HIV to reduce the risk of becoming infected. The PROUD study (www.proud.mrc.ac.uk) looked at whether offering daily PrEP to men who have sex with men was an effective way to prevent HIV infection. The results show that pre-exposure prophylaxis is highly protective, reducing the risk of infection for this group by 86%.
The drug used in the trial – the antiretroviral Truvada – was already known to reduce the incidence of HIV infection compared to placebo (a dummy pill). The PROUD study was designed to see how good Truvada would be found as pre-exposure prophylaxis in a real world situation when participants knew they were taking an active drug. It aimed to address outstanding questions such as whether taking PrEP would change sexual risk behaviour – for example increasing the number of partners they did not use condoms with and increasing the rate of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – and whether or not it would be cost-effective to make it available on the NHS.
10 Sep Transvaginal Mesh Complications Lower In High Volume Surgical Practices
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Blayne Welk MD
Assistant Professor in the Division of Urology
The University of Western Ontario
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Welk: Stress incontinence is a common problem among women. The most frequently used surgical treatment is a mesh-based midurethral sling. This procedure is commonly called a transvaginal sling, and is usually an outpatient procedure that takes about an hour in the operating room. However, there has been significant concern about some of the complications of this procedure, which include chronic pain, and mesh erosions into the urinary tract. This prompted the FDA and Health Canada to issue warnings regarding the use of transvaginal mesh, and numerous lawsuits have been launched against manufactures of transvaginal mesh products.
This study by Dr Welk and colleagues identifies the long term rate of surgical treated complications among a group of almost 60,000 women who had mesh based incontinence procedures between 2002-2012. The rate of surgically treated complications at 1 year is 1.2%, however this increased to 3.3% after 10 years of followup. The FDA and Health Canada recommend that surgeons obtain training and experience in their chosen type of midurethral sling, and we demonstrated that patients of high volume surgeons (who frequently performed mesh based incontinence procedures) were 27% less likely to have one of these complications.
09 Sep Psychedelic Medicine Explored for Addiction and Mental Health Issues
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Evan Wood MD, PhD, ABIM, FRCPC, ABAM Diplomat Professor of Medicine, UBC
Canada Research Chair in Inner City Medicine
Co-Director, Urban Health Research Initiative
Medical Director for Addiction Services, Vancouver Coastal Health
Physician Program Director for Addiction
Providence Health Care
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Wood: Drugs with the potential to produce altered states of consciousness were once the focus of intensive study in the 1950s and 1960s. While promising, this field of research has been dormant for decades but is now re-emerging as an area of intensive investigation and showing real potential as a new therapeutic paradigm in addiction medicine and mental health. While in its infancy, this is expected to be an area of much study in the coming years.
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Wood: Psychedelic medicine is in its infancy and not ready for implementation in clinical practice. Clinicians and the community of individuals suffering from addiction and other concerns will hopefully support this area of research so that critical information on impacts and safety can be gathered.
09 Sep Diabetes Prevalence Increased 25% in 25 Years
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Andy Menke PhD
Social & Scientific Systems Inc
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Menke: Previous studies have shown an increase in diabetes over time. We wanted to use the most recent data available to estimate the prevalence and trends in diabetes in the US population. We found that 14% of US adults had diabetes and the prevalence was higher in blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. About 1 in 3 people with diabetes were unaware that they had the condition and this was even higher in Asians and Hispanics where half were unaware that they had it. Also, among US adults, 1 in 3 people have prediabetes, which means that roughly half of all US adults have either diabetes or prediabetes. Between 1988-1994 and 2011-2012, diabetes prevalence increased by 25% among adults in the US population. The increase over time occurred in every age group, race group, and both genders.
09 Sep Benefits of Running For Cardiovascular and Chronic Disease Established
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Carl "Chip" Lavie MD, FACC FACP, FCCP
Medical Director, Cardiac Rehabilitation and Prevention
Director, Exercise Laboratories
John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute
Professor of Medicine
Ochsner Clinical School-UQ School of Medicine
Jefferson, LA
Editor-in-Chief, Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Lavie: My co-authors and I reviewed the published literature on the impact of running on chronic diseases and cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. Although we reviewed substantial running literature, the major 4 studies were from Dr. Paul Williams and 18 of his papers from the National Runners' and Walkers' Study, The National Aging Runners Study, 2 papers from the Copenhagen City Heart Study, and 2 reports from DC Lee and Steven Blair and one from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study.
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Lavie: This data showed tremendous impact of running to lower weight and prevent obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Runners also had less osteoarthritis, need for hip replacement, lower disability with aging, less benign prostatic hypertrophy, lower mortality from several cancers and lower stroke, but the most impressive impact was the large reductions in cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality, particularly the dramatic impacts of quite low running doses.
09 Sep Excessive Diagnosis of Small Thyroid Cancers May Bring More Harm and Than Good
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Juan P. Brito Campana, MBBS
Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition, Department of Medicine
Mayo Clinic , Rochester, Minnesota
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Brito: The occurrence of thyroid cancer is increasing faster than any other cancer in the United States. If this trend continues, thyroid cancer will become the third most frequent cancer in women in the next five years. Despite this increase, death related to thyroid cancer has not increased. The reason is that the majority of the new cases of thyroid cancer are small papillary thyroid cancers. These cancers are the most benign variant of thyroid cancer and most patients diagnosed with this type of cancer never experience any symptoms or other negative effects. To better understand how these new cases of thyroid cancer are diagnosed we studied every case of thyroid cancer diagnosed in Olmsted, County, MN from 1935-2012.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Brito: We found that almost half the new cases of thyroid cancer were found among people who did not have any symptoms related to thyroid cancer. The most frequent reasons for identifying these patients presenting were review of thyroid tissue removed for benign conditions; incidental discovery during an imaging test ; and investigations of patients with symptoms or palpable nodules that were clearly not associated with thyroid cancer, but triggered the use of imaging tests of the neck.
09 Sep Norovirus Highly Prevalent In and Transmitted By Raw Oysters
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yongjie Wang PhD College of Food Science and Technology Shanghai Ocean University Laboratory of Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Aquatic Products on Storage & Preservation Ministry of Agriculture Shanghai China Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr Wang: Norovirus (NoVs) are recognized as the most important food-borne viruses. They cause acute gastroenteritis in humans and infect people of all ages across the world. In our previous study, we found that approximate 90% of human norovirus sequences were discovered in the coastal regions in China, which likely result from the consumption of NoV-contaminated oysters. Oysters are well recognized as the main vectors of environmentally transmitted noroviruses, and disease outbreaks linked to oyster consumption have been commonly observed. In order to gain a better understanding of how noroviruses are transmitted via oysters in the environment, we examined the genetic variants associated with oyster-related NoV outbreaks. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr Wang: A high degree of genetic diversity was observed for oyster-related noroviruses, and almost all the human norovirus genotypes were found in oyster-related norovirus sequences. These sequences were widely but unevenly distributed geographically, and most of them were detected in coastal regions. A higher frequency of GI strains was found in oyster-related than in human-related NoV sequences, while the yearly distributions of oyster-related sequences and human outbreak sequences were similar, indicating that oysters may act as a reservoir of noroviruses in the environment.08 Sep For Kidney Patients, No One Size-Fits-All Treatment For Coronary Artery Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr.Sripal Bangalore MD, MHA, FACC, FAHA, FSCAI,
Director of Research, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory,
Director, Cardiovascular Outcomes Group,
Associate Professor of Medicine,
New York University School of Medicine,
New York, NY 10016,
Principal Investigator ISCHEMIA-CKD trial
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Bangalore: Patients with chronic kidney disease are at high risk of coronary artery disease. However, they are also at risk for worsening kidney function from revascularization procedures and have been routinely excluded from clinical trials of stenting vs bypass surgery. In this registry study of over 5900 patients with multivessel coronary artery disease who underwent bypass surgery or stenting using the latest generation drug eluting stent (everolimus eluting stent), we showed that there are trade off between both procedures. With bypass surgery there was increase in the risk of death, myocardial infarction and stroke in the short term (in-hospital/30-days). For PCI, there was long term risk of repeat revascularization and also increase in myocardial infarction in those who achieved incomplete revascularization.
08 Sep Benefits of Iron Supplementation During Pregnancy Outweighed Malaria Risks
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Martin N. Mwangi
Researcher
Division of Human Nutrition,
Nutrition and Health over the lifecourse
International Nutrition Unit
Wageningen University
The Netherlands
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Mwangi : Anemia in pregnancy is a moderate or severe health problem in more than 80 percent of countries worldwide, but particularly in Africa, where it affects 57 percent of pregnant women. Iron deficiency is the most common cause, but iron supplementation during pregnancy has uncertain health benefits. There is some evidence to suggest that iron supplementation may increase the risk of infectious diseases, including malaria.
Our main objective was to measure the effect of antenatal iron supplementation on maternal Plasmodium infection risk, maternal iron status, and neonatal outcomes. We randomly assigned 470 pregnant Kenyan women living in a malaria endemic area to daily supplementation with 60 mg of iron (n = 237 women) or placebo (n = 233) until 1 month postpartum. All women received 5.7 mg iron/day through flour fortification during intervention and usual intermittent preventive treatment against malaria.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Mwangi : Overall, we found no effect of daily iron supplementation during pregnancy on risk of maternal Plasmodium infection. Iron supplementation resulted in an increased birth weight [5.3 ounces], gestational duration, and neonatal length; enhanced maternal and infant iron stores at 1 month after birth; and a decreased risk of low birth weight (by 58 percent) and prematurity. The effect on birth weight was influenced by initial maternal iron status. Correction of maternal iron deficiency led to an increase in birth weight by [8.4 ounces].
08 Sep Molecular Test For C. difficile Leads To Overdiagnosis
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Christopher R. Polage, M. D.
Associate Professor of Pathology and Infectious Diseases
University of California, Davis School of Medicine
Medical Director, Microbiology Laboratory and SARC
UC Davis Health System
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Polage: Clostridium difficile is a frequent cause of diarrhea and infection in U.S. hospitals but common diagnostic tests often disagree about which patients are infected or need treatment. We compared clinical symptoms and outcomes in hospitalized patients with different C. difficile test results to determine which type of test (molecular or PCR test versus toxin test) was the better predictor of need for treatment and disease.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Polage: Twice as many patients were positive by the molecular test versus the conventional toxin test. However, patients with a positive molecular test only had a shorter duration of symptoms than patients with toxins, and outcomes that were similar to patients withoutC. difficile by all test methods. Virtually all traditional complications of C. difficile infection occurred in patients with a positive toxin test; none occurred in patients with a positive molecular test only, despite little or no treatment.
08 Sep Patients Facing Higher Copays For Procedures Choose Cheaper Ambulatory Settings
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
James C. Robinson PhD MPH
Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Economics
Director, Berkeley Center for Health Technology
Head, Division of Health Policy & Management
School of Public Health, University of California– Berkeley
University Hall, Berkeley, CA
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Robinson: Employers and insurers face wide variation in the prices of similar tests and procedures within the same local communities, resulting from the indifference to price on the part of well-insured patients. They are raising deductibles to increase price sensitivity, but deductibles mostly target low-cost primary care services whereas their concerns often center on high-cost specialty and facility services. Some are adopting reference pricing, which sets a maximum insurer contribution for a particular type of test or procedure and then requires consumers selecting more expensive options to pay the difference themselves. The insurers contribution limit typically is set at the median or other midpoint in the market distribution of prices.
We studied the implementation of reference pricing for colonoscopy, using data from the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) from 2009-13, with a control group from Blue Cross of California. Our data include detailed claims from almost 300,000 colonoscopy procedures and patients. We find that patients who must pay the extra fees themselves are much more likely to select cheaper ambulatory facilities for their colonoscopies, compared to consumers who do not face reference pricing. This leads to lower prices being paid by the employer and significant savings. Detailed analyses of gastroenterological and cardiovascular complications of the colonoscopy procedures found no adverse effect of reference pricing on quality.