MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anna-Karin Danielsson, PhD
Project Coordinator
Karolinska Institutet
Department of Public Health Sciences (PHS)
Widerströmska huset| Stockholm, Sweden
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Danielsson: Smoking cannabis in adolescence increases the risk of adverse social consequences later on in life.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Chuanhai Cao Ph.D.
Neuroscientist at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute
and the USF College of Pharmacy.
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Cao:The major goal of this study was to investigate the effect of Ä9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a major component of marijuana, on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. THC has long been known to have anti-inflammatory effects, but we were looking to determine whether THC directly affected amyloid beta (Aâ). Aâ aggregation is considered one of the key pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Our study showed that extremely low doses of THC were able to decrease Aâ production, inhibit Aâ aggregation, and enhance mitochondrial function in a cellular model of AD. Decreased levels of amyloid beta, coupled with THC’s inhibitory effect on aggregation may protect against the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Juliane Bingener-Casey, M.D.
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Bingener:Other investigators have shown that preoperative quality of life is a predictor for postoperative survival in colon and pancreas cancer surgery. In this study we looked as preoperative quality of life as a predictor for postoperative complications. The main findings of the study were that patients who had a deficit in their quality of life before surgery had a 3 times higher risk of a serious complication before leaving the hospital than patients who had normal quality of life (16% vs 6 %), independent of gender, race, tumor stage or laparoscopic or open colectomy. Patients with serious complications before leaving the hospital also were older and had more other medical problems than patients without complications. Further, patients who had a complication stayed in the hospital longer and their postoperative quality of life was worse (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dong D. Wang, MD, MSc
Department of Nutrition
Harvard School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Wang:
The quality of the US diet improved modestly from 1999 to 2010, but the dietary quality of US population remains far from optimal and huge room exists for further improvements.
More than half of the improvement in diet quality was due to a large reduction in consumption of trans fat.
he improvement in dietary quality was greater among persons with higher socioeconomic status and healthier body weight, thus disparities that existed in 1999 increased over the next decade.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Gudrun Jonasdottir Bergman PhD
National Board of Health and Welfare
Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden
Medical Research: What are the main findings...
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jordi Salas-Salvadó MD PhD
Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition
Institute of Health Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Salas-Salvadó:The main finding of our study is that an increase in albumin-adjusted serum calcium increases the risk of type 2 diabetes in Mediterranean individuals at high cardiovascular risk. This association remained significant even after taking classic risk factors into account. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study assessing the association between changes in serum calcium levels and the risk of type 2 diabetes development.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bradley Johnston, PhD
Scientist | Child Health Evaluative Sciences
Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute
Assistant Professor | Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics
McMaster University Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Johnston:
Our findings represent the first meta-analysis using advanced epidemiological methods to summarize popular branded diets for weight loss, trials having been investigated using randomized trial methodology.
Among the 48 original RCTs included in our NMA, low to moderate quality evidence showed that both low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets were associated with an approximate 8 kg weight loss at 6 months when compared to no diet. Approximately 1-2 kg of this effect was lost by 12-months.
Although statistical differences existed among several of the diet macronutrient classes, the differences were small and unlikely to be important to those seeking to lose weight.
Similarly, our results showed that although there are statistically significant differences between some of the brand named diets, these differences are small and not likely patient important.
In terms of potential effect modifiers, behavioural support was significant at 6-months (enhancing weight-loss by 3.23 kg) and exercise was significant at 12-months (enhancing weight loss by 2.13 kg)
Regarding our sensitivity analyses, Differences in weight loss were not clinically important based on risk of bias, missing data, baseline weight, gender, and those with and without specific health conditions
Overall, our findings suggest that patients may choose, among those associated with the largest weight loss, the diet that gives them the least challenges with adherence.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Tian Hu, MD, MS Research Fellow
Department of Epidemiology, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
New Orleans, LA 70112
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Hu: Participants on the low-carbohydrate diet lost more weight than those on the low-fat diet at 3, 6, and 12 months. At 12 months, those in the low-carbohydrate group lost an average of almost 8 pounds more than those in the low-fat group.
Participants on the low-carbohydrate diet lost more fat mass and did not lose lean mass (muscle) compared to those on the low-fat diet.
Overall, bad cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol) that is a predictor of risk for cardiovascular disease decreased on both diets, but good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) increased more in the low-carbohydrate group.
Physical activity was similar in the groups throughout the study, suggesting that the greater weight loss among participants in the low-carbohydrate group was not because they exercised more.
When we evaluated the black and white participants separately, the results were similar.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Gilles Montalescot M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Cardiology
University of Paris VI; Director, Cardiac Care Unit
Institute of Cardiology, Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital
Paris, France
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Montalescot :Among the 1862 patients with ongoing STEMI who were enrolled in the ATLANTIC study, we found no difference between those randomized to pre-hospital (in-ambulance) ticagrelor 180 mg and those randomized to in-hospital (in-catheterization laboratory) ticagrelor 180 mg in terms of either pre-PCI ST-segment elevation resolution (≥70%) or pre-PCI TIMI 3 flow in the culprit artery, which were the co-primary endpoints. There was also no difference between the groups in terms of major adverse cardiovascular events at 30 days, with the exception that rates of definite stent thrombosis were lower in the pre-hospital ticagrelor group than in the in-hospital group, both in the first 24 hours (0% versus 0.8%, p= 0.008) and at 30 days (0.2% versus 1.2%, p = 0.02). The safety of pre-hospital ticagrelor did not appear to be an issue, since the incidence of non-CABG-related major bleeding was low and similar in both treatment groups, whichever bleeding definition was used (PLATO, TIMI, STEEPLE, GUSTO, ISTH or BARC).
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Melina Kibbe, MD, FACS, FAHA
Professor and Vice Chair of Research
Edward G. Elcock Professor of Surgical Research
Department of Surgery,Northwestern University
Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine Deputy Director
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Kibbe: We found that approximately 1/3 of all peer-reviewed published manuscripts in 5 top surgery journals did not state the sex of the animal or cell used for research. Of those that did state the sex, 80% used only males.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sabita Soedamah-Muthu
Division of Human Nutrition,Wageningen University
Wageningen, the Netherlands
and Prof Trevor Orchard
Department of Epidemiology,
Graduate School of Public Health,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USAMedical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: We present a new prognostic model combining information on age, glycated haemoglobin, waist-hip ratio, albumin/creatinine ratio and HDL (good) cholesterol to assess the 3, 5 and 7 year risk of developing major outcomes in patients with type 1 diabetes.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Massimo Imazio on behalf of the COPPS-2 Investigators
Massimo Imazio. MD, FESC
Dipartimento di Cardiologia/Cardiology Department
Maria Vittoria Hospital and University of Torino
Torino, Italia
Medical Research: What is the background for this investigation?Dr. Imazio: Post-pericardiotomy syndrome, post-operative atrial fibrillation (AF), and post-operative effusions may be responsible for increased morbidity and healthcare costs after cardiac surgery. Postoperative use of colchicine prevented these complications in a single trial (the COPPS trial published on EHJ in 2010).
Here all events occurred within 3 months and colchicine was given after cardiac surgery starting from postoperative day 3 for 1 month. However most postoperative AF events are reported in the first 3 days and thus pre-treatment with colchicine may give better outcomes. Thus we performed the COPPS-2 giving colchicine 48 to 72 hours before surgery for 1 month without a loading dose and weight adjusted doses (i.e. 0.5 mg twice daily for patients >70kg or 0.5 mg once for patients <70Kg) in order to improve patients compliance.The Colchicine for Prevention of the Post-pericardiotomy Syndrome and post-operative atrial fibrillation (COPPS-2 trial) is an investigator-initiated, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial. A total of 360 consecutive candidates for cardiac surgery, 180 for each arm, were enrolled in 11 Italian centers between March 2012 and March 2014. Main exclusion criteria were absence of sinus rhythm at enrollment, cardiac transplantation, and contraindications to . (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:John J.V. McMurray, M.D
Professor of Medical Cardiology
British Heart Foundation,
Cardiovascular Research Centre
University of Glasgow,
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. McMurray: That compared to an evidence-based dose of an evidence-based ACE inhibitor (enalapril 10 mg bid), LCZ696 reduced the primary composite outcome of cardiovascular death or heart failure hospitalization by 20%, both the components of that composite and all-cause mortality (the latter by 16%) - all reductions are highly statistically significant and clinically important. LCZ696 treated patients also reported fewer symptoms and physical limitations due to heart failure. We think this is a remarkable finding - to beat what has been the gold-standard, cornerstone, therapy for around 25 years. The findings show conclusively that adding neprilysin inhibition to renin-angiotensin system blockade is superior to renin-angiotensin system blockade alone in patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction .
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Mary J MorrellFaculty of Medicine, National Heart & Lung InstituteProfessor of Sleep & Respiratory Physiology
Imperial College, London
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Prof. Morrell:Our results showed that when older patients with obstructive sleep apnea were treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) they had significantly less daytime sleepiness than those not treated with CPAP. A comparison of the costs and benefits of treatment suggested that CPAP would meet the usual criteria for being funded by the NHS.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michelle Scollo
Senior policy adviser, Tobacco
Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: Each November the Cancer Council Victoria conducts a survey asking smokers about their tobacco purchasing habits and smoking attitudes, intentions and behaviours. This study compared what smokers said about where and what they purchased in:
November 2011, a year before the introduction of world-first legislation mandating standardized packaging of tobacco products throughout Australia
In November 2012, while the new plain packs were being rolled out onto the market and
In November 2013 one year later.
The tobacco industry had strenuously opposed the legislation, but—contrary to the industry predictions and continuing claims in other countries contemplating similar legislation—we found:
1. No evidence of smokers shifting from purchasing in small independent outlets to purchasing in larger supermarkets
2. No evidence of an increase in use of very cheap brands of cigarettes manufactured by companies based in Asia and
3. No evidence of an increase in use of illicit unbranded tobacco.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ian Gilron, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Director of Clinical Pain Research
Professor of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine,
Biomedical & Molecular Sciences, and
Center for Neuroscience Studies Queen's University
Kingston General Hospital, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Gilron: Pain is the most common symptom which prevents recovery from surgery. Even with the best available treatments today, many patients still suffer from moderate to severe pain after surgery.
Antidepressants - drugs used to treat depression - are also proven effective for treating chronic pain due to nerve disease and fibromyalgia. However, there has been much less research on the effects of antidepressant drugs on pain after surgery.
Our group conducted a systematic review of all published clinical trials of antidepressant for post surgical pain.
Slightly more than half of these studies suggested some benefit of these drugs but the details of this review led us to conclude that there is not yet enough evidence to recommend these medications for post surgical pain treatment.
Given the possibility that these medications could be useful treatments for pain after surgery, we believe that future studies of higher scientific quality and which involve larger numbers of patients should be carried out in the hopes of finding safer and more effective treatments for pain after surgery.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ying Wang PhD
Epidemiology Post-Doc Fellow
American Cancer Society Inc
Atlanta, GA 30303
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Wang: Previous studies suggest that higher intake of fruits and vegetables are associated with lower risk of breast cancer risk, especially estrogen receptor (ER) negative (ER-) tumors that are more aggressive and difficult to treat. We found that postmenopausal women who had higher intake of flavones, a subgroup of flavonoids that are widely distributed in fruits and vegetables, had lower risk of breast cancer. Furthermore, higher intake of flavan-3-ols which is high in non-herbal tea was associated with lower risk of ER- but not ER positive breast cancer.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Richard Sharpe PhD
Study - Health and Housing
European Centre for Environment and Human Health
University of Exeter Medical school
Knowledge Spa, Royal Cornwall Hospital
Truro, Cornwall,
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Sharpe: By systematically reviewing the findings from 17 studies across 8 different countries, we've found that increased levels of the fungal species Penicillium, Aspergillus, and Cladosporium can pose a significant health risk to people with asthma. The presence of these fungi in the home can worsen symptoms in both children and adults.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Donna Warren Morris, RDH, Med
Professor, Dean's Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars
Houston, TX 77054
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: Power toothbrushes can harbor microorganisms that have been shown to cause disease and infections. A solid-head design was found to have less growth of microorganisms than two others with hollow head designs.
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The American College of Chest Physicians released an expert consensus statement, Care of the Critically Ill and Injured During Pandemics and Disasterswhile the global health-care community cares for patients with the Ebola virus.Three of the authors discussed this important statement with MedicalResearch.com.
Asha V. Devereaux, MD, MPH
Sharp Hospital
Coronado, CA
Jeffrey R. Dichter, MD
Allina Health, Minneapolis, MN
and Aurora Health, Milwaukee, WI
Niranjan Kissoon, MBBS, FRCP(C)
BC Children's Hospital and Sunny Hill Health Centre
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Medical Research: What are the main ethical concerns and criteria for evaluating who may be eligible for treatment during a pandemic or disaster?
Dr. Asha Devereaux: The main ethical concerns regarding eligibility for treatment during a pandemic will be access to limited or scarce resources.Who should get treatment and who decides will be some significant questions whenever there is a scarcity of healthcare resources. Transparency and the fairness of the ethical framework for decision-making will need to be made public and updated based upon the changing dynamics of resources and disease process.
Dr. Niranjan Kissoon: There is work to be done in this area and engagement of citizens, government, medical community, ethicists and legal experts in the process is important.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Asha Bowen FRACP
Menzies School of Health Research
Charles Darwin University
Darwin, NT, Australia
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Bowen: The Skin Sore Trial found that short courses (3 days of twice daily dosing or 5 days of once daily dosing) of oral co-trimoxazole worked just as well for treating impetigo in remote Indigenous Australian children as the standard treatment with an intramuscular injection of penicillin (BPG). Despite many randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on this common infection of childhood, few have been conducted where impetigo is severe and endemic and with over 100 million children affected at any one time, ongoing research is needed. This is only the second RCT to study impetigo in children where the problem is endemic and often severe. In our study, 70% of children had severe impetigo with a median of 3 body regions affected. BPG injections are painful and we knew from previous studies that not many children were receiving them. Our study confirmed that 30% of children had injection site pain 48 hours after receipt of the injection and 5 children ran away when they found out that they were randomised to the injection arm of the study.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christopher D. Anderson, MD, MMSc
Neurocritical Care | Acute Stroke
Center for Human Genetic Research
Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Anderson: Previous studies have linked Apolipoprotein E (APOE) epsilon variants with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) particularly in the lobar (cortical and subcortical) regions of the brain, but it was not known whether this association would extend to warfarin-related ICH, or whether the risk of intracerebral hemorrhage on warfarin would be multiplicatively compounded by APOE epsilon allele status. Our results demonstrate that APOE e2 and e4 variants are associated with more than a two-fold risk of lobar ICH for patients on warfarin, in comparison to warfarin-exposed individuals without ICH. This observed association was strongest when analyzing subjects with definite or probable Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (CAA), as defined by the Boston Criteria. No association between APOE e2 or e4 and non-lobar ICH was identified following our replication phase. Furthermore, we did not detect an interaction between APOE status and warfarin status in ICH subjects using a case-only design.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Gayatri Patel, MD, MPH
Division of General Medicine
UC Davis Medical Center
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Patel: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we sought to determine the effectiveness of photodynamic therapy (PDT) for the treatment of actinic keratoses relative to other common treatments. We included only randomized controlled trials and preformed a meta-analysis on homogenous studies. The primary finding of the study was that PDT has a better chance of removing actinic keratoses on the face or scalp than treatment with cryotherapy.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Philip Haycock, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research Assistant
MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit
University of Bristol
Bristol, BS8 2BN, UK
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Haycock: We found that shorter telomeres were significantly associated with risk of coronary heart disease and that the association was independent of conventional vascular risk factors, including age, sex, body mass index, smoking, history of diabetes, blood pressure and lipid markers.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christopher Mantyh, M.D.
Associate Professor of Surgery
Chief of Colorectal Surgery
NSQIP Surgical Champion
Duke University Medical Center
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Mantyh: Specific perioperative bundles can drastically reduce surgical site infections in colorectal surgery patients.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Cintia Cercato, MD, PhD and
Emerson Leonildo Marques
University of São Paulo in Brazil
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer:The major findings are that the cerebral metabolism of the obese compared to normal weight people is increasing. The fact that it can be increased means a greater chance of Alzheimer's disease, but bariatric surgery can reduce cerebral metabolism of obese.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vanessa Er PhD
School of Social and Community Medicine
University of Bristol and Bristol Nutrition BRU
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Er: We found that men who had optimal intake of three nutrients- calcium, selenium and foods rich in lycopene- had a lower risk of prostate cancer. Mainly, men who ate over 10 servings/week of tomatoes and tomato-based products had 18% reduction in risk of developing prostate cancer. We also found that the risk of prostate cancer was lower in men who had high intake of fruits and vegetables.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Elizabeth Goodman BA
Division of Oncology
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: Weekend hospital admission for pediatric patients newly diagnosed with leukemia was associated with a longer length of stay, slightly longer wait to start chemotherapy and higher risk for respiratory failure; however, weekend admissions were not linked to an increased risk for death.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mauricio Farez
Department of Neurology, Raúl Carrea Institute for Neurological Research
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Farez: Our study shows that patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with moderate to high sodium (salt) intake have also increased disease activity (more clinical relapses and more lesions on MRIs).
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jennifer A. Reich PhD
University of Colorado Denver
Department of Sociology
Denver, CO 80208
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Reich: Public health practitioners have been concerned about rising rates of vaccine refusal and hesitance. This study examines how mothers account for the decision to delay or opt out of vaccines. This study shows that contrary to popular representation, these mothers are not ignorant, but rather see themselves as experts on their own children and as best qualified to decide whether their children need vaccines. They also trust that their intensive mothering practices, including extended breastfeeding, consumption of organic foods, and social monitoring of their children will protect them against disease.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Anna-Karin Danielsson, PhD
Project Coordinator
Karolinska Institutet
Department of Public Health Sciences (PHS)
Widerströmska huset| Stockholm, Sweden
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Danielsson: Smoking cannabis in adolescence increases the risk of adverse social consequences later on in life.
(more…)
