Author: Marie Benz MD FAAD
06 Jun Depression With Atypical Features Associated With Weight Gain, Obesity
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Aurélie Lasserre ,MD Center for psychiatric epidemiology and psychopathology Department of Psychiatry Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) Site de Cery, Switzerland MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of this study? Dr. Lasserre: Several recent studies have shown that Major Depressive Disorder with atypical features (defined as having a depressive episode where mood reactivity is maintained and two of the following features: increase in appetite, hypersomnia (oversleeping), leaden paralysis (heavy limbs) and increased sensitivity to rejection) was associated with obesity, but the temporal sequence was not known, i.e. it was not clear whether atypical depression predisposes to obesity or the converse. Our study revealed that Major Depressive Disorder with atypical features does lead to an increase in body-mass index, obesity, waist circumference and fat mass over a period of 5 years. This result was not explained by socio-demographic characteristics, alcohol or tobacco consumption, physical activity, co-existing mental disorders or medication. Interestingly, we also observed that the weight gain in subjects with atypical features was not a temporary phenomenon but it persisted after the remission of the depressive episode and was not attributable to new episodes.06 Jun Study Cautions Against Resveratrol Supplements During Pregnancy
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Antonio E. Frias, MD
Associate Professor | Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Director, Diabetes and Pregnancy Program
Assistant Scientist | Oregon National Primate Research Center
Portland, Oregon 97239
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Frias: Resveratrol supplementation in pregnant nonhuman primates fed a Western-style diet improved maternal metabolism, restored placental blood flow, reduced placental inflammation and improved lipid deposition in the fetal liver. However, there was an unexpected disruption of fetal pancreatic development that is very concerning.
06 Jun Olive Oil in Diet Linked To Cardiovascular Disease Prevention
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof Jordi Salas-Salvadó
Professor of Nutrition. Human Nutrition Unit (Director)
Department of Biochemistry & Biotechnology, IISPV
School of Medicine. Rovira i Virgili University. Reus, Spain.
CIBERobn, Instituto Carlos III.
Centre Català de la Nutrició - Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Director).
Federation of Spanish Food, Nutrition and Dietetic Scientific Societies (President).
Red Iberoamericana RIBESMET (Director)
INC - World Forum for Nutrition Research and Dissemination (Chairman).
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: The main findings of our study are that olive oil consumption, especially the extra-virgin variety (which is the olive oil with the best quality because it has higher amounts of bioactive compounds than other varieties), is associated with a reduced risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease (stroke, myocardial infarction...) and also cardiovascular death in an elderly Mediterranean population from Spain who were at high cardiovascular risk (because they had several cardiovscular risk factors such as smoking, being overweight or obese, having a family history of cardiovascular disease...). This means there is even more reason to visit gringocool.com. We have conducted an observational study including more than 7000 individuals who had participated in a randomized clinical trial to evaluate effects of a Mediterranean Diet in on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
05 Jun Green Tea Ingredient Changes Metabolism of Pancreatic Cancer Cells
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Wai-Nang Paul Lee, M.D.
Division Chief, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism
Professor of Pediatrics
Director of Biomedical Mass Spectrometry Laboratory
Harbor-UCLA
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Wai-Nang Lee: The study reports that EGCG, the active biologic constituent in green tea, changed the metabolism of pancreatic cancer cells by suppressing the
expression of an enzyme associated with cancer, LDHA.
The researchers also compared the effects of EGCG with those of an enzyme
inhibitor, oxamate, which is known to reduce LDHA activity, and found that
they both operated in a similar manner by disrupting the pancreatic cancer
cells metabolic system.
Scientists had believed they needed a molecular mechanism to treat cancer,
but this study shows that they can change the metabolic system and have an
impact on cancer.
05 Jun Patient-Centered Medical Homes: More Than Just Electronic Records Required to Improve Patient Care
Posted at 11:06h
in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Electronic Records, Outcomes & Safety
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Lisa M. Kern, MD, MPH, FACP
Associate Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research and of Medicine
Associate Director for Research, Center for Healthcare Informatics and Policy Deputy Director, Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative Weill Cornell Medical College
New York, NY 10065
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Kern: We found that primary care physicians participating in Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMHs) improved their quality of care over time at a significantly higher rate than their non-PCMH peers.
05 Jun Asthma Symptoms and Control Found Not Improved By Yoga
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Holger Cramer, PhD
Director of Yoga Research
University of Duisburg-Essen | Faculty of Medicine
Department of Internal and Integrative Medicine
Essen Germany
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Cramer: There is a number of randomized trials available on yoga for asthma. Based on those trials, there is evidence that yoga can improve asthma symptoms, asthma control, and pulmonary function in patients with asthma. However, yoga does not seem to be superior to sham procedures or breathing exercises and generally the evidence was quite weak. Yoga seems to be relatively safe in this patient population.
05 Jun Link Between Environmental Greenness and Allergies Explored
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Elaine Fuertes
Institute of Epidemiology I, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Centre for Environmental Health Neuherberg, Germany and
School of Population and Public Health
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: The main finding of our study was that despite the use of identical study designs and statistical methods, the level of greenness (measured using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) around a child's home address was differentially associated with the development of allergic health outcomes among children living in two areas in Germany.
In our urban study centre, which includes the city of Munich, we found that higher greenness levels around a child's home increased their risk of developing allergic rhinitis and experiencing eyes and nose symptoms. In contrast, greenness around the home appeared to be protective for allergic rhinitis, nose and eye symptoms and sensitization to inhalant allergens in the second more rural study centre investigated.
These observations emphasize that the effects of greenness around the home on respiratory health is complex and multifaceted, and are based on 5,803 German children followed from birth to 10 years as part of the GINIplus and LISAplus birth cohorts.
05 Jun Premenopausal Breast Cancer: Ovarian Suppression with Exemestane
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Olivia Pagani
Institute of Oncology of Southern Switzerland
Ospedale San Giovanni, Switzerland
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Pagani: The studies show that also in premenopausal women (as already proven in postmenopausal women), aromatase inhibitors (AIs) (in this case Exemestane) given as adjuvant treatment are more effective than Tamoxifen in women with hormone receptor positive early breast cancer who are given concomitantly ovarian suppression to lower estrogen production. The 28% improvement in disease free survival is comparable to that seen in postmenopausal women. In particular, outcomes in women who did not receive chemotherapy (43% of the entire population, 29% of whom with node positive disease) were strikingly good (<97% were breast cancer free at 5 years).
05 Jun MRSA Infections Vary Dramatically Among Academic Medical Centers
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Brad Spellberg MD
Associate Program Director
Internal Medicine Training Program
Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Division of General Internal Medicine
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Spellberg: The rates of community-onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CO-MRSA) varied dramatically among academic medical centers in California, New York, Illinois and North Carolina, suggesting there is not a uniform change in the "national epidemic" of the "superbug" that has generated extensive public health concern over the past decade, according to a new study.The study surveyed hospital records of 4,171 cases of MRSA and MRSA-related infections between 2008 and 2011 in five medical centers located in Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City and Raleigh-Durham, NC.The rates of MRSA acquired in the community declined 57% from 2008-2011 in
the Los Angeles medical center. In contrast, CO-MRSA rates tripled at the
New York medical center, while the rates remained stable in San Francisco,
Chicago and Raleigh-Durham.
04 Jun Weekend Hospital Admissions Still Have Higher Mortality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Hiroshi Hoshijima
Evidence-based Anesthsia Research Group
Tohoku Universit y Graduate School of Dentistry,
Dept of Anaesthesiology, Sendai, Japan,
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Hoshijima: Our systematic review shows that weekend admission is associated with higher mortality compared with weekday admission.Subgroup analysis revealed that patients admitted during the weekend were at a higher risk of death than weekday admission in patients in 5 categories (patients who had stroke; cardiovascular disease; upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage; medical disease; mixed medical and surgical disease.)
04 Jun MI: Gender Differences Remain in Presentation, Treatment and Outcomes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Luke Kim, M.D., FACC, FSCAI
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Interventional Cardiac and Endovascular Laboratory
Greenberg Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College/The New York Presbyterian Hospital
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of this study?
Dr. Kim: The main findings of the study include:
- From 2007-2011, there was no significant change in the rate of acute MI in both male and female cohorts in U.S. . Although there was a decline in the rate of ST-elevation (STEMI) in those ≥55 years old, the rate remains steady in patients < 55 years old, especially in the female cohort after 2009.
- Female patients <55 years old with MI were sicker at baseline than the male counterparts with more likelihood of having diabetes, hypertension, chronic renal insufficiency, peripheral vascular disease, congestive heart failure and obesity.
- Female patients were more likely to present with non– STEMI vs. STEMI and more likely to develop shock complicating their MIs.
- Female patients are less likely to undergo coronary artery revascularization including percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass surgery.
- Unadjusted risk of death was higher in female vs male (5.2% vs. 3.7%, p<0.001) along with higher incidence of stroke (0.5% vs. 0.3%, p<0.001), bleeding (4.9% vs. 3.0%, p<0.001), vascular complication (0.6% vs. 0.4%, p<0.001) and ARF (11.6% vs. 9.6%, p<0.001). After adjustment, death (OR 1.10 CI 1.04-1.17), stroke (OR 1.31 CI 1.10-1.55), bleeding (OR 1.30 CI 1.22-1.37), and vascular complications (OR 1.33 CI 1.15-1.55) were all significantly higher for female cohort.
04 Jun Hospitalized Pneumonia Patients May Benefit from Azithromycin
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Eric M. Mortensen, M.D., M.Sc.
VA North Texas Health Care System and
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Mortensen: The main findings of our study was that for older patients hospitalized with pneumonia that with the use of azithromycin although there is a small increase in the number of non-fatal heart attacks there was a much lower decrease in mortality. In addition there were no other significant increases in cardiac events. So the overall risk:benefit ratio was that for each non-fatal heart attack there were 7 deaths that were prevented.
04 Jun Preventing Hospital Readmissions with Transitional Care for Heart Failure Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Cindy Feltner, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Division of General Medicine
University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill
RTI- UNC Evidence-based Practice Center
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Feltner: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the efficacy, comparative effectiveness, and harms of transitional care interventions to reduce readmission and mortality rates for adults hospitalized with heart failure. We included a broad range of intervention types applicable to adults transitioning from hospital to home that aimed to prevent readmissions. Although 30-day readmissions are the focus of quality measures, we also included readmissions measured over 3 to 6 months because these are common, costly, and potentially preventable. Forty-seven trials were included, most enrolled adults with moderate to severe heart failure and a mean age of 70 years. We found that interventions providing multiple home visits soon after hospital discharge can reduce 30-day readmission rates. Both home-visiting programs and multidisciplinary heart failure clinics visits can improve mortality and reduce all-cause readmission in the six months after hospitalization. Telephone support interventions do not appear to reduce all-cause readmission, but can improve survival and reduce readmission related to heart failure. Programs focused on telemonitoring or providing education only did not appear to reduce readmission or improve survival.
03 Jun Implantable Defibrillators Improved Survival In Low Ejection Fraction Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Sana Al-Khatib, M.D. MHS
Duke Clinical Research Institute
Duke University School of Medicine
Durham, NC,
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Al-Khatib: Patients with an ejection fraction (measure of the pumping ability of the heart) of 30% to 35% who receive a prophylactic implantable cardioverter defibrillator have better survival than similar patients with no implantable defibrillator.
03 Jun Colon Cancer Screening May Be Worthwhile In Previously Unscreened Elderly
Posted at 04:39h
in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Colon Cancer, Erasmus, Sloan Kettering
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Frank van Hees MSc
Erasmus University Medical Center
Rotterdam, the Netherlands and
Ann G. Zauber PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: The main finding of our study is that colorectal cancer screening of individuals without previous screening is worthwhile well beyond age 75, which is the recommended age to stop screening in individuals with an adequate screening history. The exact age up to which screening should be considered in unscreened elderly depends on an individual's health status: in healthy individuals screening remains worthwhile up to age 86, whereas in individuals with a severe illness, such as heart failure, screening remains worthwhile up to age 80.
03 Jun Benefits of Managing Mild Hypertension in Younger Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eleni Rapsomaniki, PhD The Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research Department of Epidemiology & Public Health University College London London MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Rapsomaniki: Our data shows that hypertension is associated with considerable reduction in CVD-free life expectancy. Based on our estimates a 30-year old with hypertension suffered from CVD 5 years earlier compared to a similarly aged individual with normal blood pressure. We noted substantial heterogeneity in the associations of blood pressure with specific cardiovascular outcomes. For example a 20 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure was associated with ~40% higher risk of stable angina, and intracerebral or subarachnoid haemorrhage but less than 10% increase in risk of abdominal aortic aneurysm. In all age groups from 30 to over 80 people with a systolic blood pressure 90–114 mm Hg and a diastolic blood pressure of 60–74 mm Hg had the lowest risk of all cardiovascular diseases, and we found no J-shape associations.03 Jun 12 Percent of American Children Experience Maltreatment
MedicalResearch.com Interview with
Dr. Christopher Wildeman PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology
Faculty fellow at the Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course (CIQLE), and at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) at Yale University.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Wildeman: There are four key findings in the study.
First, the cumulative risk of having a confirmed maltreatment report any time between birth and age 18 is much higher than most people would have thought. Fully 1 in 8 American children will experience this event at some point.
Second, the risk of experiencing this event is highly unequally distributed, with Black and Hispanic experiencing it much more than Hispanic, White, and (especially) Asian children. Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 Black children will have a confirmed maltreatment report at any time in their childhood. For Native American, the risk is about 1 in 7.
Third, the risk of maltreatment is quite similar for boys and girls.
Finally, the highest risks of child maltreatment are in the first few years of life, suggesting that interventions aiming to diminish maltreatment should focus on parents with very young children.
02 Jun IVF: Preimplantation Genetic Screening Improved with Next Generation Sequencing
MedicalResearch.com Interview with :
Dr. Francesco Fiorentino
CEO and Lab Director
ROME - ITALY
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Fiorentino: This study describes findings from first and second of a three-phase strategy to validate the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for comprehensive aneuploidy screening, as a preclinical step toward its routine use in the diagnosis of chromosomal aneuploidy on embryos. The first phase involved a large preclinical validation study on single cells, and demonstrated that the NGS-based 24-aneuploidy screening protocol was accurate and reliable. The results provided 100% consistency for aneuploid embryo call with array-CGH, the highly validated method of aneuploidy screening.
The second phase of the study, instead, focused on the clinical application of the NGS-based protocol for the detection of all chromosomes in embryos. A prospective trial involving analysis of human embryos at the blastocyst stage of development was designed for this purpose, in order to establish similar levels of chromosome-specific NGS copy number assignment concordance compared with 24sure array as those observed in the first phase of the study. Consistency of NGS-based aneuploidy detection was assessed matching the results obtained with array-CGH–based diagnoses,
Embryos obtained from 55 consecutive clinical PGS cycles, blindly assessed in parallel with both NGS and array-CGH techniques, displayed 100% concordance for aneuploid embryo call. Consistency obtained during this investigation was similar to those obtained in the first phase of the study that used NGS to examine single cell samples, demonstrating the reliability of the NGS-based method in detection of chromosome aneuploidy also in embryos at blastocyst stage derived from clinical preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) cycles. The clinical outcomes obtained in this study from preimplantation genetic screening cycles performed with the NGS approach were very encouraging, resulting in a clinical pregnancy rate per embryo transfer of 63.8% (mean age 38.5+2.1 years) and an ongoing implantation rate of 64.0%, values that are comparable with recent results from other comprehensive chromosome screening approaches.
In conclusion, the results achieved in this study demonstrate the reliability of the NGS-based protocol for detection of whole chromosome aneuploidies, mosaicism occurrences and segmental changes in embryos.
02 Jun Lung Cancer: Breath Test Increasingly Accurate
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof. Nir Peled MD PhD FCCP
Pulmonologist & Medical Oncologist
Thoracic Cancer Unit, Davidoff Cancer Center, RMC, Kaplan St, Petach Tiqwa, Israel
International Lung Cancer Association; Committee Chair; Prevention, Screening & Early Detection of Lung Cancer, IASLC.
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of this study?
Dr. Peled: The study focuses on early detection of lung cancer through the exhale breath NaNose which was developed by Prof Hossam Haick (Israel). The study included 358 patients who were diagnosed or at risk for lung cancer. The multisite enrollments included UC Denver (Dr Fred Hirsch), Tel Aviv University (Dr Nir Peled), Jacksonville (Dr Stuart Millstone, Dr Douglas Johnson) and Liverpool (Dr John Field).
The NaNose was able to detect lung cancer with a very high accuracy (~90%) even when the lung nodule was tiny and hard to sample. It was even able to discriminate between sub histologies of cancer, which was unexpected.
02 Jun Are Cynical People More Likely to Develop Dementia?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Anna-Maija Tolppanen PhD
Department of Neurology
University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Tolppanen: Persons who had higher levels of cynical distrust were about three times more likely to develop dementia over eight-year follow-up.
01 Jun Two Billion People Overweight or Obese
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Rhonda Stewart
Senior Communications
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
Seattle, WA 98121, USA
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Globally, obesity has become a public health epidemic. Obesity is affecting not just developed countries, but developing countries as well. Almost one-third of the world’s population, over 2 billion people, are considered to be overweight or obese. Of this group, nearly two-thirds (62%) are in developing countries. If current trends continue, this number will continue to rise. Between 1980 and 2013, the prevalence of overweight or obesity for children and adolescents increased by nearly 50%. This study is the first analysis of global trends on obesity and covers more than 30 years and 188 countries.
01 Jun Specific Cancer Types Linked to Socioeconomic Status
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Recinda L Sherman, MPH, PhD, CTR
Program Manager, Data Use & Research
North America Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)
MedicalResearch: What is the context of the study?
Dr. Sherman:
- It has long been known that poverty is associated with adverse health conditions. In general, increasing poverty results in higher disease rates and higher mortality.
- This study assessed the relationship between poverty and cancer incidence using national cancer data on nearly 3 million tumors from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR).
- Cancer registries do not collect economic information on cancer patients, so we used an area-based social measure: % of persons living below poverty within a census tract. This measure is a proxy for an individual’s economic status and also gives insight into the type of neighborhood in which an individual lives.
01 Jun Pediatric Vision Scanner To Detect Strabismus and Amblyopia
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Reed Jost, MS
Retina Foundation of the Southwest
9600 N Central Expwy, Suite 200
Dallas, TX 75231
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Commercially available automated screening devices assess refractive risk factors, not amblyopia or strabismus, resulting in under-referral of affected children and over-referral of healthy children to pediatric eye care professionals. The Pediatric Vision Scanner is a binocular retinal birefringence scanner that directly detects strabismus and amblyopia by analyzing binocular scans for the presence or absence of birefringence, which is characteristic of steady, bifoveal fixation. We found that the Pediatric Vision Scanner outperformed an automated, refractive error screener (SureSight Autorefractor) in a cohort of 300 patients (2-6 years) tested in a pediatric ophthalmology setting. Compared to the SureSight, the Pediatric Vision Scanner had significantly higher sensitivity and higher specificity in the detection of strabismus and amblyopia.
01 Jun Expanding Patient Use of Physician Rating Sites
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr David A Hanauer MD MS
Department of Pediatrics
University of Michigan Medical School
Ann Arbor, MI
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study
Dr. Hanauer: The main findings of our study were that:
(1) Awareness and usage of rating sites for physicians appears to be growing,
(2) The public is using these sites to make decisions about selecting (or avoiding) a physician, and
(3) The percentage of people leaving ratings is still low (about 5%) suggesting that the results may not be representative of the majority of patient experiences.
31 May Today’s Heroin Users Mostly White, Suburban and Initiated Through Prescription Pain Pills
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Theodore J. Cicero, PhD
Professor, Vice Chairman for Research
Department of Psychiatry
Washington University in St Louis
St Louis, Missouri
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Cicero: Heroin users nowadays are predominantly white men and women in their late 20s living outside large urban areas who were first introduced to opioids through prescription drugs compared to the 1960s when heroin users tended to be young urban men whose opioid abuse started with heroin.
31 May PCOS: Inflammatory Markers May Signal Increase Risk of Pregnancy Complications
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof. Stefano Palomba
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
University “Magna Graecia” of Catanzaro
Catanzaro, Italy
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Prof. Palomba: Our study demonstrates that simple markers of inflammation, commonly detectable in clinical practice with commercial kits, are significantly modified in women with PCOS during pregnancy and associated at an increased risk of complications during pregnancy in the same population with PCOS.
30 May Gulf Oil Spill and Associated Health Risks
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Mark A D’Andrea, MD, FACRO
University Cancer and Diagnostic Centers
Houston, Texas
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. D’Andrea: Crude oil spills affect the human health through their exposure to the inherent hazardous chemicals such as para-phenols and volatile benzene.
Human exposure to crude oil spills is associated with multiple adverse health effects including hematopoietic, hepatic, renal, and pulmonary abnormalities. In this study, we assessed the hematological and liver function indices among the subjects participated in the Gulf oil spill clean-up operations along the coast of Louisiana. The findings were compared with the standardized normal range reference values. We found that over 77% of subjects had WBC counts in the mid range (6 - 10X 103 per mL) while none of the subjects had upper limit of the normal range (11 X 103 per mL). Similar pattern was seen in the platelet counts and BUN levels among the oil spill exposed subjects. Conversely, over 70% of the subjects had creatinine levels toward upper limit of the normal and 23% of subjects had creatinine levels above the upper limit of the normal range (> 1.3 mg per dL). Similarly, hemoglobin and hematocrit levels were toward the upper limit of the normal in more than two-third of the subjects. Aspartate amino transferase and alanine amino transferase levels above the upper limit of normal range (> 40 IU per L) were seen in 15% and 31% of subjects, respectively. Over 80% of subjects had urinary phenol levels more than detectable levels (2 mg per L).
30 May Diabetes Medication Liraglutide May Be Useful For Weight Management
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
John Wilding DM FRCP
Professor of Medicine & Honorary Consultant Physician
Head of Department of Obesity and Endocrinology
Institute of Ageing & Chronic Disease
Clinical Sciences Centre
University Hospital Aintree
Liverpool United Kingdom
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Wilding: This trial studied over 3700 obese people who were trying to lose weight. The main findings were that liraglutide (an injectable medication already approved for diabetes treatment at lower dose of 1.8mg) can help reduce body weight in people with obesity when used at a higher dose than is usually used in diabetes (3mg). Trial participants experienced a weight loss of 8 % from baseline compared to 2.6 % with placebo (diet and exercise alone).
Some risk factors for diabetes and heart disease such as blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol also improved with liraglutide treatment to a greater extent than with placebo. The main side effects seen were nausea which in most cases resolved after a few weeks treatment; there were also more cases of gallstones (which could be due to weight loss) and a few more cases of acute pancreatitis in people treated with liraglutide.
30 May Cancer Center Advertisements Focus on Emotional Appeals
Posted at 09:08h
in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, University of Pittsburgh
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Yael Schenker, MD, MAS
Assistant Professor
Division of General Internal Medicine
Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Schenker: We analyzed the content of cancer center advertisements placed in top TV and magazine media markets in 2012. Out of 1427 advertisements that met our initial search criteria, we found 409 unique advertisements that promoted clinical services at 102 cancer centers across the country. These advertisements promoted cancer treatments (88%) more often than cancer screening (18%) or supportive services (13%). Provision of information about clinical services was scant.
For example, 27% of advertisements mentioned a benefit of advertised services and 2% quantified these benefits. 2% mentioned a risk of advertised services and no advertisements quantified these risks. 5% mentioned costs or insurance coverage and no advertisements mentioned availability under specific insurance plans. In contrast, use of emotional appeals was frequent (85%). Emotional appeals commonly evoked hope for survival, focused on treatment advances, used fighting language, and/or evoked fear. Nearly half of all advertisements included patient testimonials, overwhelmingly focused on stories about survival or cure. Only 15% of testimonials included a disclaimer (for example, “most patients do not experience these results”) and none described the outcome that a typical patient may expect.