Author: Marie Benz MD FAAD
03 Oct Alzheimer’s and Albumin-Amyloid Beta Complexes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Keiichi Yamamoto, MD, PhD Department of Geriatric Medicine and Neurology, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine Osaka, Japan. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: Aβ is normally bound to and transported by albumin in blood. We therefore hypothesized that decreased blood levels of Albumin-Aβ complexes may be associated with decreased Aβ removal from brain to blood, resulting in Aβ accumulation in the brain. This is the first study demonstrated that decreased serum level of albumin-Aβ complexes was strongly associated with a higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This association was independent of age, sex, and ApoE4 allele. In addition, decreased serum level of albumin-Aβ complexes was correlated with decreased levels of Aβ42 in the CSF and increased levels of p-tau in the CSF, findings that have been shown to be associated with specific neuropathologic findings and AD progression.02 Oct Early-Term Birth and Adverse Outcomes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Shaon Sengupta, MD MBBS MPH
Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Sengupta: In this study we looked at all full-term neonates, which are defined as those born between 37 weeks 0 days to 41 weeks 6 days.
Early term deliveries (37–38 weeks) are a significant part of all full-term deliveries, but are not the norm.
In our study, 27% of neonates were born early term (37-38 weeks) while almost 62% were born at or after 39 weeks (term neonates). Similar data has been reported by other established sources of vital statistics.
While traditionally, full term neonates are perceived to be a homogenous low-risk group, the findings from our study urge the pediatrics/neonatal provider to recognize early term (37-38 weeks) neonates as a higher risk group. They have significantly higher risk of NICU admission, respiratory morbidity, hypoglycemia, need for IV fluids and antibiotics.
02 Oct Opiod Use after Bariatric Surgery
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Marsha A. Raebel, PharmD, BCPS, FCCP
Investigator in Pharmacotherapy
Institute for Health Research
10065 E. Harvard Ave Suite 300
Denver, CO 80231.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: We found that in a group of patients who took chronic opioids for non-cancer pain and who underwent bariatric surgery there was greater chronic use of opioids after surgery compared with before surgery, findings that suggest the need for proactive management of chronic pain in these patients after surgery.
02 Oct Cognitive Function and Decision Making: Age-Related Changes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Agnieszka Anna Tymula
Lecturer (Assistant Professor)
School of Economics
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006, Australia
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: We found that individual risk preferences as well as consistency and rationality in choice change with age. Just like cognitive abilities, the ability to make consistent and rational decisions considerably declines in older adulthood. Tolerance to risk in the domain of gains follows an inverted U-shaped pattern along the life span, with older adults (65+ y. o.) and adolescents being more risk averse than young or midlife adults. Interestingly, in the domain of losses, older adults are willing to accept significantly more risks than adolescents, young and midlife adults.
02 Oct Statins and Cognitive Function
Neil V. Marrion, PhD
Professor of Neuroscience
Programme Director for BSc and MSci Pharmacology degrees
School of Physiology & Pharmacology
Medical and Veterinary Sciences University Walk
University of Bristol Bristol, BS8 1TD.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Marrion: We tested pravastatin and atorvostatin (two commonly prescribed statins) in rat learning and memory models. Rats were treated daily with pravastatin (brand name - Pravachol) or atorvostatin (brand name - Lipitor) for 18 days. The rodents were tested in a simple learning task before, during and after treatment, where they had to learn where to find a food reward. On the last day of treatment and following one week withdrawal, the rats were also tested in a task which measures their ability to recognise a previously encountered object (recognition memory).
The study’s findings showed that pravastatin tended to impair learning over the last few days of treatment although this effect was fully reversed once treatment ceased. However, in the novel object discrimination task, pravastatin impaired object recognition memory. While no effects were observed for atorvostatin in either task.
01 Oct Emergence of New Fat Cells and Response to Diet and Cold
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Philipp E. Scherer, PhD
Professor, Department of Internal Medicine
Director, Touchstone Diabetes Center
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, TX 75390-8549
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Scherer: This is the first study that tracks the emergence of new fat cells in response to various physiological stimuli, such as high fat diet and cold exposure.
01 Oct Hand Hygiene: Global WHO Strategy
MedicalResearch.com Interview with :
Prof Didier Pittet, MD, MS
Director of the Infection Control Programme and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety, University of Geneva Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
MedicalResearch.com : What are the main findings of the study?
Prof. Pittet: The main finding is that the WHO hand hygiene promotion strategy is feasible and sustainable across healthcare settings worldwide. For the first time, we have evidence of its feasibility and successful effects to improve hand hygiene in a variety of different geographical and income settings, with an even greater impact in low-/middle-income countries than in high-income countries.
30 Sep SPECT MPI to Predict Heart Attacks: Stress Agents Regadenoson vs Adenosine
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Afshin Farzaneh-Far, M.D.
University of Illinois at Chicago
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Traditionally SPECT MPI has been performed with adenosine which has a
significant body of published prognostic data.
Regadenoson is a selective A2A receptor agonist and is now the stress
agent most widely used in the United States. Unlike adenosine, regadenoson
is given as a bolus rather than as an infusion, simplifying the testing
protocol and is better-tolerated.
However, despite increasing use of regadenoson, there is very limited data
on risk prediction using this agent.
This study showed that the ability of SPECT MPI to predict heart attacks
and death is the same for the new stress agent Regadenoson as it is for
the old agent Adenosine.
30 Sep Early Dementia: Effect of Musical Activities on Cognitive Functioning
MedicalResearch.com:
Teppo Särkämö PhD
Institute of Behavioural Sciences
PL 9 (Siltavuorenpenger 1A), 363
FI-00014, HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO Finland
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: We found that caregiver-implemented musical leisure activities, such
as singing and music listening, are beneficial for elderly persons
with mild-moderate dementia (PWD). Compared to standard care, regular
singing and music listening improved mood, orientation level, episodic
memory and to a lesser extent, also attention and executive function
and general cognition. Singing also enhanced verbal working memory and
caregiver well-being, whereas music listening had a positive effect on
quality of life.
30 Sep Tricyclic Antidepressants as Inhibitors of Small Cell Lung Cancer
MedicalResearch.com: Interview with:
Dr. Atul Butte, MD, PhD
and
Julien Sage PhD
Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics
Department of Internal Medicine, University of California Davis Cancer Center
University of California Davis School of Medicine
Sacramento, California
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: A major finding of the study is the identification of first-generation anti-depressants as possible drugs effective against a lethal subtype of lung cancer, small cell lung cancer.
A second important aspect of this work is the use of a bioinformatics-based drug repositioning pipeline developed by the Butte lab, which allowed us, when combined with advanced mouse models of lung cancer developed by the Sage lab, to identify a novel targeted therapy against SCLC and initiate a clinical trial in less than 2 years.
26 Sep Prostate Cancer: Unstable Chromosomes May Predict Treatment Failures
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Robert G Bristow MD, PhD, FRCPC
Clinician-Scientist, Ontario Cancer Institute/Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Professor, Depts. of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto
Director, Core I - STTARR Innovation Facility
Canadian Cancer Society Research Scientist
http://www.uhnres.utoronto.ca/researchers/profile.php?lookup=645
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Bristow: We studied the more than 7 years of outcome of close to 250 patients with localized (intermediate risk) prostate cancer that received precision radiotherapy or surgery for cure. We found that up to one third of these patients fail initial radiotherapy or prostate surgery.
By using a patient’s initial diagnostic core biopsy, we studied the DNA fingerprints of the tumors. We noticed a pattern in which the patients that had failed treatment had abnormal levels of breaks at sites within the chromosomes that are sensitive to DNA damage called, “common fragile sites” (CFS).
These CFS break abnormalities have been linked to cancer in general and usually are associated with instability of the cell’s DNA-a phenomenon that is particularly associated with cancer.
So patients who have unstable chromosomes are more likely to fail precision radiotherapy or surgery.
26 Sep Obesity-Related Cancers and Blood Glucose Levels
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Niyati Parekh, PhD, RD
Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Public Health,
Director of Doctoral Program in Clinical Nutrition,
Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, Steinhardt School and
Department of Population Health, NYU Langone School of Medicine, New York University
411 Lafayette Street NY. NY-10003.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Parekh: The objective of the study was to investigate disturbances in blood glucose levels in relation to risk of obesity-related cancers. We observed an increased risk of obesity-related cancers, specifically colon cancer among persons with abnormal glucose values. These findings were stronger among persons who had this abnormality for longer duration (>10years).
26 Sep Pancreatic Cancer: Short Course Radiation May Benefit Elderly Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Raphael Yechieli Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit: MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Yechieli: The main findings of the study are that elderly patients with pancreatic cancer who also have significant co-morbidities can still be safely and effectively treated with a short course of radiation treatment. Furthermore, the local control and survival data from our study are similar to previously published data, where patients were treated with more intense and longer courses of treatment.26 Sep Decline in C. Difficile may be due to Decreased Antibiotic Exposure
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David W. Eyre, B.M., B.Ch. Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine University of Oxford National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre John Radcliffe Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of this study? Dr. Eyre: All cases of Clostridium difficile in Oxfordshire were studied over 3 years. Isolates were characterized by whole genome sequencing and the data was linked to hospital databases allowing epidemiological relationships between patients at the level of the hospital ward, hospital specialty, and post code to be identified. For comparison, similar information was also available for all other patients with and without diarrhea. Preliminary work on the genetic diversity of Clostridium difficile within individuals and between individuals within discrete outbreaks allowed reliable interpretation of transmission events using genomic data. This allowed a complete reconstruction of the pattern of transmission between affected cases in Oxfordshire to be made. The findings were: 1. Unexpectedly few cases (13%) appear to be acquired from direct ward based contact with other symptomatic cases (these have previously been thought to be the main source of infections, and the focus of prevention efforts). Another 6% were associated with other hospital contact and 3% had plausible community contacts. 2. In 13% of cases potential donors were identified gnomically but no contact, within hospitals or the community, were identified. This suggests that the existence of other modes of transmission of Clostridium difficile. 3. The sources of Clostridium difficile infections were highly genetically diverse, with 45% of cases having a genetically distinct origin - suggesting a diverse reservoir of disease, not previously appreciated 4. During the 3 years of the study the rate of Clostridium difficile in Oxfordshire fell. Any improvement in infection control techniques would be expected to reduce the incidence of cases caused by within hospital transmission. Surprisingly, similar rates of fall occurred in both in secondary cases (considered to be acquired from hospital associated symptomatic cases) and for primary cases (cases not associated with transmission from symptomatic cases).26 Sep Advanced Prostate Cancer: Abiraterone (Zytiga) Improved Quality of Life
MedicalResearch.com Interview with
Dr. Ethan Basch MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Basch: The primary clinical finding of this study is that treatment with abiraterone acetate delays the time until pain develops or worsens in men with advanced prostate cancer. Furthermore, abiraterone delays the time until quality of life and functioning deteriorate, compared to placebo. There is also a broader research finding of this study, which is that it is feasible to rigorously study the time until symptom progression in cancer clinical trials, which paves the way for future studies to use a similar approach.
25 Sep Bone Mineral Density: Does Repeat Testing Improve Fracture Risk Prediction?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Sarah D. Berry MD MPH
Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew Senior Life
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Berry: Repeating a bone mineral density (BMD) screening test in 4 years provided little additional value beyond baseline BMD when assessing fracture risk. Also, the second BMD measure resulted in little change in risk classification that is commonly used in clinical management of osteoporosis.
25 Sep Bariatric Surgery: Centers of Excellence Programs and Minority Access
Posted at 11:57h
in Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Medicare, Race/Ethnic Diversity, University of Michigan, Weight Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview Invitation
Dr. Lauren Hersch Nicholas Ph.D
Research Affiliate, Population Studies Center.
Faculty Research Fellow, Survey Research Center
University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Nicholas: We found that a Medicare policy designed to improve the safety of bariatric surgery was associated with 17% decline in the share of Medicare patients from minority groups receiving bariatric surgery.
25 Sep Cocaine: Brain Reward Circuitry Altered, even in Former Users
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Krishna Patel, M.S. Clinical Data Analyst Hartford Hospital|Institute of Living Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center Hartford, CT-06106 MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: We looked at brain response to a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in current and former cocaine users compared to healthy controls using functional MRI. The task measures aspects of sensitivity to rewards and punishments. Current cocaine users showed abnormal under-activation in reward circuitry compared to healthy controls. In some of those regions former cocaine users (who had an average of 4years of abstinence from cocaine) also showed abnormalities. These former users also showed over-activation in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, (an important region containing dopamine cell bodies) compared to both healthy controls and current cocaine users. Current and former cocaine users also scored higher on specific impulsivity measures, compared to healthy controls.25 Sep Childhood Cancer Survivors: Long Term Kidney Function Decline
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Renée L. Mulder, PhD
Department of Pediatric Oncology
Emma Children's Hospital / Academic Medical Center
1100 DD Amsterdam The Netherlands
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Mulder: The glomerular function of childhood cancer survivors treated with nephrotoxic therapy declines very soon after treatment and does not recover. The glomerular function declines over time. This decline is comparable to survivors treated without nephrotoxic therapy.
25 Sep Hip Fracture Risk and Link to Obesity Gene
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Tuan V. Nguyen
Osteoporosis and Bone Biology Program
Garvan Institute of Medical Research
384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Australia
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Nguyen: We analyzed polymorphisms of the FTO (fat mass and obesity) gene in 934 elderly women of Caucasian background, and found that carriers of minor genotype (AA) of the SNP rs1121980 had a two-fold increase in the risk of hip fracture compared with carriers of major genotype (GG). Approximately 20% of women are carriers of the AA genotype. We estimate that about 17% of hip fracture cases could be attributed to the variation within the gene.
25 Sep Myocardial Fat Content : Effects of Age and Aerobic Fitness
Posted at 00:46h
in Author Interviews, Case Western, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease, UT Southwestern
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Satyam Sarma MD
Assistant Instructor, Cardiology
University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center
Inst. for Exercise and Environmental Medicine
7232 Greenville Ave. Dallas TX 75231
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Sarma: The main findings of our study were that as we age or live a sedentary lifestyle, fat tends to accumulate in the muscle of the heart. The accumulation of myocardial lipids were linked to abnormalities in diastolic function. With increasing levels of fat, the left ventricle became less distensible and had impaired tissue relaxation.
25 Sep Breastfeeding Duration and Bedsharing Activity Influence
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Fern R. Hauck, MD, MS
Spencer P. Bass, MD Twenty-First Century Professor of Family Medicine
Director, International Family Medicine Clinic
Department of Family Medicine
University of Virginia, PO Box 800729
Charlottesville, VA 22908-072
Co-author of "14 Ways to Protect Your Baby from SIDS"
(www.parentingpress.com/sids.html)
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Hauck: We looked at data from the Infant Feeding Practices Study II, which followed mother from pregnancy through the first year of infant life. Mothers received several surveys that asked about infant feeding and bedsharing (sleeping with their infant in the same bed or other sleep surface). We found that mothers who bedshared for the longest time had the longest duration of breastfeeding compared with mothers who did not bedshare or bedshared for shorter times. Breastfeeding duration was also longer among mothers who were better educated, were white, had previously breastfed another child, had planned to breastfeed this baby, and had not returned to work in the first year after the baby was born.
25 Sep Anti-Obesity Medication Use in US
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Christian Hampp PhD
Division of Epidemiology-I, Office of Pharmacovigilance and Epidemiology
Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Silver Spring, Maryland
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Hampp: We investigated the use of prescription antiobesity drugs, including duration of use, in the United States from 2002 through 2011. We found that in 2011, approximately 2.74 million patients used antiobesity drugs, predominantly phentermine (2.43 million patients), while the use of prescription orlistat and sibutramine was relatively uncommon. Eighty-five percent of antiobesity drug users were female, 62% were aged 17-44 years, and 4.5% had a body mass index of ≤24.9 kg/m2. Duration of use was generally short and most patients only had one episode of antiobesity drug use during the observation period. The longest episode of use was ≤30 days in 47- 58% of patients. Approximately one quarter of patients used antiobesity drugs for longer than 90 days. Only 1.3- 4.2% of antiobesity drug users used them for >1 year.
24 Sep Severe Aortic Stenosis: Flow-Gradient Patterns after Aortic Valve Replacement
Posted at 23:16h
in Heart Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Mackram Eleid, MD
Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and Internal Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Eleid: Our study investigated the characteristics, outcomes and impact of aortic valve replacement in a large series of 1704 patients with severe aortic stenosis (aortic valve area < 1 cm2) and preserved ejection fraction (EF > 50%) according to the flow-gradient classification that incorporates both stroke volume index and mean aortic valve gradient. The primary findings were that patients with low flow, low gradient AS have lower survival than other flow-gradient patterns (a 3.2-fold increase risk of mortality compared to normal flow, low gradient), and their survival is improved with aortic valve replacement. Conversely, patients with normal flow and low gradient had a favorable survival with medical management, suggesting a less advanced stage of disease compared to the other groups. Additionally, a novel observation from this study is that patients with low flow had a higher prevalence of atrial fibrillation and previous heart failure events compared to other groups.
23 Sep MRSA: Number of Infections Still Increasing in Children
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Martha Iwamoto, MD, MPH Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia; MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Iwamoto: We have been successful in decreasing invasive MRSA infections among infants younger than 3 months, mostly due to declines in hospital –onset infections in NICUs. However, more needs to be done among pediatric patients older than 3 months, especially those in the community settings and without recent healthcare exposures.23 Sep Sexual Temptations and Gender Differences
Posted at 22:16h
in Author Interviews
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Natasha Tidwell
Graduate Research Assistant/Teaching Assistant
Department of Psychology
Texas A&M University - College Station
208 State Chemistry Building
Texas A&M Universit
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Basically, two studies demonstrated that men’s tendency to engage in “off limits” sexual behaviors more than women is linked to sex differences in impulse, not control.
In Study 1, we asked participants to reflect on previous times they succumbed to sexual temptations they felt were inappropriate some way. Based on their responses, we found that men both experienced stronger impulses and engaged in behavior based on these impulses more than women did. However, there was no reported difference in how much men and women exerted self-control.
23 Sep Psychopathic Traits: Trajectories in Adolescence
MedicalResearch.com Interview with Selma Salihovic, Doctoral student Center for Developmental Research Örebro University MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Salihovic: Although previous research has examined the stability of psychopathic traits, our study offer a more nuanced perspective on development. Rather than asking whether psychopathic traits simply increase or decrease in adolescence, we asked about patterns of change for youths with different initial level of psychopathic traits. In this way, we could tease apart those youths with extreme levels from those with low and more transient levels, and follow their unique trajectories over four years. We could see that even among the youths with the highest levels there was a decreasing trend in two out of three core aspects of psychopathy. Although the degree of change was small, it was still a naturally occurring pattern for these youths, which raises the question whether an intervention designed to reduce these levels would have provided even a steeper decrease.22 Sep Heart Failure and Air Pollution
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Anoop Shah MBChB Cardiology Research fellow Centre of Cardiovascular sciences Chancellors Building University Of Edinburgh Little France Edinburgh MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: Many studies have shown the effect of air pollution on cardiac mortality and myocardial infarction. Less studies have shown a similar effect on patients with heart failure. We therefore systemically reviewed and pooled data across 12 countries involving over 4 million patients with heart failure. We showed that air pollution has a close temporal association with either being hospitalized or dying from heart failure. Most of the effects of air pollution on patients with heart failure were acute. Most of the data that we analyzed came from developed countries across Europe and the USA. There was a significant paucity of data from rapidly urbanizing nations such as India and China.22 Sep Powerpoint of Recent Medical Research Interviews
Posted at 13:12h
in Author Interviews
MedicalResearch.com - Medical Research Interviews Week in Review from Marie Benz , MD FAAD ...