Author: Marie Benz MD FAAD
26 Sep Precision Medicine: Genetic Variants Predict Response of Eosinophilic Esophagitis to PPIs
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51656" align="alignleft" width="151"] Dr. Franciosi[/caption]
James P. Franciosi, MD
Chief of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition
Nemours Children's Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic inflammation of the esophagus that is driven by eosinophils. A common class of medications used for this condition are called Proton Pump Inhibitors, or PPIs, which block the production of gastric acid in the stomach. Currently only 30 to 60 percent of children with EoE respond well when treated with PPIs.
We hypothesized that genetic variants in the genes for CYP2C19 and STAT6 could plausibly be associated with response to PPI therapy for EoE.
26 Sep Excess Sugar in Childhood Linked to Adult Obesity Epidemic
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51635" align="alignleft" width="171"] Dr. Bentley[/caption]
Professor Alex Bentley
Head of Anthropology
University of Tennessee
Knoxville TN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In recent years, considerable evidence has accumulated suggesting that excess sugar consumption, e.g. in sugar-sweetened beverages, has been a major driver of the U.S. obesity crisis. Critics of this idea, however, have asked: why did the rise in sugar consumption precede the U.S. obesity crises by a decade or more, and why did obesity continue to rise even after sugar consumption began declining the early 2000s?
We modeled the delayed onset of obesity by assuming that diet is a cumulative process that begins in childhood. On average, each age cohort (birth year) has its own specific cumulative exposure to excess sugar in their diets. The inherent delay in our model links childhood consumption of excess sugar with propensity for adult obesity as an adult. Our model explains a simple process by which excess sugar in diets of children of the 1970s and 1980s could explain the sharp increase of adult obesity that began in the 1990s.
25 Sep Apple Cider Vinegar Soaks Did Not Improve Skin Barrier in Atopic Dermatitis – Eczema
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51611" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Flowers[/caption]
Hal Flowers MD
Assistant Professor of Dermatology
University of Virginia
Dr. Flowers specializes in autoimmune connective tissue disease (rheumatologic dermatology), phototherapy and blistering skin diseases
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Unfortunately, there really is not much literature at all addressing the treatment of atopic dermatitis with apple cider vinegar (ACV), even though we know that this is something our patients are doing. ACV is appealing as a “natural therapy” for treatment of skin disease. Since it’s an acid, it can theoretically correct the loss of acidity that occurs in the skin of our eczema patients. Plus, we know that high enough concentrations will kill certain bacteria that promote eczema, particularly Staphylococcus aureus. There are plenty of blogs and anecdotes as well as physicians who recommend this treatment, but as of yet, we don’t know the best concentration, safety or the benefit of ACV.
25 Sep Younger Children in Same School Year More Likely To Be Diagnosed with Depression, ADHD and Intellectual Disability
Posted at 11:27h
in ADHD, Author Interviews, Depression, Education, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51452" align="alignleft" width="200"] Jeremy Brown[/caption]
Jeremy Brown BA MSc
RESEARCH DEGREE STUDENT IN PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Given the way schools typically work, children in the same year as each other can be almost a whole year apart in terms of age. We’ve known for a while that children who are young in their year at school are also more likely to be diagnosed as having hyperactivity disorders and tend to do less well academically than the older children in the year. They also seem to be at increased risk of suicide. This is thankfully an extremely rare occurrence in children, but there is little evidence about whether younger children are more likely to be diagnosed with depression.
We used electronic health records for just over a million children in the UK to see if there was any association between how old the children were in their year and whether they got diagnosed with ADHD, intellectual disability and depression.
25 Sep Menopausal Night Sweats Linked to Worse Cognitive Performance
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Bark, PhD Student Behavioral Neuroscience Program Department of Psychology University of Illinois at Chicago MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: 80% of women undergoing menopause experience vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats. 40-60% of women in menopause experience sleep problem. Both of these symptoms of menopause have been associated with cognitive difficulties, but to my knowledge, this is the first study to use objective assessments of sleep and vasomotor symptoms to understand their effects on the brain.
24 Sep Increased Hypertension Risk in Patients With Periodontitis – Gum Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Eva Muñoz Aguilera BDS MFDS MClinDent (Dist) MPerio RCSEd EFP Diploma in Periodontology and Implant Dentistry Senior Clinical Teaching Fellow in Periodontology UCL Eastman Dental Institute, London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: High blood pressure and periodontitis are highly prevalent conditions that affect more than one third of the adult population worldwide. High blood pressure is the leading global cause of premature death and is the main preventable cause of cardiovascular disease, while gum disease - also known as periodontitis - leads to severe inflammation of the gums and tooth loss. It impairs aesthetics and function and reduces quality of life. Most importantly, there is increasing evidence that periodontitis increases risk for future cardiovascular disease. Both diseases share common risk factors such as obesity and smoking and are major health problems that significantly impact on health costs.
24 Sep Bispecific Inhibitor Helps Overcome Pancreatic Cancer Drug Resistance
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51591" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Reuveni[/caption]
Hadas Reuveni, PhD
VP of Research and Development
Kitov Pharma
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Current treatments fail to provide patients with an effective and long-lasting response, mostly given to the nature of the tumor microenvironment which hinders drug accessibility, the late stage on diagnosis and the rapid upregulation of compensatory alternative signaling pathways by the tumor cells that lead to cancer drug resistance. Two of the major parallel pathways regulating tumor survival and metastasis as well as the crosstalk of the tumor and its microenvironment are mediated by insulin receptor substrate (IRS) 1 and 2, and by the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3). Both IRS1 and STAT3 have been shown to play a significant role in development of drug resistance by tumor cells.
NT219, the focus of the current study, is a small molecule that presents a new concept in cancer therapy. NT219 represents a new family of novel compounds acting as a dual inhibitor of both IRS1/2 and STAT3 signaling both directly in the tumor and its microenvironment. We have previously shown that simultaneous inhibition of these two pathways is crucial to overcome drug resistance, and to prolong the positive response of the anti-cancer activity of approved cancer drugs. NT219 targets IRS1/2 for degradation using a unique mechanism, supported by a feed-forward decrease in IRS gene expression. A long-term suppression of both IRS and STAT3 by NT-219 has been demonstrated in previous preclinical studies, which lasted days following removal of NT219 from the cancer cells, assuring a strong and prolonged anti-cancer activity. This study was designed to investigate the efficacy of NT219 at overcoming drug resistance to several approved oncology therapies using patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of KRAS mutant pancreatic cancer, as well as to validate NT219's mechanism of action and optimal dose regimen.
24 Sep When Hospital Data Systems Are Hacked, It’s Usually Financial Information That’s Leaked
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51411" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Jiang[/caption]
John (Xuefeng) Jiang PhD
Professor and Plante Moran Faculty Fellow
Eli Broad College of Business
Accounting & Information Systems
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI
MedicalResearch.com: How did you get interested in this issue?
Response: This is the third project of our data breach trilogy. We first examined which healthcare providers (focusing on hospitals) more likely suffer from a data breach. We documented large hospitals, despite their resources, are more likely to experience a data breach. Some hospitals experienced multiple incidents (https://jamanetwork.altmetric.com/details/18464149).
The findings made us wonder what happened? Besides size, what other factors contribute to data breaches? Based on detailed event descriptions, we documented the circumstances under which each data breach occurred (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2715158).
We found more than half of data breaches could be attributed to healthcare providers’ internal mistakes or negligence (e.g., forgot to encrypt laptop computers, used cc instead of bcc in emailing patients, didn’t revoke former employees’ login credentials after employment terminated) rather than external forces (e.g., hacking). We also found mobile devices (e.g. laptop computers, usb drives) are associated with most data breaches than paper records or network servers. Our results suggest if healthcare providers strengthen their internal control and limit the use of mobile device might be effective ways to reduce data breach risks.
24 Sep Snacking on Nuts Better for Weight Control than Chips
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Deirdre K Tobias, ScD Associate Epidemiologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical SchoolMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What types of nuts are helpful? Peanuts included?
Response: We did not have the granularity in our study to evaluate too many individual nut types, and did not perform head-to-head comparisons between types of nuts. All seemed to be better for long-term weight control compared with the snacks like potato chips that we know are not great for us on a regular basis.
24 Sep Sports Specialization Hurts Girls More Than Boys
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51581" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Prof. Field[/caption]
Alison E. Field, ScD
Professor and Chair of Epidemiology
Brown University School of Public Heath
Providence, RI
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Over past couple of decades there has been a large change in youth sports from playing different sports in each season to more and more specialization where children are playing the same sport for three or more seasons. The concern with that change is that specialization at young ages will lead to more injuries, as well as athlete burnout.
24 Sep Amyloid and Cerebrovascular Disease Have Different Effects on Brain Networks
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Juan Helen Zhou, PhD, on behalf of the co-authors
Associate Professor and Principal Investigator
Neuroscience and Behavioural Disorders (NBD) Programme
Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Alzheimer’s disease and cerebrovascular disease are among the leading disorders affecting the elderly, with up to 50 per cent of dementia patients showing co-occurrence of both disorders. It is therefore of great interest to understand the influence of co-occurring Alzheimer’s disease and cerebrovascular disease pathologies on brain changes, and examine if such changes are able to track early differential disease progression. Past cross-sectional studies have suggested that Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease pathologies contribute independently to brain functional and structural changes, and cognitive decline.
Our study sought to demonstrate the independent contributions of both pathologies to brain functional networks in a longitudinal cohort of mild cognitive impairment patients, often regarded as early stage of the disease.
23 Sep Almost 2 Million Diabetics Gained Health Insurance Under Affordable Care Act
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51566" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Myerson[/caption]
Rebecca Myerson, PhD
Assistant Professor, Population Health Sciences
School of Medicine and Public Health
University of Wisconsin, Madison
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Many people with diabetes are undiagnosed, and those who are diagnosed often are untreated and uncontrolled. Increasing access to health insurance for patients with health care needs was a goal of the Affordable Care Act.
We analyzed information from 11 years of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which gathers data that are nationally representative of the civilian population. The biennial survey includes biomarkers, including HbA1c, a measure of blood-sugar control. Using the NHANES data allowed the researchers to identify those with undiagnosed diabetes.
23 Sep CT Radiation Doses for Lung Cancer Screening Vary Widely
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51556" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Demb[/caption]
Joshua Demb, PhD, MPH
Postdoctoral Scholar, Moores Cancer Center
University of California, San Diego
Health Science Research Specialist
Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Our study leveraged radiation dose data from 72 facilities performing CT scans around the United States to learn more about the radiation dose used for lung cancer screening scans, as well as possible institutional predictors that might be associated with higher dose. Currently, the American College of Radiology has recommendations for how these low-dose lung cancer screening scans should be performed. However, it is unclear how much adherence there currently is to these guidelines.
Our findings indicated that there is wide variation in the distribution of radiation doses for low-dose lung cancer screening scans both within- and between facilities in our sample—in some cases this variation led to doses higher than the ACR recommendations.
23 Sep Eliminating Automatic Insurance Reenrollment Can Increase Number of Uninsured
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51408" align="alignleft" width="129"] Dr. Drak[/caption]
Coleman Drake, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management
Affiliate faculty member
Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing
University of Pittsburgh
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Every year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services puts out of notice of proposed changes to the rules governing the Health Insurance Marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act (e.g., healthcare.gov). The most recent notice for 2020 (issued in 2019) considered eliminating automatic reenrollment for Marketplace enrollees.
On the one hand, requiring that enrollees actively select a health plan to stay insured is a good thing because it forces them to consider their options – we know that people make better health plan choices when they consider their choices.
On the other hand, creating an administrative barrier to staying insured could cause some people to become uninsured. Since 3.4 million Marketplace enrollees used automatic enrollment in 2019, eliminating it might cause a spike in the uninsured rate.
23 Sep Parental Smoking Linked to Atrial Fibrillation in Offspring
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51387" align="alignleft" width="126"] Dr. Marcus[/caption]
Gregory M Marcus, MD, MAS
Professor of Medicine in Residence
Endowed Professor in Atrial Fibrillation Research
University of California, San Francisco
Associate Chief of Cardiology for Research, UCSF Health
University of California, San Francisco
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Smoking remains the most common preventable cause of death and disability. We previously found evidence that tobacco smoke exposure in the young may lead to atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm disturbance, later in life.
Here we leveraged the multi-generational nature of the Framingham Heart Study to demonstrate that parental smoking was a risk factor for offspring atrial fibrillation. At least some of this relationship was explained by a greater propensity to smoke in offspring of smoking parents. These findings demonstrate a potentially new harmful effect of smoking pertinent to the most vulnerable population, our children. It also demonstrates how parental behaviors can have meaningful adverse consequences to their children decades later.
23 Sep Penn Researchers Developing Vaccine To Prevent Genital Herpes Infection
Posted at 21:45h
in Author Interviews, Herpes Viruses, Science, University of Pennsylvania, Vaccine Studies
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51550" align="alignleft" width="148"] Prof. Friedman[/caption]
Harvey M. Friedman, MD
Professor of Medicine/Infectious Diseases
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6073
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Mice and guinea pigs are the animal models used to evaluate candidate vaccines for preventing genital herpes. My lab has been working on such a vaccine.
Our candidate vaccine contains 3 immunogens. One immunogen is a protein on the virus that is required for the virus to enter cells (viruses need to enter cells to replicate). The other two immunogens are proteins on the virus that help the virus escape immune attack.
Our intent is to produce antibodies to these 3 proteins by immunization and that the antibodies will bind to the proteins on the virus and block the protein functions. The virus then will not be able to enter cells and will not be able to use its evasion strategies to avoid the immune responses generated by the vaccine. Our vaccine aimed at preventing immune evasion is novel as a component of a genital herpes vaccine.
23 Sep Epigenetic Changes Linked to Hypersexual Disorder and Addictive Behaviors
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adrian E. Boström MD, on behalf of the authors Department of Neuroscience Uppsala University, Sweden
22 Sep E-Cig Use Increases Among Young Adults As Well As Adolescents
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51463" align="alignleft" width="165"]
Dr. Hongying (Daisy) Dai[/caption]
Hongying (Daisy) Dai, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Biostatistics | College of Public Health
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Previous studies have reported a surge in e-cigarette use among youth during the 2017 - 2018. For instance, the prevalence of current (past 30-day) e-cigarette use increased by 77.8% (from 11.7% to 20.8%) among high school students and by 48.5% (from 3.3% to 4.9%) among middle school students.
As a result, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that youth e-cigarette use is reaching an epidemic proportion in September 2018. Whether e-cigarette use prevalence also increased among young adults (aged 18-24 years), a population with high e-cigarette use rates and vulnerability to nicotine dependence, is unknown.
21 Sep Obese Patients More Likely to Have Diarrhea
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51447" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Ballou[/caption]
Sarah Ballou, PhD
Health Psychologist
Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, MA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Obesity is known to be associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal and liver diseases, but less is known about the relationship between obesity and constipation or diarrhea.
We used a nationally representative sample of the US population to evaluate whether obesity was associated with abnormal bowel habits. We found that obese individuals were 60% more likely to have diarrhea, even after controlling for possible confounding factors such as dietary, lifestyle, psychological, and medical conditions.
21 Sep Dengue Can Outsmart Vaccines By Mutating When Patient Has Fever
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51442" align="alignleft" width="142"] Dr. Shee-Mei Lok[/caption]
Dr Shee-Mei Lok, PhD
Professor in the Emerging Infectious Disease program
Duke-NUS, a school of National University of Singapore
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Dengue virus consists of four different serotypes (DENV1-4) and within each serotypes, there are multiple strains. In terms of the viral particle shape, our previous research work using some laboratory adapted strains showed these DENV2 strains are very interesting in that it can change shape from the smooth spherical surface particles when grown at mosquito physiological temperature (29oC) and then becomes bumpy surfaced particles when incubated at human physiological temperature (37oC). This ability to transform into different virus surface structures helps the virus to escape from the immune system of the human host. Hence understanding the mechanism of how this occur is important for therapeutics and vaccine development. Here we also identified a laboratory adapted virus strain that do not showed this structural changes.
[caption id="attachment_51443" align="alignleft" width="720"]
Micrographs of DENV2 with different distribution of smooth and bumpy surfaced particles when incubated at different temperatures to mimic the physiological temperature in the mosquitoes (29°C, left panel), human host (37°C, middle panel) and when humans are experiencing high fever (40°C, right panel). Colour gradient from blue to red shows the rise in temperature.Xin-Ni Lim, Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, Duke-NUS Medical School[/caption] We showed some differences in their amino acid sequences and We showed some differences in their amino acid sequences and mutating these residues coupled with observing their surface structures showed which residues are important for this temperature induced structural change. Results showed that subtle mutations at different places on the envelope protein can destabilize the virus allowing them to change in structure when temperature is elevated. Due to the poor selection pressure of the artificial laboratory tissue culture system, gradual mutations of the virus is accumulated causing the virus to have bumpy surface morphology.
19 Sep Needle-free injection of exosomes enable skin repair after UVB damage
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51404" align="alignleft" width="164"] Dr. Ke Cheng[/caption]
Dr. Ke Cheng, PhD
Professor, Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences, NCSU
Professor, UNC/NCSU joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are exosomes?
Response: People are developing lots cosmetic products to keep a healthy and young appearance, like antioxidants, growth factors, peptides and more recently, stem cell products. Also, people are seeking more effective solutions for better absorption, like lotion, mask, laser and fillers. What is used for the treatment and how to deliver it are vitally important to the final effect and lasting time.
Exosomes are nano-sized small vehicles containing proteins, nucleic acids, and they are messengers for cell communication and regulation. Here we use skin cell-secreted exosomes to fight skin aging.
19 Sep Early Palliative Care Associated With Increased Survival in Lung Cancer Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51375" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Sullivan[/caption]
Donald Sullivan, MD, MA, MCR
Associate Professor of Medicine & Associate Fellowship Program Director
Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Investigator, Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC)
VA-Portland Health Care System
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
- Patients with lung cancer suffer from considerable physical and psychological symptom burden and palliative care is underutilized or delivered too close to death to provide meaningful benefits for these patients. Palliative care is associated with improved quality of life for these patients, but the findings regarding a survival benefit are not clear.
- Palliative care is distinct from hospice. Palliative care is meant to be delivered along with disease-modifying therapy and focuses on improving quality of life by addressing pain and other problems, including physical, psychosocial and spiritual for patients and their families. Hospice care is focused on reducing suffering, pain and anxiety at the very end of life; typically within a few months of death.
19 Sep How Often Does Doctor’s Note Match What Happens in Exam Room?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carl Berdahl, MD, MS Emergency Physician and Health Services Researcher CEDARS-SINAI West Hollywood CA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The length of a doctor’s note is taken account when determining how much a doctor or medical center is paid for a visit. However, in the digital era, a doctor can generate large amounts of text with just a few keystrokes. Given this incentive structure, we were concerned doctors’ notes might be inaccurate in certain sections of the chart that are important for billing. We used observers to determine how accurately doctors’ notes reflected the interactions between patients and physicians.
19 Sep Smart Phone App Uses Machine Learning To Triage Skin Cancers
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Andreea Udrea, PhD
Associate Professor
University Politehnica of Bucharest
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
The skin cancer incidence rate is increasing worldwide. Early diagnosis and prevention can reduce
morbidity and are also linked to decreased healthcare costs. During the last years, efforts have been
made in developing smartphone applications for skin lesion risk assessment to be used by laypersons.
In parallel, as machine learning (ML) is on the rise, and medical image databases are increasing in size, a
series of algorithms have been developed and compared in clinical studies to dermatologists for skin
cancer diagnosis. The accuracy of the algorithms and experts were comparable.
One drawback of these clinical studies is that they use images acquired by professionals in standardized
conditions. So, there is little knowledge of what the accuracy will be when including an ML algorithm in
an app and testing it in a non-clinical setup where the image quality may be lower, and the variability in
image taking scenarios is higher as images are acquired by non-professionals using the smartphone
camera. This study is one of the first that evaluates the accuracy of an app (SkinVision) when being used
for risk assessment of skin lesions in the general population.
19 Sep Tired Surgeons Schedule Fewer Surgeries
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51389" align="alignleft" width="170"] Dr. TINGHÖG[/caption]
Gustav Tinghög, PhD
Associate Professor
Division of Economics
Department of Management and Engineering, IEI
JEDI-lab: JUDGEMENT, EMOTION, DECISION and INTUITION
Linköping University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Previous studies have shown that when we get tired, we make decisions without engaging in cognitively demanding reasoning, and we postpone risky or uncertain choices. Previous studies have explored this idea of “decision fatigue” in relation to parole hearing outcomes, failure of health services workers to wash their hands, and the likelihood of physicians prescribing antibiotics.
In our study we wanted to investigate how patient ordering affected decisions scheduled patients for orthpedic surgery (excluding acute cases)
18 Sep Fixed Dose Combination Polypill Can Reduce Barriers to Cardiovascular Care
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51303" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Munoz[/caption]
Daniel Muñoz, M.D, M.P.A
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology
Medical Director for Quality, Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute
Medical Director, Cardiovascular ICU
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, Tennessee
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Despite advances in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, it remains the number one global killer of both men and women. Patients face a variety of barriers to getting the care need, including cost and complexity of medication regimens. Innovative strategies are needed to improve the delivery of preventive care, especially when it comes to socio-economically vulnerable individuals. The polypill, a fixed-dose combination of 3 blood pressure lowering medications and a cholesterol lowering medication, may be a strategy for improving cardiovascular disease prevention.
We enrolled 303 patients at a community health center in Mobile, Alabama. Half of the patients were assigned to take a daily polypill, while the other half received their usual medical care. Participants underwent a standard medical exam, blood pressure measurement, and blood cholesterol testing during their initial visit, a 2-month visit, and a 12-month visit.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
- Participants in the polypill group experienced a greater reduction in both systolic blood pressure and LDL cholesterol level, as compared with participants in the usual care group. These differences translate to an approximate 25% reduction in the risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.
- At 12 months, adherence to the polypill regimen, as assessed based on pill counts, was 86%.
- The vast majority of our study participants were African-American (96%), with three quarters reporting an annual income below $15,000.
18 Sep Single Tick Bite Can Transmit More Than Just Lyme Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51382" align="alignleft" width="130"]
Dr. Benach[/caption]
Jorge Benach, PhD
Distinguished Toll Professor
Molecular Genetics & Microbiology and Pathology
Renaissance School of Medicine
Stony Brook University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The increases in the numbers of cases of tick-borne diseases in the nation, and the increases in the number of cases in our area were the catalysts to document the levels of infection with a number of pathogens in the vector ticks. In addition, there were indications that an invasive tick species, the lone star tick, had taken a foothold in our area and had brought new tick-borne pathogens. Identification of the multiple pathogens was made possible by the molecular probes developed by Dr Rafal Tokarz, another corresponding author of our study
18 Sep Who Benefits When Hospitals Offer Executive Physicals?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51306" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Korenstein[/caption]
Deborah Korenstein, MD FACP
General internist and Chief, General Internal Medicine
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Executive physicals are 1 to 2-day comprehensive health assessments offering disease screening and preventive testing. Large companies can arrange for these evaluations for senior executives. They are often offered by prestigious academic medical centers, but can also be located in less formal settings like spas. They generally include a set of tests that sometimes vary based on patient characteristics. Any tests that are done in response to from findings from executive physicals are billed to health insurance companies. A single 2008 paper described executive physicals and criticized them for being non-evidence based. Since then, executive physicals have grown in popularity, but their nature and impact have not been described. We set out to describe included services and cost of executive physicals at top academic medical centers.
18 Sep How Do Puberty, Menopause and BCPs Affect Risk of Diabetes?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr Sopio Tatulashvili
Avicenne Hospital
Bobigny, France
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Diabetes and pre-diabetes are associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Early screening and the treatment of glucose metabolism disorders could lower the risk of further complications. Furthermore, type 2 diabetes can be prevented. For this purpose, it is of major importance to better identify the risk factors of type 2 diabetes. Hormonal factors are increasingly suspected to play a role in the etiology of type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to determine the associations between various hormonal factors and the risk of incident type 2 diabetes in the large prospective female E3N (Etude Épidémiologique de Femmes de la Mutuelle Générale de L’Education Nationale) cohort study. Based on a very detailed set of information available in 83,799 women from the large prospective E3N cohort study followed for 22 years, we have been able to clarify the relationships between various hormonal factors and type 2 diabetes risk.