Blog – Medical Research News and Interviews
02 Dec 17 States Have More White Deaths Than Births
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30123" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Rogelio Saenz[/caption]
Rogelio Saenz PhD
Dean, College of Public Policy
University of Texas at San Antonio
Senior Fellow
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: My colleague, Kenneth M. Johnson, and I conducted research based on mortality and birth data from the Center for Disease Control. These data allow us to assess natural decrease, i.e., greater number of deaths compared to births. We find that 17 states had more white deaths than white births in 2014, the most historically, compared to only four in 2004. We find that the 17 states with white natural decrease tend to have relatively high percentages of their populations being elderly (65 and older), low proportions of women being in childbearing ages (15-44), and relatively low fertility rates.
02 Dec Lung Maturity Test Can Determine Which Premature Infants are at risk of RDS
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30177" align="alignleft" width="164"]
Prof. Henrik Verder[/caption]
Prof. Henrik Verder
Department of Pediatrics
Holbaek University Hospital
Denmark
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in premature infants. It can be effectively treated with surfactant, a therapy which reduces the effort needed to expand the lungs during inspiration and allow gas exchange to take place. Early surfactant treatment can help prevent the onset and impact of RDS, however, prophylactic treatment has been shown to be harmful and only necessary in half of all pre-term infants. This study provided data validating the efficacy of a lung maturity test (LMT) in identifying infants at risk of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) who could benefit from early surfactant treatment.
02 Dec Cancer Can Mean High Out-of-Pocket Expenses For Seniors With Only Medicare
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_29945" align="alignleft" width="80"]
Dr. Amol Narang[/caption]
Dr. Amol K. Narang, MD
Instructor of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences
Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We know that cancer care is becoming increasingly expensive in the U.S., but the financial impact on patients in the form of out-of-pocket expenses is not well understood, in part because of the lack of data sources that track this information. As such, we used the Health and Retirement study, a national panel study that closely tracks the out-of-pocket medical expenditures of older Americans, to understand the level of financial strain that Medicare patients experience after a new diagnosis of cancer. We further investigated what factors were associated with high financial strain and what type of health services were driving high costs in this population.
02 Dec Can Probiotics in Yogurt Protect Against Stress and Anxiety?
Posted at 14:32h
in Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Mental Health Research, Nature, Probiotics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_30115" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Elizabeth Bryda[/caption]
Elizabeth Bryda, PhD
Professor, Director, Rat Resource and Research Center
Veterinary Pathobiology
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: A number of groups have demonstrated the ability of probiotics to benefit digestive health and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest an association between mental health and “gut health”. We were interested to see if probiotic bacteria could decrease anxiety- or stress-related behavior in a controlled setting using zebrafish as our model organism of choice for these studies.
We were able to show that Lactobacillus plantarum decreased overall anxiety-related behavior and protected against stress-induced dysbiosis (microbial imbalance). The fact that administration of probiotic bacteria also protected other resident gut bacteria from the dramatic changes seen in “stressed” fish not receiving the probiotic was unexpected and suggested that these bacteria may be working at the level of the GI tract and the central nervous system.
02 Dec Americans Continue To Have Better Lipid Profiles
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Asher Rosinger, PHD, MPH Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Health and Examination Nutrition Examination Surveys, Analysis Branch National Center for Health Statistic MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels are linked to coronary heart disease and cardiovascular events. Between 1999 and 2010, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL levels declined among U.S. adults. We used new data from the 2011-2014 nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to determine if earlier trends continued.02 Dec God Activates Reward Centers In Brain
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30097" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Jeffrey S. Anderson[/caption]
Jeffrey S. Anderson, MD, PhD
Director the fMRI Neurosurgical Mapping Service
Principal Investigator for the Utah Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory
University of Utah
MedicalResearch.com: What is your study about?
Response: Billions of people find meaning in life and make choices based on religious and spiritual experiences. These experiences range from epiphanies that change the lives of celebrated mystics to subtle feelings of peace and joy in the lives of neighbors, friends, or family members that are interpreted as spiritual, divine, or transcendent.
Astonishingly, with all we understand about the brain, we still know very little about how the brain participates in these experiences. We set out to answer what brain networks are involved in representing spiritual feelings in one group of people, devout Mormons.
02 Dec Insomniacs May Benefit From Internet Delivered Program
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30102" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Lee M. Ritterband[/caption]
Lee M. Ritterband, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences
Director, Center for Behavioral Health and Technology
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Ivy Foundational Translational Research Building
Charlottesville, VA 22903
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, a non-pharmacological intervention, is the first line recommendation for adults with chronic insomnia (see recommendations made earlier this year from the American College of Physicians). Access to CBT-I, however, is limited by numerous barriers, including a limited supply of behavioral medicine providers. One way to help improve access to this effective treatment is to develop and evaluate additional delivery methods of CBT-I, including Internet-delivered CBT-I.
This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of an Internet-delivered CBT-I program (SHUTi: Sleep Healthy Using The Internet) over the short-term (9-weeks) and long-term (1-year).
01 Dec Humanoid Robot Deepens Understanding of How Toddlers Learn What Words Mean
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30093" align="alignleft" width="350"]
Humanoid Robot Helps Understand How Toddlers Link Words to Objects[/caption]
Dr Katie (Katherine) Twomey
ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow, Lancaster University
Senior Research Associate, ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD)
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Although we know that toddlers can quickly work out what new words mean, it's not yet clear exactly how they do it. For example, when they see a new object alongside their favorite toy truck and hear a new word "block", we know that they will link "block" to the new object. They could do this by thinking in detail about what they already know, for example "if my toy is called "truck", then "block" must be the name of the new object". Equally, however, they could quickly link the new word to the new object without thinking about it in-depth.
We tested this second possibility using iCub, a humanoid robot which learns by making quick associations between what it sees and what it hears, without the ability to think in detail about what it already knows. We replicated two studies of toddlers' early word learning with iCub and found that even though it can only learn through making simple links between words and objects, it behaved exactly as children did in the original experiments.
01 Dec Therapies That Target Accessory Cells in a Tumor May Enhance Standard Care
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30081" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Sudarshan Anand[/caption]
Sudarshan Anand, PhD
Department of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology
Department of Radiation Medicine
Oregon Health and Science University
Portland, Oregon
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Almost half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy during the course of their disease.
While the impact of radiation on the cancer cells has been well studied in experimental models, its effects on the accessory cells that are present in the tumor are not well known. One of the major interests of our lab is studying these accessory cells of the tumor aka “the tumor microenvironment”. These group of cells consists of blood vessel cells, fibroblasts and immune cells that are normal cells that have been recruited by the tumor and generally support tumor growth.
The goal of this study was to understand the impact of radiation (and broadly DNA damaging agents) on the blood vessel cells in the tumor. We focused on a specific type of molecule called microRNAs (miRs) in these cells. miRs are small RNA molecules that bind to dozens of messenger RNAs and the production of proteins.
We discovered a group of microRNAs that was induced in blood vessel cells by radiation, a chemotherapy agent cisplatin and peroxide an agent that mimics oxidative stress that is often present in cancers. We found that the top candidate on this list was a microRNA that mimicked radiation by inducing DNA damage and eventually killing the blood vessel cells. Administering this microRNA, either within a tumor or using a specific nanoparticle that delivers cargo to the tumor blood vessels, decreased tumor growth in mouse models of breast cancer, brain cancer and colorectal cancer. We found that the efficacy of this agent was a result of its ability to suppress a protein TREX1, that is often mutated in human lupus.
In other words, this microRNA was able to create some of the immune and inflammatory features of lupus within a tumor and induce proteins that triggered cell death on tumor cells. Overall, our work illustrates how the tumor accessory cells respond to radiation and highlights the cross-talk between different accessory cells and the tumor cells.
01 Dec Protein Found To Enhance Ability To Kill MRSA
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30077" align="alignleft" width="106"]
Dr. Warren Leonard[/caption]
Warren Leonard, M.D.
NIH Distinguished Investigator
Laboratory of Molecular Immunology
NHLBI, NIH
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: TSLP is a cytokine that has been well studied in the context of T cell helper type 2 (TH2) responses and the promotion of atopic diseases. TSLP is naturally expressed at barrier surfaces, such as the skin; however, its role in skin infections was not previously explored.
In our study, we investigated whether TSLP plays a role in host defense to Staphylococcus aureus skin infections, using the most common strain of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) present in the United States.
01 Dec Prediction of Congenital CMV Infection in High-Risk Pregnant Women
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30252" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Kenji Tanimura[/caption]
Dr. Kenji Tanimura M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Graduate School of Medicine and
Hideto Yamada M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chairman Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection can cause long-term neurological sequelae, such as hearing difficulties and mental retardations, in affected children. Some investigators reported that early diagnosis and antiviral therapy can improve neurological outcomes in symptomatic congenital infected infants. However, universal screening of newborns for congenital CMV infection is not yet available. Therefore, the development of non-invasive methods for prenatal detection of mothers and newborns at high risk for congenital CMV infection has been desired.
We aimed to determine maternal clinical, laboratory, and ultrasound findings that effectively predict the occurrence of congenital CMV infection in high-risk pregnant women, who were positive for CMV IgM.
We performed maternal blood screening for CMV IgG and IgM, and 300 IgM-positive pregnant women, including 22 with congenital CMV infection, received series of examinations. We evaluated maternal clinical and laboratory findings, including serum CMV IgM and IgG, IgG avidity index, antigenemia testing, and CMV-DNA PCR for the maternal serum, urine, and uterine cervical secretion, and prenatal ultrasound findings.
01 Dec Cardioprotective Effect of PCSK9 Inhibitors Should Outweigh Potential Harm of Diabetes Risk
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian A. Ference, M.D Division of Cardiovascular Medicine Wayne State University School of Medicine Detroit, MI MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: Lifelong exposure to modestly lower plasma LDL-C levels caused by rare loss-of-function mutations in the PCSK9 gene is associated with a substantially lower lifetime risk of developing cardiovascular disease. This discovery motivated the development of monoclonal antibodies directed against PCSK9 which have now been shown to reduce plasma LDL-C levels by 50-60%. The cardiovascular medicine community is early anticipating the results of two large cardiovascular outcome trials that will determine if lowering LDL-C levels by inhibiting PCSK9 will reduce the risk of cardiovascular events. Because monoclonal antibodies and other therapies directed against PCSK9 are designed to recapitulate the phenotype of PCSK9 loss-of-function mutations, we reasoned that it may be possible to anticipate the efficacy and safety results of the ongoing cardiovascular outcome studies by more precisely characterizing the effect of genetic variants in the PCSK9 gene on the risk of both cardiovascular events and new onset diabetes. To do this, we a constructed genetic score consisting of multiple independently inherited variants in the PCK9 gene to create an instrument that mimics the effect of PCSK9 inhibitors. We then compared the effect of genetic variants that mimic the effect of PCSK9 inhibitors with the effect of genetic variants in the HMGCR gene that mimic the effect of statins to make inferences about the likely effect of PCSK9 inhibitors on the risk of cardiovascular events and new onset diabetes as compared to treatment with a statin.01 Dec National Trends and Outcomes of Embryo Donation
[caption id="attachment_30068" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Jennifer F. Kawwass[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jennifer F. Kawwass, MD, FACOG
Assistant Professor, Emory Reproductive Center
Director of Third Party Reproduction, Emory Reproductive Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: With the increasing use of assisted reproductive technology (ART), the number of cryopreserved embryos in storage has increased, as residual viable embryos from an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle may be frozen for future use. Each embryo maintains attributes reflective of the age of the female at time of the original oocyte retrieval. Embryo donation, a form of third-party reproduction, involves donation without compensation of previously formed embryos to another couple for implantation.
Limited published data exist detailing outcomes of donor embryo cycles. Patients and clinicians would benefit from information specific to donor embryo cycles to inform fertility treatment options, counselling, and clinical decision-making. We sought to quantify trends in donor embryo cycles in the United States, to characterize donor embryo recipients, and to report transfer, pregnancy, and birth outcomes of donor embryo transfers.
01 Dec No Clear Cut-Off Age To Stop Screening Mammograms
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cindy Lee, MD Assistant Professor Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging University of California San Francisco San Francisco, CA MedicalResearch.com: What’s new about the research? How is it different than what’s come before? • The largest study on the topic, including national data from 31 states in the United States. Including 5.7 million screening mammograms with follow up. • All exams using digital techniques, up to date data, more representative of community practices in the U.S.01 Dec Frailty Screening Can Predict Postoperative Survival
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30060" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Daniel E. Hall[/caption]
Daniel E. Hall, MD, MDiv, MHSc, FACS
Associate Professor of Surgery
University of Pittsburgh Staff Surgeon
VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System Core Investigator
VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion.
PIttsburgh, PA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: A growing body of research demonstrates that frailty is a more powerful predictor of postoperative outcomes than risk-prediction models based on age or comorbidity alone. However, it has not been clear if surgeons could intervene on frailty to improve outcomes.
This study reports what we believe to be the first ever demonstration that it is not only feasible to screen an entire health system for frailty, but that it is possible to act on that information to improve outcomes. Every patient evaluated for elective surgery was screened for frailty with a brief tool that takes 1-2 minutes to complete. Those identified as potentially frail and thus at greater risk for poor surgical outcomes received an ad-hoc administrative review aimed at optimizing perioperative care. After implementing the frailty screening initiative, we observed a 3-fold increase in long-term survival at 6 and 12 months—even after controlling for age, frailty, and predicted mortality.
30 Nov Poor Ratings Linked to Hospitals in Distressed Neighborhoods
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jianhui Hu, PhD Center for Health Policy & Health Services Research Henry Ford Health System Detroit, Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In July of 2016, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS) released its first-ever hospital Star Rating for consumers to use to compare hospital quality. Since earlier studies have shown that hospitals serving lower-socioeconomic-status (SES) communities have lower scores on measures like readmission rate that are a part of the Star Rating system, we wanted to find out whether a similar relationship might be found between community-level SES and the Star Ratings. Our study used a recently released “stress” ranking of 150 most populated U.S cities and explored possible associations with the hospital Star Ratings. This “stress” ranking was a composite score of 27 individual metrics measuring a number of characteristics of the cities, such as job security, unemployment rate, housing affordability, poverty, mental health, physical activity, health condition, crime rate, etc. Our study found that less-stressed cities had average higher hospital Star Ratings (and more-stressed cities had lower average hospital Star Ratings). Cities such as Detroit and Newark are good examples of those with high “stress” and relatively low hospital Star Ratings, and cities like Madison and Sioux Falls of those with relatively low stress and relatively high hospital Star Ratings. Our correlational analysis indicated that around 20% of the difference in the Star Ratings can be explained by characteristics of the cities in which hospitals were located.30 Nov Vestibular or Inner Ear System Weakens After Age 40
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30046" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Daniel M. Merfeld[/caption]
Daniel M. Merfeld, Ph.D.
Professor of Otolaryngology
Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Director, Jenks Vestibular Physiology Laboratory
Senior Scientist
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Nearly half of the population will see a clinician at some point in their lives with symptoms related to the vestibular system (e.g., dizziness, vertigo, imbalance and blurred vision). The vestibular system, made up of tiny fluid-filled membranes in the inner ear, is responsible for receiving information about motion, balance and spatial orientation. With the goal of determining whether age affected the function of the vestibular system, our research team administered balance and motion tests to 105 healthy people ranging from 18 to 80 years old and measured their vestibular thresholds (“threshold” refers to the smallest possible motion administered that the subject is able to perceive correctly).
30 Nov Hospital and Separate Dialysis Units Have Similar MRSA Rates
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Georg Schlieper, MD MVZ DaVita Rhein-Ruhr Duesseldorf, Germany MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization in hemodialysis patients is associated with higher risk for systemic infection. Recent hospitalization and temporary dialysis access are known risk factors for MRSA colonization. Whether MRSA colonization rates in hospital-based dialysis centers differ from separate dialysis centers is unknown. Data on MRSA decolonization strategies in hemodialysis patients are scarce.30 Nov Palliative Care Linked To Fewer Symptoms and Better Quality of Life
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_29804" align="alignleft" width="120"]
Dr. Dio Kavalieratos[/caption]
Dr. Dio Kavalieratos, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics
Division of General Medicine
Institute of Clinical Research
University of Pittsburgh
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The field of palliative care has seen a dramatic surge in research and clinical implementation over the past decade. The last systematic review of palliative care trials was published in 2008. In that review, the authors reported very weak evidence for palliative care, as well as major methodological limitations in the trials that had been done to date. Since then, several landmark trials have been published, some with very compelling findings such increased survival. Therefore, an up-to-date review was in order.
There also had not previously been enough trials to perform a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is the statistical process of combining the results of multiple trials, which gives you an overall effect for an intervention, in this case, palliative care. We were able to conduct the first meta-analysis of the effect of palliative care with three important outcomes: patient quality of life, patient symptom burden, and patient survival.
30 Nov Some Prions Can Be Cleared By Infected Organism
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Romolo Nonno, DVM, PhD Istituto Superiore di Sanità Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica Veterinaria e Sicurezza Alimentare Roma Italy MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Previous studies have suggested that prion populations are composed of a variety of conformational variants subjected to Darwinian evolution driven by selective regimes. However, the exact molecular mechanisms that make prions able to self-replicate and mutate are still poorly understood. A major technical advance in this field has been the discovery of techniques that allow to replicate prions in vitro, outside live organisms. One of these techniques, Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA), allows to grow prion populations for a very high number of replications in a relatively short time period. Furthermore it is conceivable that the in vitro environment offers less constraint to prion replication than live animals or cells, due to the absence of active clearance and cell division, which are key players of conformers selection in ex vivo models. These features make PMCA an attractive tool to investigate prion replication, mutation and evolution. By using PMCA, we investigated the in vitro evolution of prion populations derived from natural scrapie. Unexpectedly, we found that the cloud of conformational variants which compose a natural scrapie isolate also includes “defective” variants which, once isolated, are unable to self-sustain in vivo. Importantly, we found that the defective prion mutant that we have isolated possesses unique biochemical properties in that its prion domain lacks the central region of prion protein, which is invariably present in known infectious mammalian prions.30 Nov Which Sports Reduce Risk of Mortality?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30012" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Emmaneul Stamatakis[/caption]
Dr. Emmaneul Stamatakis PhD, MSc, BSc
Associate Professor | NHMRC Senior Research Fellow
Charles Perkins Centre, Prevention Research Collaboration
School of Public Health, Sydney Medical School
The University of Sydney
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We examined the association between participation in different sports and risk of death during subsequent decade in a large sample of >80k adults aged 30 and over who lived in Scotland and England between 2994 and 2008 .
We found the following significant reduction in risk of dying from all causes among participants compared with non-participants: cycling 15%, aerobics 27%, swimming 28%, racquet balls 47%; there was no significant reduction in mortality for running/jogging and football/rugby. We also found the following significant reduction in risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases: aerobics 36%, swimming 41%, racquet balls 56%; there were no significant reduction in mortality for running, cycling and football/rugby. Results in both cases were adjusted for the potential confounders: age, sex, chronic conditions, alcohol drinking and smoking habits, mental health, obesity, education level, doctor-diagnosed CVD, cancer, weekly volume of other physical activity besides the sport (including walking and domestic activity.
30 Nov Two Different European Strategies Achieve KDIGO Renal Anemia Targets
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30030" align="alignleft" width="177"]
Dr. Dorota Drozdz[/caption]
Dorota Drozdz M.D., Ph.D
Jagiellonian University
Kraków
Response: In Poland and Portugal we use EPO beta for anemia treatment. Our interest was to find differences in clinical patterns taking in consideration that both countries are adherent to KDIGO recommendations an guidelines.
We found that in both countries the mean hemoglobin (Hb) level and percentage of patients in target Hb level (10-12 g/dl on ESA treatment) are the same, but the approaches were different – in Poland the ESA dose was statistically lower than in Portugal and iron dose was statistically higher than in Portugal. Most other lab tests results were similar. Future secondary outcomes analysis should answer the question, which method is safer.
29 Nov Default Settings in Electronic Records Can Facilitate Over-Prescribing
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30022" align="alignleft" width="130"]
Dr. Jashvant Poeran[/caption]
Jashvant Poeran MD PhD
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Population Health Science & Policy
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Falls are an important patient safety issue among elderly patients and may lead to extended hospitalization and patient harm. Particularly important in elderly patients are high risk drugs such as sleep medications which are known to increase fall risk and should be dosed lower in elderly patients.
In this study we looked at patients aged 65 years or older who fell during hospitalization. We found that in 62%, patients had been given at least one high risk medication that was linked to fall risk, within 24 hours before their fall. Interestingly, we found that also a substantial proportion of these medications were given at doses higher than generally recommended for elderly patients.
28 Nov No Increased Risk of IBD Among Secukinumab-Treated Patients with Moderate to Severe Psoriasis in Phase 2 & 3 Clinical Studies
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_30017" align="alignleft" width="96"]
Dr. Atul Deodhar[/caption]
Atul Deodhar, M.D., M.R.C.P.
Rheumatology
Oregon Health and Science University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Patients with psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis (PsA), or ankylosing spondylitis (AS) are at an increased risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) compared with the general population. It is important that we assess whether new therapies, including the recently approved interleukin-17A (IL-17A) inhibitor, secukinumab, have an acceptable profile in terms of the risk of IBD in patients with psoriasis, PsA, or AS.
28 Nov First Childhood Exposure Determines How Sick You Get From Flu As Adult
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Katelyn M. Gostic and Monique Ambrose Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of California Los Angeles MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Monique Ambrose: Influenza pandemics pose a serious, recurrent threat to human public health. One of the most probable sources of future pandemic influenza viruses is the pool of influenza A virus (IAV) subtypes that currently circulate in non-human animals. It has traditionally been thought that the human population is immunologically naïve and unprotected against these unfamiliar subtypes. However, our work suggests that an individual ‘imprints’ to the influenza A virus (IAV) encountered in early childhood in such a way that they retain protection against severe disease if they later encounter a novel IAV subtype that belongs to the same genetic group as their first exposure. Our research looked at human cases of H5N1 and H7N9, two avian IAV subtypes of global concern, to investigate what factors most strongly predicted risk of severe disease. The most striking explanatory factor was childhood IAV imprinting: our results suggest that individuals who had childhood imprinting on an IAV in the same genetic group as the avian IAV they encountered later in life experienced 75% protection against severe disease and 80% protection against death.28 Nov Peripheral IV Lines Linked To Lower Risk of Blood Clots After Transfusion
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mary A.M. Rogers, PhD, MS Research Associate Professor Research Director, Patient Safety Enhancement Program Department of Internal Medicine University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) are commonly used for vascular access in hospitalized patients. Previous studies have shown that PICCs of larger gauge (diameter) increase the risk of developing venous thromboembolism (blood clots in the deep veins that sometimes travel to the lung). Red blood cell transfusion is also known to increase the risk of venous thromboembolism. Because PICCs are often used to transfuse blood, we designed a study to investigate whether the method of transfusion delivery influences the risk of developing venous thromboembolism.28 Nov New Protocol To Allow Rapid Steroid Reduction After Kidney Transplantation
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Dr. med. Christian Hugo Head, Division of Nephrology Medical Clinic III Universitätsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus an der Technischen Universität Dresden Dresden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: At the end of 2007, the harmony trial was designed predominantly based on the one year results of the ELITE-Symphony trial, demonstrating that low dose tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetile, and steroids together with monoclonal interleukin-2-receptor (CD 25 antigen) antibody induction therapy has superior efficacy in renal transplant patients compared to all other regimens (low or normal dose cyclosporine or sirolimus) tested. While these advantages of the low dose tacrolimus protocol were so convincing to become the new gold standard of immunosuppressive therapy within the next few years (see KDIGO guide lines for renal transplantation in 2009), the low dose tacrolimus treatment arm also demonstrated increased incidence rates regarding post-transplantation diabetes mellitus (PTDM, at that time called new onset of diabetes after transplantation - NODAT) compared to the low cyclosporine treatment arm. Previous studies had also demonstrated a detrimental association between NODAT and cardiovascular events and mortality, the leading cause of death in renal transplant recipients. Corticosteroid-free or rapid withdrawal regimens were relatively encouraging regarding influencing NODAT rates but only at the price of an increased rate of T cell mediated acute rejections.28 Nov Virtual Reality Systems Can Generate Immersive 3D Images of Fetuses
[caption id="attachment_30002" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Close-up of fetus at 26 weeks[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Heron Werner Junior
Clínica de Diagnóstico por Imagem – CDPI
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: A growing number of technological advancements in obtaining and viewing images through noninvasive techniques have brought major breakthroughs in fetal medicine.
In general, two main technologies are used to obtain images within the uterus during pregnancy i.e. ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
28 Nov Aspartame May Promote Obesity By Changing Gut Enzyme
Posted at 17:26h
in Artificial Sweeteners, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Metabolic Syndrome, Weight Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_29998" align="alignleft" width="135"]
Dr. Richard Hodin[/caption]
Richard Hodin, MD
Gastrointestinal and Endocrine Surgery
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Chief of Academic Affairs, Department of Surgery,
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, Mass 02114
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Sugar substitutes like Aspartame are widely used and supposed to make people lose weight and have less diabetes, heart disease, etc. However, a number of studies indicate that theses substitutes don’t work very well. The reasons for them not working have not been clear. Our study found that the most common sugar substitute (aspartame) blocks an enzyme in our gut called Intestinal Alkaline Phosphatase (IAP). By blocking IAP, Aspartame prevents the beneficial effects of IAP which normally works to prevent obesity, diabetes, and other aspects of the metabolic syndrome.
So, we now have an explanation for why Aspartame may make obesity and the metabolic syndrome worse, rather than better.