MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Roman Hovorka PhD FMedSci
Director of Research
University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories
Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science
Addenbrooke’s Hospital
Cambridge
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Inpatient diabetes is generally not managed well when patients are admitted for a range of health issues on the general ward.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Bishal Gyawali, MD, PhDDepartment of Medicine
Brigham and Women's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: PD-1 inhibitors are an interesting class of cancer drugs with atypical response patterns in clinical trials. There is a lot of debate over cancer drugs that improve progression-free survival (PFS) – a surrogate measure of clinical benefit– without affecting patients’ overall survival (OS), but in some studies, PD-1 inhibitors appears to improve overall survival (OS) without affecting PFS.
We therefore conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials of PD-1 inhibitors (nivolumab and pembrolizumab) to assess the effect of these drugs on OS versus PFS. We showed that PD-1 inhibitors do appear to improve OS more than PFS.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
A Jay Holmgren
Doctoral Student, Health Policy and Management
Harvard Business School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Post-acute care, care that is delivered following an acute care hospitalization, is one of the largest drivers of variation in US health care spending.
To address this, Medicare has created several payment reform systems targeting post-acute care, including a voluntary bundled payment program known as the Model 3 of the Bundled Payment for Care Improvement (BPCI) Initiative for post-acute care providers such as skilled nursing facilities, long-term care hospitals, or inpatient rehabilitation facilities. Participants are given a target price for an episode of care which is then reconciled against actual spending; providers who spend under the target price retain some of the savings, while those who spend more must reimburse Medicare for some of the difference.
Our study sought to evaluate the level of participation in this program and identify what providers were more likely to participate. We found that fewer than 4% of eligible post-acute care providers ever participated in the program, and over 40% of those who did participate dropped out. The providers more likely to remain in the program were skilled nursing facilities that were higher quality, for-profit, and were part of a multi-facility organization.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Amy Rothberg MD PhD
Associate Professor, Endocrinology and Medicine
Michigan Medicine Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes Clinic
University of MichiganMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly outline the essentials of the Optifast plan?Response: OPTIWIN is a year-long, multi-center, open-label, randomized, head-to-head study. It was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the medically-monitored, meal replacement OPTIFAST Program on weight loss and maintenance, in comparison with a standard-of-care, food-based diet among adults with a BMI higher than 30 kg/m2.
Nestlé Health Science’s OPTIFAST Program combines proven essential features of weight loss success ‒ medical monitoring, nutrition education, exercise guidance, in-person support, full meal replacement and behavior modification. With OPTIFAST meal replacement products, the program gives patients the prescribed amount of calories and micronutrients each day. It is a non-surgical option designed for people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30, and is available in more than 400 weight loss clinics nationwide.
The Program is comprised of three core phases ‒ active weight loss (during which total diet replacement is used), transition to self-prepared ‘everyday’ meals and maintenance. Clinical supervision is a key component of the program as it helps assess progress towards better health and emotional well-being.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Bryan D. James, PhD
Assistant Professor
Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center
Chicago, IL 60612
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: This study is part of a larger body of research examining how literacy and decision making abilities in different areas of life can affect the health and well-being of older adults.
The main finding of this study is that a better ability to understand and utilize financial concepts was related to a lower risk of hospitalization in old age. Additionally, research conducted from financial services firm Sambla, Norway's largest bank and lender for medical loans, found that doctors and pharmacists are among Scandinavia's financial services most financially savvy, often saving for retirement 5-7 years before others working in the medical field.
Over almost 2 years of follow-up, 30 percent of the 388 older men and women in this study were hospitalized at least once. A 4-point higher score on the scale of financial literacy, representing one standard deviation, was associated with about a 35 percent lower risk of hospitalization. This was after adjusting for a number of factors including physical and mental health indicators and income. The association appeared to be stronger for knowledge of financial concepts such as stocks and bonds, as opposed to the ability to perform numerical calculations. Additionally, the association was stronger for elective hospital admissions as opposed to emergency or urgent hospitalizations; this may support the notion that financial literacy is related to medical decision-making surrounding the decision to be hospitalized, such as which procedures are covered by Medicare.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Inmaculada Hernandez, PharmD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pharmacy and Therapeutics
University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy
Pittsburgh, PA 15261
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Prior research has found that taking opioids and benzodiazepines simultaneously increases the risk of overdose by 2 to 3 fold, when compared to opioid-use only.
However, prior to our study, it was unclear how the risk of overdose changes over time with the concurrent use of opioids and benzodiazepines.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Paul Foster BMedSci(Hons) BMBS PhD FRCS(Ed) FRCOphth FRCS(Eng)
Professor of Glaucoma Studies & Ophthalmic Epidemiology
Research Theme Lead Integrative Epidemiology & Visual Function
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology & Moorfields Eye Hospital
LondonMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Dementia is the medical challenge of the moment – increasingly common, adversely impacting quality of life for millions, and a great worry for all. Efforts to identify treatments or interventions rely on being able to identify those people at greatest risk. Our motivation was to help identify those people, primarily to aid in the development of treatments through clinical trials.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Michael Barry MD
Director of the Informed Medical Decisions Program
Health Decision Sciences Center at Massachusetts General Hospital
Physician at Massachusetts General Hospit
Professor of Medicine,Harvard Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Cardiovascular disease (CVD), which can lead to heart attack and stroke, causes 1 in 3 deaths among adults in the United States. The Task Force reviewed the latest research on whether adding an electrocardiogram—or ECG, which is a test that records a person's heart activity—to the standard ways we measure CVD risk can help prevent heart attack and stroke in people who do not have symptoms and are generally healthy, as well as people who are already at risk for these conditions.
The evidence shows that adding screening with ECG to the ways we already measure CVD risk is unlikely to help prevent heart attack or stroke in people at low risk. It can also cause harms—such as those from follow-on procedures like angiography and angioplasty, which can lead to heart attack, kidney failure, and even death. As a result, the Task Force recommends against screening with ECG for this group.
For those who might benefit the most—people who are already at medium or high risk of CVD—there is not enough evidence to say whether or not adding screening with an ECG to standard care helps prevent heart attack and stroke. This is an area where we need more research. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Chantal Mathieu, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Clinical and Experimental Endocrinology
Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: People with type 1 diabetes (T1D) are confronted often with the inability to achieve satisfactory glycemic control, being good HbA1c, but in particular stable glycemic control, avoiding hyperglycemic events, but also hypoglycemic events, despite novel insulins and novel technologies. Moreover, intensive insulin therapy is often associated with weight gain, leading to an increase in overweight and obesity also in people with T1D. All of these issues affect quality of life.
In the DEPICT 2 study we examined the impact of adding a selective SGLT2 inhibitor, dapagliflozin (two doses tested – 5 and 10mg) in a double blinded manner versus placebo to background insulin (MDI or CSII) in people with T1D reaching insufficient glycemic control (HbA1c 7.5-10.5%). Primary endpoint was lowering in HbA1c at 24 weeks and secondary endpoints included insulin dose reduction and weight reduction as well as a composite endpoint of having a HbA1c drop of >=0.5% without severe hypoglycemia. The study ran internationally, with about 1/3 of patients coming from North America, 1/3 from Europe and 1/5 from Asia (Japan).
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr Jianhua Guo PhD
ARC Future Fellow, Senior Research Fellow
Advanced Water Management Centre
University of Queensland
Brisbane Australia
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: It was found that wastewater from residential areas has similar or even higher levels of antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes compared to hospitals, where you would expect greater antibiotic concentrations. Thus, we wonder whether non-antibiotic chemicals such as triclosan can directly induce antibiotic resistance, because triclosan could be ubiquitously detected in various water environments, like wastewater.
We found triclosan found in personal care products that we use daily could directly induce multi-drug resistance through mutation. The discovery should be a wake-up call to re-evaluate the potential impact of non-antibiotic chemicals on the dissemination of antibiotic resistance.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Feng J He PhD
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine,
Barts and The London School of Medicine & Dentistry,
Queen Mary University of London,
London
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Studies have shown that there is a strong linear relationship between sodium intake and blood pressure and raised blood pressure is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide.
The current mean population sodium intake among adults in most countries is approximately 4,000 mg/d (10 g/d salt). The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended a 30% reduction in sodium intake by 2025 with an eventual target of less than 2,000 mg/d (5 g/d salt) for all countries. Several recent cohort studies have challenged the WHO’s recommendations, as these studies suggested that there was a J or U-shaped relationship between sodium and risk, i.e. lower and higher sodium intake both were associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and deaths.
However, these studies have several severe methodological problems, one of which is the use of a biased or unreliable estimate of individual’s usual sodium intake, e.g. a single spot urine with the Kawasaki formula.
Our study, for the first time, has compared the relationship of sodium intake and mortality, based on various methods to assess usual sodium intake, including estimates based on the Kawasaki formula (single and average of multiple days) and a single measured 24-hour urine, with the gold standard method, i.e. the average of multiple non-consecutive measured 24-h urines.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Melissa Lorenzo MD
Pediatric medical resident
Dr. Lorenzo is currently training at the University of Toronto, however the research was conducted while a medical student at Queens UniversityMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Preterm infants are born before 37 weeks gestation, with late preterm neonates defined as infants born between 34 weeks to 37 weeks gestation. Of all preterm births, over 70% of babies are born in the late preterm period. Late preterm births are common, affecting 12.5% of all births in the United States.
Compared to infants born at term, late preterm neonates are at increased risk for many common complications following birth such as jaundice, low blood sugar, and respiratory distress, prolong hospital stay, admission to the neonatal intensive care unit, and increase readmission rate after hospital discharge. There are many causes for preterm delivery- two important ones are early onset of labour either spontaneous or after premature rupture of membranes, and medically indicated delivery prior to full term gestation due to chronic diseases in mother affecting her health in pregnancy, fetal medical reasons, or placental insufficiency. There is a debate that the risk of neonatal complications is affected by the causes of preterm delivery with immaturity acting as a contributing factor. The relative contribution of immaturity versus the reason for delivery and the resulting neonatal complications is unclear.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Xiaoran Sun
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: College graduation has significant implications for adult life outcomes including for employment, family formation, and health (IOM & NRC, 2015).
Investigating how sibling differences in college graduation emerge sheds light on why children growing up in the same family sometimes follow diverging paths in adulthood. Our study also responds to the call by researchers interested in policy and practice to conduct longitudinal research investigating the role of early family socialization processes in educational attainment (Pettit, Davis-Kean, & Magnuson, 2009). Despite siblings’ important role in child and adolescent development, previous research has focused on parenting and on the academic outcomes of individual children in the family.
Further, although sibling experiences, including their relationship characteristics and parental differential treatment, have been linked to sibling similarities and differences in domains such as risky behaviors (Slomkowski, Rende, Novak, Lloyd-Richardson, & Raymond, 2005), to date, there has been very little research on the role of sibling experiences in positive development, such as academic achievement. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kenichi Takahata, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Applied Science
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this technology and study? Response: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of mortality globally. One of the most common and proven treatments for CVD is stenting. Millions of stents are implanted annually worldwide. However, the most common complication called in-stent restenosis, re-narrowing of stented arteries, still poses a significant risk to patients.
To address the current lack of diagnostic technology to detect restenosis at its early stage, we are developing “smart” stents equipped with microscale sensors and wireless interface to enable continuous monitoring of restenosis through the implanted stent. This electrically active stent functions as a radio-frequency wireless pressure transducer to track local hemodynamic changes upon a re-narrowing condition. We have reported a new smart stent that has been engineered to fulfill clinical needs for the implant, including its applicability to current stenting procedure and tools, while offering self-sensing and wireless communication functions upon implantation.
The stent here has been designed to function not only as a typical mechanical scaffold but also as an electrical inductor or antenna. To construct the device, the custom-designed implantable capacitive pressure sensor chip, which we developed using medical-grade stainless steel, are laser-microwelded on the inductive antenna stent, or “stentenna”, made of the same alloy. This forms a resonant circuit with the stentenna, whose resonant frequency represents the local blood pressure applied to the device and can be wirelessly interrogated using an external antenna placed on the skin.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Alexandra Urman, MPH
Clinical Research Manager
Clinical Development
IBM Watson HealthMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Cancer statistics show only 3-5% of cancer patients participate in clinical trials although up to 20% may be eligible.
Dr. Tufia Hadad, a medical Oncologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota sought to address this issue and spearheaded a project conducted at the Rochester facility in collaboration with IBM Watson Health. The objective was to determine if the use of cognitive computing increased clinical trial enrollment and screening efficiency in the breast cancer clinic.
Watson for Clinical Trial Matching (CTM) is a cognitive system which utilizes natural language processing to derive patient and tumor attributes from unstructured text in the electronic health record that can be further used to match a patient to complex eligibility criteria in trial protocols.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Cedric F. Garland, Dr.P.H., F.A.C.E.
Adjunct Professor
Division of Epidemiology
Department of Family Medicine and Public Health
University of California San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093-0620
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Studies mapping death rates from female breast cancer in the US, the former USSR and Canada by Drs. Edward Gorham, and Frank and Cedric Garland revealed for the first time in history that death rates from breast cancer tracked latitude where people lived.
The rates were highest in the least sunny northern tier of states, lowest in the sunny southwest. This led these scientists to be the first to theorize that vitamin D prevents breast cancer” said study first author Sharon McDonnell. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Billy A. Caceres, PhD, RN, AGPCNP-BC
NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing
New York, NY 10010
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Although current evidence, primarily based on self-reported data, suggests gay and bisexual men report higher rates of cardiovascular risk factors (such as poor mental health and tobacco use) than heterosexual men, few studies have examined heart disease risk in this population. This study is one of the few studies to examine heart disease risk in gay and bisexual men using biological measures.
Using data from a nationally representative sample we identified higher rates of mental distress, obesity, hypertension, and diabetes among bisexual men compared to exclusively heterosexual men after adjusting for traditional risk factors (demographic characteristics, mental distress, and health behaviors). We also included men who identified as heterosexual but report a history of same-sex sexual behavior. Gay and heterosexual-identified men who have sex with men displayed similar risk profiles to exclusively heterosexual men.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Richard Stanton, PhD
Health Scientist, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We used whole genome sequencing (WGS) to investigate an outbreak of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) that occurred in an acute care hospital in Kentucky over a six month period in late 2016. The outbreak included 18 cases of CRE.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Daniel Reis MA
Graduate Student
Clinical Psychology
University of Kansas
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Probiotics have generated considerable interest as a possible treatment for numerous forms of physical and mental illness. Preliminary evidence from both preclinical and clinical studies suggest that probiotics may be able to reduce anxiety. Our goal was to comprehensively review and summarize existing preclinical and clinical studies.
Overall, probiotic administration reduced anxiety-like behaviors in rodents, but only in those with some form of experimentally-induced disease (such as early-life stress or socieal defeat). Probiotics did not reduce anxiety in humans.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Ashani Weeraratna, Ph.D.
The Ira Brind professor and
Co-program leader of the Immunology, Microenvironment and Metastasis Program
The Wistar Institute
Member of Wistar’s Melanoma Research Center
PhiladelphiaMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: This study shows for the first time that older patients, especially those who have had prior MAPKi therapy fare better than younger patients when treated with anti-PD1. We found that tumors in younger patients and younger mice have higher levels of Tregulatory cells, the cells that regulate other immune cells. This is not true systemically, only within the tumor microenvironment.
We were surprised because we expected that, as with targeted therapy, older patients would have a poorer response to immunotherapy, given what we perceive as a poorer immune system in older patients.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Jonathan L. Silverberg MD PhD MPH
Assistant Professor in Dermatology
Medical Social Sciences and Preventive Medicine
Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Persons with atopic dermatitis have a number of risk factors for osteopenia and osteoporosis, including systemic atopy and inflammation, being less physically active and using a lot of topical and/or systemic corticosteroids. We aimed to determine whether adults with atopic dermatitis in fact have higher rates of physician-diagnosed osteopenia and osteoporosis.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Stephen Burgess PhD
Programme Leader at the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit
University of Cambridge
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Lipoprotein(a) is a lipoprotein subclass, and an important biomarker for coronary heart disease. As a clinical biomarker, it has a similar story to LDL-cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol), in that it is thought to be a causal risk factor for coronary heart disease, and so is a potential target for drug development. However, while drugs that lower LDL-cholesterol, such as statins, have been successful in reducing coronary heart disease risk, drugs that lower lipoprotein(a) have not as yet been successful. New drugs are currently in development that specifically target lipoprotein(a) and can lower lipoprotein(a) concentrations by 80-90%. We performed this study to investigate whether these drugs are likely to be successful in reducing coronary heart disease risk.
We compared individuals with naturally-occurring genetic variants that predispose them to a higher or lower lifetime concentration of lipoprotein(a) as a way of mimicking a randomized controlled trial. This approach has previously been undertaken for other biomarkers, including LDL-cholesterol. We found that having 10mg/dL lower genetically-predicted concentration of lipoprotein(a) was associated with a 5.8% reduction in coronary heart disease risk.
However, associations between genetically-predicted LDL-cholesterol and coronary heart disease risk are quantitatively much stronger than the proportional effect of LDL-cholesterol lowering on coronary heart disease risk as estimated by statin trials. This is because differences in genetic variants reflect lifelong changes in LDL-cholesterol, whereas statin trials only lower LDL-cholesterol for a few years. Hence, using the ratio between the genetic and trial estimates for LDL-cholesterol, we estimate that lowering lipoprotein(a) by 10mg/dL in a short-term clinical trial would only reduce coronary heart disease risk by 2.7%. To obtain the same reduction in coronary heart disease risk of around 20% as observed in statin trials, lipoprotein(a) would have to be lowered by around 100mg/dL. This explains why previous trials of less specific and less potent lipoprotein(a)-lowering drugs have failed to demonstrate benefit.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Huan SongAssociated
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Karolinska Institutet
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Earlier findings from our group (e.g. Fang et al., NEJM 2012; Arnberg et al., Lancet Psychiatry 2015; Lu et al., JAMA Oncol 2016; Shen et al., BMJ 2016; Zhu et al., Ann Oncol 2017) have identified pathways through which stressful events contribute to deterioration in human health. With strong animal models and human data supporting a role of stress in immune dysregulation, the hypothesis linking mental distress with autoimmune is indeed plausible. However, the evidence is as yet limited to clinical observations and a few larger observational studies on US veterans, most of them on men only, and some of which have cross-sectional designs and various other methodological shortcomings.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jeffrey M. Levsky, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Cardiology)
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Montefiore Medical Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: Millions of Americans are evaluated each year for acute chest pain in the Emergency Department. There are multiple modalities that can be used to triage these patients and there have only been a few studies comparing different imaging methods.
We chose to study Stress Echocardiography and Coronary CT Angiography, two exams that have not been compared directly in this population. We found that Stress Echocardiography was able to discharge a higher proportion of patients in a shorter amount of time as compared to Coronary CTA.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Thomas Hadberg Lynge MD
The Department of Cardiology
The Heart Centre, Copenhagen University Hospital
Rigshospitalet, Denmark
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?Response: Congenital heart defects are common and affect ≈0.8% of all live births. Despite substantially improve survival over the past decades, morbidity and mortality remain significant, in particular among patients with complex congenital heart defects. This decreased life expectancy is in part explained by an increased risk of sudden cardiac death among people with congenital heart defects. However, the incidence of sudden cardiac death among people with congenital heart defects is largely unknown in an unselected and nationwide setting.
Sudden cardiac death can occur both at rest and during exercise and it is well-known that exercise is associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death during activity. Fear of sudden cardiac death has led to restrictions of physical activity among patients with congenital heart defects and these patients have lower levels of physical activity compared with healthy peers. Appropriate counseling of these patients requires estimates on risk of sudden cardiac death in relation to physical activity.
Nationwide fetal ultrasound screening was implemented in Denmark in 2005 and this together with improved surgical and medical treatment during the study period, is likely to have changed the epidemiology of sudden cardiac death in people with congenital heart defects. It was therefore also an important aim of the study to examine temporal changes in sudden cardiac death in people with congenital heart defects.
(more…)
Joseph Jankovic, MD
Professor of Neurology
Distinguished Chair in Movement Disorders
Director, Parkinson’s Disease Center
and Movement Disorders Clinic
Department of Neurology
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor...
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Juergen Hahn, Professor and Department Head
Department of Biomedical Engineering Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies Rensselaer
Polytechnic InstituteMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encompasses a large group of early‐onset developmental disorders that are collectively characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication as well as the expression of restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests. ASD is currently estimated to affect 1 in 59 children in the US. Despite this high prevalence, relatively little is know about the pathophysiology of ASD. The result of this is that no lab test exists for ASD and the diagnosis is based upon observations of the child. The average age of diagnosis is 4 years of age, but it is generally acknowledged that diagnosis at 2 years of age is possible and desirable. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Andrew Kunzmann
Research Fellow
Queen's Universit
Belfast
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We decided to conduct this research because the messages about the health effects linked to light-moderate drinking are less consistent. Previous studies suggest that light-moderate drinking is linked to an increased risk of cancer but a lower risk of mortality than never drinking. The international guidelines around what constitutes drinking in moderation also differ, with UK guidelines now recommending intakes below 6 pints of beer or 175ml glasses of wine per week (equivalent to less than 1 per day) but other guidelines recommending intakes of 2 drinks or less per day. We wanted to see what the risk of getting either of these conditions (cancer or mortality) were to give a more comprehensive and less confusing message about the health effects of light-moderate drinking.
This was part of a well-established collaboration between Queen’s University Belfast and the National Cancer Institute in the US. We used data from a cancer screening trial in the US that contained data on over 100,000 people from the US, who were free from cancer at the start of the study and who completed a questionnaire asking how much alcohol they consumed at different periods of their adult life. This was then linked to data over an average of 9 years after they completed the questionnaire to see which individuals developed cancer or died from any cause. We then assessed whether risk of cancer and mortality differed based on lifetime alcohol intakes after accounting for a number of other factors such as age, educational attainment, smoking and dietary intakes.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Martin J Holzmann MD, PhD
Functional Area of Emergency Medicine
Department of Internal Medicine,
Solna, Karolinska Institutet
Stockholm, Sweden
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: We wanted to investigate how the introduction of the new high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) assay affected incidence of myocardial infarction (MI) use of coronary angiography, cardiac revascularizations, and prognosis in patients with myocardial infarction.
We found that the incidence of MI increased by approximately 5%, with no change in mortality, but with an 11% reduced risk of reinfarctions, and a small increase in coronary angiographies, and cardiac revascularizations by 16%, and 13%, respectively.(more…)
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