Author Interviews, CDC, Vaccine Studies / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Syringe and Vaccine” by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0Alissa C. O’Halloran, MSPH Immunization Services Division National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta GA 30329  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Outbreaks of pertussis (whooping cough) can occur in healthcare settings. Vaccinating healthcare personnel (HCP) may be helpful in protecting HCP from pertussis and potentially limiting spread to others in healthcare settings. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends a single dose of tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine for all adults, including pregnant women during each pregnancy, to protect themselves and reduce the risk for transmitting pertussis to infants too young to be vaccinated. To assure high Tdap coverage and disease prevention among HCP, patients, and others, ACIP recommends that healthcare employers provide Tdap vaccination to HCP and use approaches that maximize vaccination rates. In this study, we assessed Tdap vaccination coverage among healthcare personnel  by occupation, industry, demographics, access-to-care characteristics, and by the 21 states in the study. (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, JAMA, Neurology, Pulmonary Disease / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jinsy Andrews, MD, MS Director of Neuromuscular Clinical Trials Columbia University The Neurological Institute New York, NY 10032  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The importance of respiratory function in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has long been recognized. Despite ALS being a clinical diagnosis with variable presentation and variable rates of disease progression, all patients experience respiratory symptoms and inevitably die typically from respiratory failure. At present there is no validated biomarker of disease progression or clinical staging system. Direct measure of respiratory function in ALS is important and can be measured using vital capacity. Although the forced maneuver (FVC) has been widely used in patients with ALS, it can underestimate the actual lung capacity by causing fatigue or inducing bronchospasm in patients with ALS. More recently, the slow maneuver (SVC) has been used since it can be obtained from patients with advancing disease which can potentially minimize missing data and may reduce any underestimation of actual lung capacity due to a forceful effort. However, the prognostic value of the decline in SVC is unclear in patients with ALS. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dengue, Lancet, Vaccine Studies / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vianney Tricou DPhil Takeda Vaccines Pte Ltd Singapore MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Dengue fever is a painful, debilitating mosquito-borne disease caused by any one of the four closely related dengue virus serotypes. Forty percent of the world’s population lives under the threat of dengue, with approximately 390 million infections and 20,000 deaths occurring globally each year. Dengue virus can infect people of all ages and is a leading cause of serious illness among children in some countries in Latin America and Asia. Takeda is developing a dengue vaccine candidate to safely protect children and adults living in, or traveling to, endemic areas against all four dengue virus serotypes, regardless of previous dengue virus exposure.  Takeda’s tetravalent dengue vaccine candidate (TAK-003) is based on a live, attenuated dengue serotype 2 virus, which provides the genetic ‘backbone’ for all four vaccine viruses. Takeda’s ongoing Phase 2 DEN-204 study was designed to assess the safety and immunogenicity of different dose schedules of TAK-003 in approximately 1,800 healthy children and adolescents ages two through 17 years living in dengue-endemic countries in Latin America and Asia. Participants of the DEN-204 trial received either one primary dose of TAK-003, two primary doses of TAK-003 administered three months apart, one primary dose of TAK-003 followed by a booster dose one year later, or a placebo. Eighteen-month interim data showed that that TAK-003 is associated with a reduction in the incidence of dengue in the study participants. Data also showed that TAK-003 induced sustained antibody responses against all four serotypes of dengue virus, regardless of previous dengue exposure and dosing schedule. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sonia Kandel PhD Professor at the GIPSA-Lab Université Grenoble Alpes  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: How do we recall a word’s spelling from memory? How do we execute the movements to produce letters? A series of studies conducted by Professor Sonia Kandel at the GIPSA-Lab/University of Grenoble Alpes in France provide evidence indicating that writing is a linguistic process that affects the way we execute the manual movements when we write. For example, the movements involved in writing T-H-R are easier to execute in a word that is pronounced as it is spelled, (e.g. “thrill”) than in a word that is orthographically irregular (e.g. “through”). What happens with writing when spelling processes are impaired like, in dyslexia and dysgraphia? (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Technology / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nenad Bursac PhD Professor of Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor of Medicine Duke University Durham, NC  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Every year about 1 million new people in US suffers from heart attack, resulting in death of hundreds of millions of cardiac muscle cells. This massive cell loss leads to gradual deterioration of heart function, which for many patients results in the occurrence of heart failure that ultimately will require heart transplant. Heart transplantation is complicated and expensive procedure and donor hearts are in short supply, rendering this disease to be not only highly prevalent but ultimately lethal. For almost 30 years, researchers have been exploring transplantation of stem cells into injured hearts as a means to replace dead cardiac muscle with new muscle cells that would yield improved heart function. However, injections of stem cells in the heart have so far met with limited clinical success and surgical implantation of pre-made heart muscle tissue in a form of a "cardiac patch" has been explored as an alternative strategy with a proven benefit of enhancing transplanted cell survival. Others and we have engineered cardiac tissue patches in a dish starting from human pluripotent stem cells, which have advantage of being able to become bona fide contracting cardiac muscle cells. So far, however, no one has been able to engineer a highly functional cardiac muscle patch of a size that is large enough to be used in human therapies for heart disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Lipids, Sanofi / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jay Edelberg MD, PhD VP Head of CV Development and Head Global CV Medical Affairs Sanofi  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH) are often not able to achieve their target low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, and some may require lipoprotein apheresis (LA) to lower their “bad cholesterol.” Apheresis is a procedure similar to kidney dialysis, where bad cholesterol is mechanically removed from the blood. It is an invasive, expensive, and time-consuming treatment for patients, as well as physicians. The Phase III ESCAPE clinical study looked at the potential effect of LA on total Praluent, free and total PCSK9 concentrations, as well as the combined pharmacodynamics effect of total Praluent on LDL-C-lowering. Praluent levels remained unaffected by apheresis, and Praluent consistently suppressed free PCSK9 levels in patients with HeFH, regardless of LA treatment. This analysis further confirms clinical ESCAPE data that Praluent can be used in conjunction with LA and may reduce or potentially eliminate the need for LA in some patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pharmaceutical Companies, Technology / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: HITLab Mr. David Moore MBA Senior Vice President, Commercial Novo Nordisk Mr. David Moore presented the keynote presentation “Breaking Through Barriers in Innovation” at the 4th Annual HITLAB Innovators Summit, NYC November 28, 2017.  MedicalResearch.com: How did you become interested in incorporating technological advances into the sales and marketing end of pharmaceutical delivery? Response: Part of our message today is that we understand that there is an opportunity to improve outcomes if we have a better focus on collaboration and integration through engagement with the patient rather than through medications alone. We continue to innovate in diabetes pharmaceutical care but are also focusing more on meeting the patient in their journey through everyday life. The opportunity to connect, collaborate and integrate is what digital health is all about. As manufacturers, we are still early in the integration process. When we think about technological changes from the patient’s perspective, health care has become much different. The patient no longer just goes to the doctor’s office for a conversation or opinion, with the doctor keeping all the notes. Now the patient has access to a broad range of medical information and usually their own medical records. There is an element of needing things to be user-friendly. As with any consumer product or service with choices, if the choice isn’t user-friendly, the consumer won’t use it. We are looking for ways to make the delivery of pharmacologic products user-friendly to both the patient and provider. (more…)
Author Interviews, Psychological Science, Vanderbilt / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alex Maier, PhD Assistant Professor of Psychology Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science Vanderbilt University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We were interested in finding out about how the brain shifts attention from one location to another. We knew that when we attend a certain location, brain activity increases in a specific way. This increase in activity is how we perform better when we use attention. What we knew less about is what happens when attention moves between locations. To our surprise, we found that there is a brief moment in between these attentional enhancements, while attention moves from one location to another, where the brain does the complete opposite and decreases its activity. Shifting attention thus has a brief negative effect on our brain’s ability to process information about the world around us. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lipids, Sanofi / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jay Edelberg MD, PhD VP Head of CV Development and Head Global CV Medical Affairs Sanofi MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Clinical trials of lipid-lowering therapies (LLTs), including statins, often report variations in treatment response regarding effects on low density-lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, although LDL-C reductions are fairly consistent between trials. Praluent is generally well tolerated, however hyporesponsiveness exists in few patients. Potential causes for variation in patient responsiveness to Praluent include lack of receipt of active study drug, changes in concurrent LLTs, inaccurate or unrepresentative baseline lipid levels, concurrent acute-phase illness, and biological nonresponsiveness. This analysis evaluated patients pooled from 10 ODYSSEY trials to assess characteristics of patients with hyporesponsiveness to Praluent, defined as <15% LDL-C reduction from baseline at all analyzed time points. Overall, only 1% of patients (n=33) had <15% LDL-C reduction at all time points. Prolonged hyporesponsiveness to Praluent was rarely associated with Praluent antidrug antibodies. Of the 33 patients with <15% LDL-C reduction at all study timepoints, 27 had undetectable or missing alirocumab levels, absence of pharmacokinetics analyses, or early treatment discontinuation. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Geriatrics / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael J. LaMonte, PhD, MPH Research Associate Professor Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Co-Director, MPH Program (epidemiology) School of Public Health and Health Professions Women’s Health Initiative Clinic University at Buffalo – SUNY  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Current national public health guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week for adults. The guidelines recommend persons 65 and older follow the adult guidelines to the degree their abilities and conditions allow. Some people, because of age or illness or deconditioning, are not able to do more strenuous activity. Current guidelines do not specifically encourage light activity because the evidence base to support such a recommendation has been lacking. Results from the Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health (OPACH) Study, an ancillary study to the U.S. Women’s Health Initiative, recently published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed women ages 65-99 who engaged in regular light intensity physical activities had a reduction in the risk of mortality. The 6,000 women in the OPACH study wore an activity-measuring device called an accelerometer on their hip for seven days while going about their daily activities and were then followed for up to four and a half years.  Results showed that just 30 additional minutes of light physical activity per day lowered mortality risk by 12 percent while 30 additional minutes of moderate activity, such as brisk walking or bicycling at a leisurely pace, exhibited a 39 percent lower risk.  The finding for lower mortality risk associated with light intensity activity truly is remarkable. We anticipated seeing mortality benefit associated with regular moderate-to-vigorous intensity activity, as supported by current public health guidelines. But, observing significantly lower mortality among women who were active at levels only slightly higher than what defines being sedentary was such a novel finding with important relevance to population health. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Pain Research / 28.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charles Melbern (Mel) Wilcox, MD, MSPH Director of the division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology University of Alabama-Birmingham  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this survey? What are the main findings? Response: Nearly every person experiences pain at some point in their life – for many, the pain is acute and occasional, but for others, the pain is chronic and can be debilitating. Research shows that more than 25.3 million Americans suffer from daily pain and, every year, consumers purchase more than $20 billion per year on over-the-counter (OTC) pain medicines. In my work with the American Gastroenterological Association, we set out to explore the behaviors, beliefs, and misunderstandings that Americans have when it comes to OTC pain medicines. We surveyed 1,015 U.S. adults and 251 gastroenterologists to gain insight on how they were approaching pain management and OTC pain medicine use. The survey found that Americans are routinely ignoring OTC pain medicine labels and are not consulting their health-care professionals about their pain before taking OTC pain medicines. As a direct result, gastroenterologists are noticing their patients experiencing complications and unintentional overdose symptoms. They see an average of 90 overdose cases each year, about two a week, due to OTC pain medicine overdose. Ninety percent of gastroenterologists believe their patients require more and better education on how to use OTC pain medicine safely. They find that patients are not fully understanding the harms associated with taking too much. When asked why patients take more than the recommended dose, Americans say that they are confident in their ability to manage their medication (32 percent) or they wanted to feel better faster, mistakenly thinking more medicine would be the solution (73 percent). (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Hematology / 28.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carol Mansfield, PhD, Senior Research Economist Health Preference Assessment RTI Health Solutions www.rtihs.org  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: As the most prevalent form of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) affects approximately 130,000 people in the United States. More than 20,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. In recent years, more treatment options–each with its own associated benefits, side effects, and price tag–have been approved. This leaves patients and physicians with a variety of factors they must consider when choosing a treatment plan. While every patient wants the most effective drug with the fewest side effects, most people don’t have that option available. By asking patients to make tradeoffs and rank their preferences, we can form an understanding of how patients approach their treatment. This study showed that patients with CLL value medicines that provide the longest progression-free survival, but are willing to trade some benefits for a lower risk of serious adverse events. Additionally, we found that cost clearly has an impact on which treatment a patient would choose. When patients get prescribed something they can’t afford, they are forced to make very difficult choices. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Pharmaceutical Companies / 28.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: https://www.verseon.com/ Anirban Datta, PhD Director Discovery Biology Verseon Corporation MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Today’s anticoagulant market is dominated by the NOACs. These oral anticoagulants require less constant monitoring and have reduced drug and food interactions compared to their predecessors, warfarin and heparin. However, there is still a significant bleeding risk associated with the NOACs. This is particularly problematic when they are co-dosed with antiplatelet drugs. While life-long therapy combining an oral anticoagulant with one or two antiplatelet drugs is desired for the many patients suffering from both non-valvular atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease, current treatment guidelines limit such therapy to a maximum of six months to a year due to safety concerns. At Verseon, we are developing a novel class of precision anticoagulants that combine efficacy comparable to the NOACs with a significantly reduced bleeding risk in preclinical testing. We believe that this profile can have a positive impact on the lives of the many patients in need of long-term anticoagulation-antiplatelet combination therapy. We are currently advancing two development candidates toward clinical trials in 2018. VE-1902, our first development candidate, is scheduled to enter phase I in the first half of the year. (more…)
Author Interviews, Boehringer Ingelheim, Surgical Research / 27.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Thomas Seck, M.D., vice president Clinical Development and Medical Affairs Primary Care Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This is a new subanalysis of the phase III RE-VERSE AD™ study, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of idarucizumab, marketed in the U.S. as Praxbind®, in reversing the anticoagulant effect of Pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate). This data assessed idarucizumab in a subset of patients requiring an urgent procedure or emergency surgery. The analysis found that idarucizumab rapidly and completely reversed the anticoagulant effect of dabigatran in approximately 98 percent of patients based on dTT. The median time between administration of idarucizumab and start of surgery was 1.7 hours for patients requiring abdominal procedures, 1.9 hours for orthopedic procedures, 1.4 hours for vascular procedures, 1.3 hours for drainage procedures and 1.2 hours for catheter procedures. Among these patients, periprocedural homeostasis was assessed as normal in more than 92 percent of patients, across all surgery types. (more…)
Addiction, Author Interviews / 27.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Zoe Weinstein MD Instructor, Boston University School of Medicine Director of the Inpatient Addiction Consult Service Boston Medical CenterDr. Zoe Weinstein MD Instructor, Boston University School of Medicine Director of the Inpatient Addiction Consult Service Boston Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Substance use disorders are highly prevalent, especially among hospitalized patients, however substance use often goes unaddressed in the hospital setting, even if substance use is the underlying cause of the hospitalization (such as a blood stream infection from intravenous drug use). This study reviews the experience of one hospital in starting an Addiction Consult Service to address substance use among hospitalized patients, and help connect them with long-term outpatient addiction treatment directly from the hospital. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Infections / 27.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Samuel J. Crowe, Ph.D., M.P.H. Food and Drug Administration College Park, MD CDC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Flour has been a suspected outbreak vehicle for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) infections since 2009, when a multistate outbreak of foodborne disease was linked to prepackaged cookie dough. The 2016 STEC outbreak investigation described in this study was the first investigation to confirm flour as the source of an E. coli outbreak. Linking the outbreak to flour was challenging for several reasons, but epidemiologic, traceback, and microbiologic data ultimately confirmed that flour produced at a single facility was the source of the illnesses. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Lyme / 27.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kiersten Kugeler, PhD Division of Vector-Borne Diseases CDC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Lyme disease has been a nationally notifiable disease in the United States since 1991. Each year, possible cases of Lyme disease are investigated and tallied by state and local public health officials according to criteria set by the surveillance case definition. States voluntarily share human case data with CDC, which summarizes the data to provide a national perspective on disease trends. This report summarizes national Lyme disease data reported during 2008-2015. Lyme disease continues to be the most commonly reported vector-borne disease in the United States with more than 275,000 cases of Lyme disease reported to CDC during the study period. Although most cases continue to be reported from states with high incidence in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, and upper Midwest regions, case counts in most of these states have remained stable or decreased during this time. In contrast, case counts have increased in states that neighbor those with high incidence. The trend of stable to decreasing case counts in many states with high incidence may be due to multiple factors, including the possibility that occurrence of the disease has stabilized in these areas or that some state health agencies have changed their reporting practices to lower the resource burden associated with Lyme disease surveillance. Lyme disease surveillance is not meant to document every case, but rather to indicate disease trends over time, define high-risk groups, and describe the geographic distribution of the condition. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Lancet, Social Issues / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof Kazem Rahimi FRCP The George Institute for Global Health Oxford Martin School University of Oxford, Oxford MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We decided to investigate this topic because disease incidence data is very important for public health bodies; for example, for the allocation of healthcare resources or for the design and assessment of disease prevention measures. When we reviewed the literature, we found that estimates of heart failure incidence, temporal trends, and association by patient features were scarce. Studies often referred to restricted populations (such as relatively small cohorts that may or may not be representative of the general population), or limited data sources (for example, only including patients hospitalized for their heart failure and not considering those diagnosed by clinicians outside of hospitals). Few studies reported comparable, age-standardized rates, with the result that the rates reported varied considerably across the literature. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Gastrointestinal Disease / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Iquity IncChase Spurlock, PhD, CEO of IQuity Inc. and Thomas M. Aune, PhD, Co-Founder of IQuity Inc. MedicalResearch.com: Why did you develop IsolateIBS-IBD? Response: Isolate IBS-IBD arose from work started at Vanderbilt University, which found that autoimmune diseases exhibit distinct RNA patterns in blood and that these patterns often are specific for a particular disease. In our longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of many human conditions that span both autoimmune and non-autoimmune disease categories, we found that differences detected at the level of RNA can provide an accurate snapshot of a person’s disease. Using RNA, we can tell at a very early stage if a pattern exists that indicates a specific disease. With this information, providers can initiate treatment plans sooner and have an additional tool in their toolbox when making diagnostic determinations. We developed this test because the symptoms of IBS and IBD are very similar, which can make it difficult and time-consuming for doctors to achieve an accurate diagnosis. IsolateIBS-IBD helps providers distinguish between the two conditions. It shouldn’t be viewed as a replacement or stand-alone test — doctors still need to use it in conjunction with clinical observation combined with traditional tests and procedures like a CT scan or endoscopic examination of the colon — but it can dramatically speed the diagnostic process. IQuity delivers results to providers within seven days of receiving the patient’s sample in the laboratory, allowing doctors to begin discussing a course of treatment as soon as possible.  (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian C. Stagg, MD Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences University of Michigan Medical School National Clinician Scholars Program University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation Joshua D. Stein, MD, MS Associate Professor University of Michigan Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Director, Center for Eye Policy and Innovation Ann Arbor  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Cataract surgery is one of the most common surgeries in the US. It is typically performed at either hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) or ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). ASCs are cheaper and more efficient, but some people believe that HOPDs may be safer for people with co-morbid medical conditions. We conducted this study to evaluate how the use of ambulatory surgery centers for cataract and other ocular surgeries has changed since 2001. We also wanted to see what factors influenced whether or not a patient had cataract surgery at an ASC (versus a HOPD), and to compare ASC use for cataract surgery with ASC use for other common eye surgeries (glaucoma, cornea, retina, strabismus). (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Pediatrics, Psychological Science, Science / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Shari Liu Dept Psychology Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Every day, we look out into the social world and see more than pixels changing across our retinas, or bodies moving in space. We see people brimming with desires, governed by their beliefs about the world and concerned about the costs of their actions and the potential rewards those actions may bring. Reasoning about these mental variables, while observing only people’s overt behaviors, is at the heart of commonsense psychology. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Nutrition / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Coffee” by Treacle Tart is licensed under CC BY 2.0Robin Poole Specialty registrar in public health Academic Unit of Primary Care and Population Sciences Faculty of Medicine University of Southampton MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Worldwide, over two billion cups of coffee are consumed every day. Since such a lot of coffee is consumed it is important to understand whether this is beneficial or harmful to our health. Evidence to date has been mixed and this tends to vary between different outcomes. Coffee is a complex mixture of many bioactive compounds including caffeine, chlorogenic acids, and diterpenes. Laboratory experiments have previously highlighted the potential for coffee to have anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-fibrotic and anti-cancer effects. Our research group is interested in liver conditions and we were aware of studies suggesting beneficial associations between drinking coffee and liver disease. We went on to conduct two meta-analyses and concluded that coffee drinking was beneficially associated with both liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. (more…)
Author Interviews, Technology / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotologic/3862190141">“Virtual Reality”</a> by <i> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/people/fotologic/">fotologic</a> </i> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0"> CC BY 2.0</a>Professor Robert G. Parton FAA Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have combined whole cell microscopy with image analysis and virtual reality visualization to allow a user to explore the surface of a cancer cell and then to move inside the cell and interact with the organelles vital for cellular function. The study utilized serial blockface electron microscopy data of a migratory breast cancer cell (combining thousands of electron microscopic images into one 3D dataset) together with to-scale animations of endocytic processes at the cell surface. Through the use of low-cost commercial VR headsets, the user could then ‘walk’ over the alien landscape of the cell surface, observe endocytic processes occurring around them in real-time, and then enter a portal into the cell interior. We provide guidelines for the use of VR in biology and describe pilot studies illustrating the potential of this new immersive experience as an educational too (more…)
Allergies, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Peanuts” by Daniella Segura is licensed under CC BY 2.0Vicki McWilliam Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Food allergy affects up to 10% of children and 2-3% of adults, and appears to increasing in prevalence. The rise in food allergy prevalence has coincided with increased reports of anaphylaxis. Previous research has shown that adolescents are most at risk of experiencing adverse food reactions and appear to be at higher risk of anaphylaxis fatalities but are an understudied age group in food allergy research. In a large population representative sample of 10,000 10-14 year olds in Melbourne, Australia we found that alarmingly over 40% had experienced an allergic reaction in the past year and almost 10% reported potentially life threatening reactions. Consistent with other research peanut and tree nuts were the most common trigger foods for reactions and those with nut allergy were most at risk of anaphylaxis. Having more than two food allergies doubled the risk of a food allergic reaction compared to those with a single food allergy. Surprisingly, reactions were found to occur most commonly at home rather than restaurants or school. (more…)
Author Interviews, Psychological Science, Technology / 23.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “FACEBOOK(LET) Front” by FACEBOOK(LET) is licensed under CC BY 2.0Phillip Ozimek M.Sc. Department of Social Psychology Faculty of Psychology Ruhr-University Bochum UniversitätsstrBochum, Germany MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We started reading the classic book by Erich Fromm „To have or to be“ out of personal interest. I was very much interested in studying social media, so we wondered how materialists would use facebook. After all Facebook seemed to be a perfect tool for people who love social comparisons. Furthermore, Facebook is for free – materialists love tools that do not cost money! (more…)
Author Interviews, Microbiome, Multiple Sclerosis / 23.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kouichi Ito, PhD Associate Professor Department of Neurology Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Rutgers MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS), and breakdown of immune tolerance to CNS proteins has been suggested to initiate CNS autoimmunity. Although the mechanism underlying the breakdown of immune tolerance to CNS proteins is still unknown, gut microbiota has been suggested to be involved in disease initiation and progression. To investigate the etiology of Multiple Sclerosis, we have created humanized transgenic mice expressing MHC class II and T cell receptor genes isolated from an Multiple Sclerosis patient and showed that gut dysbiosis, alteration in intestinal microbial composition, can induce gut leakiness and subsequently trigger the development of neurological deficits through activation of complement C3 and reduction of CBLB and Foxp3 genes. This study suggests that gut dysbiosis is one of the possible etiological factors for Multiple Sclerosis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Dermatology, Infections, Mental Health Research, Neurological Disorders, NIH / 23.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:   Byron Caughey, Ph.D. Senior Investigator Chief, TSE/prion Biochemistry Section Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases NIH/NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories Hamilton, MT      MedicalResearch.com: Would you briefly explain what is meant by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? Response: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is an incurable—and ultimately fatal—transmissible, neurodegenerative disorder in the family of prion diseases. Prion diseases can be found in many mammalian species and are due to the conversion of normally harmless prion protein molecules into abnormally folded, aggregated and self-propagating clusters and filaments in the brain. The accumulation of these clusters has been associated with tissue damage that often leaves dying neurons and microscopic sponge-like holes in the brain. In the sporadic and genetic forms of CJD this pathogenic process appears to arise spontaneously in the patient. However, the transfer of the prion protein aggregates from a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease patient into another human or experimental animal can initiate the pathogenic process in the recipient. These infectious forms of prion protein are called prions. Human prion diseases include fatal insomnia; kuru; Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome; and variant, familial and sporadic CJD. Sporadic CJD is the most common human prion disease, affecting about one in one million people annually worldwide. Other prion diseases include scrapie in sheep; chronic wasting disease in deer, elk and moose; and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in cattle. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, JAMA, Stroke / 23.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pankaj Arora MD, FAHA Assistant Professor, Cardiology Division University of Alabama at Birmingham Section Editor, Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics American Heart Association  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Natriuretic peptides are hormones produced by the heart in response to increased wall stress in the atria and ventricles. It is well known that blacks have increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease which contributes to racial disparities in outcomes. In the current work, we tested the hypothesis that black race is a natriuretic peptide deficiency state using a stratified random cohort of 4,415 participants selected from the REGARDS study (a national population-based cohort study evaluating racial and geographic disparities in stroke in US adults aged ≥45 years of age or older). Next, we looked for published results on the percentage difference in N-terminal proB-type NP (NTproBNP) levels by race in participants free of cardiovascular disease from other population cohorts. Lastly, we explored whether association of natriuretic peptides with all-cause mortality and CV mortality in apparently healthy individuals from REGARDS differs by race. We found that in multivariable adjustment, NTproBNP levels were up to 27% lower in black individuals as compared with white individuals in the REGARDS study. We pooled our results and found that in meta-analysis of the 3 cohorts, NTproBNP levels were 35% lower in black individuals than white individuals (more than 13,000 individuals in total). Lastly, we found that the higher NTproBNP levels were associated with higher incidence of all-cause mortality, and cardiovascular mortality in healthy blacks and white individuals, and this association did not differ by race. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Dermatology, JAMA, Medicare / 22.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adewole Adamson, MD, MPP Department of Dermatology UNC – Chapel Hill North Carolina  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Nurses practitioners and physician assistants, collectively known as non-physician clinicians (NPCs), provide many dermatology services, some which are billed for independently. Little is known about the types of these services provided. Even less is known about where these independently billed services are provided. Given that there is a purported shortage of dermatologists in the United States (US),  NPCs have been suggested as way to fill in the gap. In this study, we found that NPCs independently billed for many different types of dermatology associated procedures, including surgical treatment of skin cancer, flaps, grafts, and billing for pathology. Most of these NPCs worked with dermatologists. Much like dermatologists, NPCs were unevenly distributed across the US, concentrating mostly in non-rural areas. (more…)