Author Interviews, Dermatology, Melanoma, Transplantation, University of Pennsylvania / 17.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Thuzar M.Shin MD, PhD Assistant Professor of Dermatology Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The Organ Procurement Transplant Network (OPTN) collects data on cancers that develop after organ transplantation. Previous studies have shown incomplete reporting to the OPTN for many cancers (including melanoma). Skin cancer is the most common malignancy in solid organ transplant recipients and the most common post-transplant skin cancer, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC), is not captured in standard cancer registries. We hypothesized that cSCC and melanoma are underreported to the OPTN. When compared to detailed medical record review obtained from the Transplant Skin Cancer Network database (JAMA Dermatol. 2017 Mar 1;153(3):296-303), we found that the sensitivity of reporting to the OPTN was only 41% for cSCC and 22% for melanoma. The specificity (99% for cSCC and 100% for melanoma) and negative predictive values (93% for cSCC and 99% for melanoma) were high. As a result, the OPTN database is unable to robustly and reliably distinguish between organ transplant recipients with and without these two skin malignancies. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Diabetes, JAMA, Pediatrics, Pharmacology / 17.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mehmet Burcu, PhD, MS Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research University of Maryland, Baltimore  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Antidepressants are one of the most commonly used psychotropic medication classes in U.S. youth, with serotonin reuptake inhibitors representing a large majority of total antidepressant use in youth. The most interesting finding was that the current use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors in youth was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, and this increased risk intensified further with the increasing duration of use and with the increasing dose. A secondary analysis also revealed that the risk of incident type 2 diabetes was most apparent in youth who used serotonin reuptake inhibitors for longer durations AND in greater daily doses. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Biomarkers, JAMA, Personalized Medicine / 17.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ingrid S. van Maurik, MSc Department of Neurology and Alzheimer Center Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics Amsterdam Neuroscience VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, the Netherlands MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: CSF and MRI biomarkers are increasingly used in clinical practice, but their diagnostic and prognostic value is not perfect. Furthermore, criteria do not specify how to deal with conflicting or borderline results, or how to take patient characteristics into account. Therefore, optimal use of these biomarkers in clinical practice remains challenging. As part of the ABIDE project, we constructed biomarker-based prognostic models (CSF, MRI and combined) that enable prediction of future Alzheimer’s disease, or any type of dementia, in individual patients with mild cognitive impairment. When using these models, any value can be entered for the variables, resulting in personalized probabilities with confidence intervals. (more…)
Author Interviews, Endocrinology, Epilepsy / 17.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Samba Reddy, Ph.D., R.Ph., FAAPS, FAAAS, FAES Professor Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics College of Medicine Texas A&M University Health Science Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: For the past two decades, D. Samba Reddy, PhD, RPh, professor of neuroscience and experimental therapeutics at the Texas A&M College of Medicine, has been searching for answers to catamenial epilepsy, a subset of chronic epilepsy that causes a dramatic increase in seizures during women’s menstrual periods. Although this condition has been documented for millennia, there is currently no effective treatment for catamenial seizures, leaving many women and their families desperate for answers. In this report, the researchers discovers the neuro-code for treating women with menstrual period-linked epilepsy. A unique platform has been created for clinical trials for catamenial seizures with synthetic neurosteroid agents. (more…)
Author Interviews, PTSD, Technology / 17.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Gale Lucas, PhD Director of Research USC Institute for Creative Technologies Playa Vista, CA   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: A common barrier to healthcare for psychiatric conditions is the stigma associated with these disorders. Perceived stigma prevents many from reporting their symptoms. Stigma is a particularly pervasive problem among military service members, preventing them from reporting symptoms of combat-related conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This put them at risk for having their symptoms go untreated, with possible disastrous outcomes including suicide attempts. We envisioned a technology system – a virtual human interviewer – whereby military service members can get feedback about their risk for PTSD in a safe place without stigma. Indeed, our prior research has shown that, because its “just a computer” (therefore safe and anonymous), this virtual human interviewer helps people to feel safe discussing sensitive issues like mental health symptoms. In this follow-up research project (published in Frontiers), we sought to demonstrate the value of this kind of virtual human interviewer specifically for encouraging reporting of PTSD symptoms among service members. Specifically, we were interested in comparing the willingness of service members to report symptoms of PTSD to our virtual human interviewer, compared to the gold standard of the Post Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA). We wanted to isolate the effect of anonymity, separating it from “relational factors” that the virtual human interviewer uses to encourage service members to open up. Indeed, before asking these same questions as on the PDHA to capture PTSD symptoms, the system engages in social dialogue, which build rapport with users. The system asks “get to know you questions,” and throughout the interview, engage in active listening with responses such as nods, smiles, saying “uh huh,” and other encouraging phrases like “that’s great.” (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Heart Disease, JAMA, OBGYNE / 17.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cuilin Zhang MD, PhD Senior Investigator Epidemiology Branch Division of Intramural Population Health Research NICHD/National Institutes of Health. Bethesda, MD 20817 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Gestational diabetes (GDM) is a common pregnancy complication. The American Heart Association identifies gestational diabetes as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women, based on consistent evidence for the relationships between gestational diabetes and subsequent hypertension, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, vascular dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Also, previous studies identify GDM as a risk factor for intermediate markers of CVD risk; however, few are prospective, evaluate hard cardiovascular disease end points, or account for shared risk factors including body weight and lifestyle. (more…)
Asthma, Author Interviews, Technology / 16.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Frank Trudo, MD, MBA Brand Medical Lead US Respiratory AstraZeneca MedicalResearch.com: Would you tell us about Lungprint?  How will Lungprint help asthma patients take better control of their disease? Response: Lungprint is an interactive digital tool that creates a dynamic visual representation of a person’s lungs based on their unique experiences with asthma. It is meant to provide people with asthma a better understanding of the role of asthma in their life and motivate them to have a more personalized conversation with their healthcare provider about the severity of their symptoms, a more individualized treatment plan and a blood test that measures eosinophil levels. Each person’s Lungprint, which is generated as they respond to a digital questionnaire about their experience with asthma, will help reveal information about their individual experience with asthma. You can visit www.lungprint.com to learn more about the tool and create your own Lungprint.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Environmental Risks, Tobacco Research / 15.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Abbas Mohajerani BsEng, MsEng, PhD, FIEAust, MAGS. MACI Senior Lecturer School of Engineering, Civil and Infrastructure Engineering RMIT University Melbourne Victoria  Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: I knew about the harmful chemicals in cigarette butts and was not happy to see them everywhere in the environment, in our footpath, parks, and rivers. Cigarette butts (CBs) contain a large number of toxic to highly toxic chemicals and stay in the environment for a long time. Decomposition of CBs can take from a couple of months to many years depending on the environmental factors. Cigarette butts are one of the most common types of waste found around the world. Currently about 6 trillion cigarette butts per year are deposited somewhere in the environment. This is equivalent to an estimated mass of over 1.2 million tonnes of Cigarette butts each year. And this is expected to increase significantly by 2025, mainly due to an increase in the world population. In 2005, I started to think about different ways to recycle CBs in construction materials, and the first idea which struck me was to recycle them in fired clay bricks. After several years of research, we came up with a proposal, that if every brick manufacturer were to produce 2.5% of their bricks with 1% Cigarette butts incorporated, all CBs produced worldwide could be recycled. A 1% CB content would have very little effect on the physical and mechanical properties of the brick. And the estimated firing energy saved by incorporating 1% CBs into clay bricks is about 10%. That is a very significant reduction in the firing energy. This proposal was published in the journal of Waste Management in May 2016. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Pharmacology / 15.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brooks D. Cash, M.D., A.G.A.F., F.A.C.G., F.A.S.G.E. Professor of Medicine and Chief of the USA Gastroenterology Division Director, Motility and Physiology Service University of South Alabama Mobile, Alabama  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) among patients with IBS-M (mixed diarrhea and constipation) is a challenging and difficult to diagnose and treat sub-type of IBS. Patients with IBS-M represent a dissatisfied group of IBS patients due to the lack of proven therapies. It is an area of high unmet medical need. Among adult patients with IBS, a sizeable proportion suffers from IBS-M with prevalence rates estimated to be between 44 to 66 percent of IBS sufferers[1],[2],[3]. IBS-M patients carry a heavy burden, characterized by bouts of constipation interrupted by diarrhea and vice versa. Physicians find IBS-M challenging to manage because of the difficulty in avoiding ‘overshoots’ when diarrhea management can turn into constipation and vice versa.[4]  (more…)
Author Interviews, Infections / 14.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Susan S. Huang, MD Professor, Infectious Disease School of Medicine Medical Director, Epidemiology and Infection Prevention UCI MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response:  The SHIELD Orange County Project is a CDC-initiated public health collaborative among nursing homes, long-term acute care (LTAC) facilities, and hospitals in the 6th largest U.S. County (Orange County, California). The 38 facilities (18 nursing homes, 3 LTACs, 17 hospitals) received targeted invitations based upon their high degree of shared patients with one another. The goal of the collaborative is to reduce multi-drug resistant organisms throughout the county using a decolonization strategy. As part of the baseline assessment, we swabbed 50 adult patients in each facility to assess the frequency that patients had multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO) on their body. Nursing home and LTAC patients were sampled from the entire population while hospital sampling involved only adults in contact precautions. We found that an alarmingly high percent of patients had an MDRO, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), extended-spectrum beta-lactamase producers (ESBLs), and carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE).
  • For nursing homes, 64% of residents have an antibiotic resistant bacteria on their body. Almost all of these are not known to the nursing home.
  • For LTACs, 80% of patients have an antibiotic resistant bacteria on their body. 7 in 10 patients have an MDRO that is not known to the LTAC.
  • For hospitalized patients on contact precautions, 64% have an antibiotic-resistant bacteria on their body. One third have an antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is not known to the hospital.
  • Having one MDRO is highly associated with having another one/
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Author Interviews, Autism, BMJ, Nutrition / 14.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Elizabeth DeVilbiss, PhD MPH Dornsife School of Public Health Drexel University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Unfortunately, not much is known about how diet during pregnancy affects autism risk.  There have been studies in recent years about varied aspects of diet during pregnancy and autism risk involving multivitamins, iron, folic acid, vitamin D, and more, but the evidence is still inconclusive. After adjusting for several potentially influencing factors in both mothers and children, we found that multivitamin use, with or without additional iron and/or folic acid, was associated with a lower likelihood of child autism spectrum disorder with intellectual disability relative to mothers who did not use folic acid, iron, and multivitamins. (more…)
Author Interviews, ENT, JAMA, Stanford, Surgical Research / 12.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Schoppy, MD PhD Resident, Division of Head and Neck Surgery Department of Otolaryngology Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford, Palo Alto, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There is a growing focus in healthcare on quality, and one component of this focus is the development of robust measures of quality. Currently, there are relatively few validated metrics of performance in oncologic surgery, and several of these indicators are relatively static metrics (such as hospital case volume and institution type). This study examined the relationship between overall survival (one surrogate of quality cancer surgery) and two modifiable variables in Head and Neck surgery - achieving negative surgical margins around a primary tumor and 18 or more lymph nodes from a concurrent neck dissection. After controlling for multiple other patient variables, data collected from the National Cancer Database (NCDB) showed that treatment at hospitals where a high percentage of patients had a surgery with negative margins and 18 or more lymph nodes removed from their neck was associated with improved survival. Importantly, this survival benefit was independent of the individual, patient-level survival benefit conferred by having either of these surgical process measures reached. This study therefore highlights two modifiable measures of institutional performance in Head and Neck surgery that may serve as targets for quality improvement programs. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Infections, Merck, Stem Cells, Transplantation / 12.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jonathan Schelfhout, PhD Director, Outcomes Research Merck & Co. Inc. North Wales, PA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The cost of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has received increased attention after it was identified as a top 10 contributor to increasing healthcare costs in an AHRQ 2016 report. Many recent studies have explored the cost of HSCT but additional research is needed on the costly complications that can follow the transplant procedure. This research is particularly relevant for inpatient decision makers, as most transplant centers receive one bundled payment for the transplant and the treatment of any complications over the first 100 days. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders / 12.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jack Peltz, Ph.D. Clinical assistant professor in Psychiatry Rochester Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Approximately 90% of high-school aged adolescents get either insufficient sleep during school nights or barely meet the required amount of sleep (ie, 8–10 hours) expected for healthy functioning.(1) In fact, sleep problems and insufficient sleep are so pervasive for adolescents that they could be considered an epidemic due to their adverse impact on adolescent mental and physical health.(2–5) As a result,addressing insufficient adolescent sleep represents a critical point of study and intervention. The growing body of evidence suggests that later school start times (SST), 8:30 AM or later as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatricians,6 convey multiple benefits on adolescents, including improved sleep, better mental and physical health, and improved academic outcomes.(7–10) This research, however, has focused on the direct effects of delaying school start times, or specifically how moving SST back directly predicts changes in an outcome (eg, mental health, academic achievement). This type of analysis precludes examining the important role that SST might play as a condition or context under which other sleeprelated processes take place. For instance, earlier school start times might exacerbate the impact of sleep-related processes on adolescent behavioral health outcomes. Thus, incorporating school start times as a larger contextual variable that might moderate models of sleep and adolescent functioning represents a gap in the literature and a unique opportunity to advance conceptual models. Accordingly, the current study examines the moderating role of school start times on the associations between sleep hygiene, sleep quality, and mental health. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Gender Differences, Psychological Science, Social Issues / 11.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Thekla Morgenroth Preferred pronouns: They/them/their Research Fellow in Social and Organisational Psychology Psychology University of Exeter Washington Singer Laboratories, Exeter UK  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Risk-taking is often seen as an important trait that leads to economic success - for example when it comes to investing money - and career success. For example, we often hear that leaders need to be willing to take risks. Risk-taking is also strongly associated with masculinity, which leads to the idea that maybe gender differences in economic and career success can be explained by the fact that women are just too risk averse. When you look at the risk-taking literature, it appears that there is support for this idea with many studies showing that men do indeed take more risks than men. Our research questions these ideas. We show that current measures of risk-taking are biased. They focus only on stereotypical "masculine" risk taking behaviors such as betting your money on the outcome of a sporting event or going whitewater rafting, and ignore the many risks that women take, such as going horseback riding or donating a kidney to a family member. When this bias is addressed, gender differences in risk-taking disappear or even reverse. (more…)
Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, Pharmacology, Psychological Science / 10.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vanda Faria PhD Department of Psychology Uppsala, Sweden  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: It has been debated whether selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are commonly prescribed for depression and anxiety, are more effective than placebo. Concerns have been raised that the beneficial effects of SSRIs, as measured in double-blind clinical trials, may be explained by expectancies (a crucial placebo mechanism) rather than the biochemical compound. But no study has tested experimentally the extent to which the SSRI treatment effect can be influenced by expectancies induced by verbal suggestions. We compared the efficacy of overt vs. covert administration of an SSRI (escitalopram) in patients with social anxiety disorder. Rather than comparing the SSRI with placebo, we compared it with itself while manipulating the patients’ expectations of improvement. This was achieved by informing one group correctly about the SSRI and its effectiveness (overt group) whereas the comparison (covert) group received incorrect information. By use of a cover story, the covert group was led to believe they were treated with a so called “active placebo”, an ineffective neurokinin-1 antagonist yielding similar side effects as the SSRI but lacking anxiety-reducing properties. But the treatment, dosage and duration was in fact identical in both groups. Results showed that overt outperformed covert SSRI treatment, as the number of treatment responders was more than three times higher on the main clinical outcome measure when correct information was given. Using neuroimaging (fMRI) we also noted differences between the overt and covert SSRI groups on objective brain activity measures. There were differences between the groups e.g. with regard to activation of the posterior cingulate cortex with treatment, and the functional coupling between this region and the amygdala which is a brain region crucially involved in fear and anxiety. The fMRI  results may reflect the interaction between cognition and emotion as the brain changes differently with treatment pending on the expectations of improvement. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gender Differences, Social Issues / 09.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rebecca Horne, MSc, PHEc MSc graduate in Family Sciences from the University of Alberta Professional human ecologist PhD student in Psychology at the University of Toronto Research area in intimate relationships MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Although several studies have argued that time, money, and gender are important factors that shape the division of household labour, we know little about how these factors impact housework at different stages of the life course. Specifically, are time, money, and gender-related variables equally important for explaining housework involvement at different life stages? In our study, we compared men’s and women’s housework contributions at different life stages and explored how work hours, income (relative to one’s partner), marital status, raising children, and gender impacted housework at these distinct stages. We drew on data from the Edmonton Transitions Study, which has tracked the school-to-work and adolescence-to-adulthood transitions of nearly 1,000 Canadians for over three decades. We analyzed survey data from participants who had romantic partners during three developmental periods: the transition to adulthood (age 25; assessed in 1992), young adulthood (age 32; assessed in 1999), and midlife (age 43; assessed in 2010). We found that regardless of age or life stage, women performed more housework than men. In addition, lower housework involvement was most reliably predicted by earning a greater share of income and being male at age 25; working longer hours and raising children (for men only) at age 32; and earning a greater share of income, working longer hours, and being male at age 43. Importantly, gender was the strongest predictor of housework responsibility earlier and later in life. (more…)
Author Interviews, C. difficile, CDC, Dental Research, Infections / 09.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stacy Holzbauer, DVM, MPH, DACVPM CDC Career Epidemiology Field Officer (CEFO) Commander, USPHS Minnesota Department of Health St. Paul, MN MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Antibiotics are not harmless drugs—Clostridium difficile infection, which can sometimes cause a deadly diarrhea, is a complication of antibiotic use and can occur after even one dose of an antibiotic.
  • The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is part of the larger Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emerging Infections Program (EIP). The healthcare-associated infection component of CDC’s EIP engages a network of state health departments and their academic medical center partners to help answer critical questions about emerging HAI threats including Clostridium difficile also known as “C. diff.”
  • In Minnesota, the majority of C. diff infections occur outside the hospital and are driven by antibiotic use in community or outpatient settings. In addition to routine surveillance data, we interview patients with C. diff who were not hospitalized prior to their infection to identify potential risks for developing C. diff infection, including identifying antibiotics received outside of routine healthcare settings.
  • Dentists prescribe approximately 10% of the antibiotics in outpatient settings, which was over 24 million prescriptions in 2013. When asked about their prescribing practices in a 2015 survey with the Minnesota Dental Association, 36% of dentists surveyed prescribed antibiotics for dental conditions that are generally not recommended to receive antibiotics according to American Dental Association (ADA) guidelines.
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Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care / 09.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John N. Mafi MD MPH Assistant Professor of Medicine David Geffen School of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles Natural scientist in Health Policy RAND Corporation Santa Monica, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Of the 3 trillion dollars the U.S. spends annually on health care, an estimated 10-30% consists of “low-value care”, or patient care that provides no net benefit in specific clinical scenarios (think antibiotics given for the common cold virus). Determining where and why this waste occurs is critical to efforts to safely reducing healthcare spending. Little is known, however, about the distribution of costs among such “low-value” services. In this context, we used the Virginia All Payer Claims Database in order to assess the quantity and total costs of 44 low-value services in 2014 among 5.5 million beneficiaries. (more…)
Author Interviews, Geriatrics, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 09.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH Washington University School of Medicine Saint Louis MO MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Home health is one of the fastest-growing sectors in Medicare, and the setting of a new federal value-based payment program, yet little is known about disparities in clinical outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries receiving home health care. We found that beneficiaries who were poor or Black had worse clinical outcomes in home health care than their peers. These individuals were generally more likely to have unplanned hospitalizations, readmissions, and emergency department visits. Under Home Health Value-Based Purchasing, these patterns should be tracked carefully to ensure the program helps close the gaps rather than widening them. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Weight Research / 09.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. C. Brooke Steele D.O. Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Centers fo Disease Control and Prevention  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This report contains new information about cancer risk and people being overweight and obese. Research shows that being overweight or having obesity is associated with at least 13 types of cancer (adenocarcinoma of the esophagus; cancers of the breast [in postmenopausal women], colon and rectum, endometrium, gallbladder, gastric cardia, kidney, liver, ovaries, pancreas, and thyroid; meningioma; and multiple myeloma). We also know that the number of people who weigh more than recommended has increased over the past few decades. Therefore, we looked at the numbers of new cases of cancers associated with overweight and having obesity in the United States, as well as how the rates have changed over a 10-year period. Because screening for colorectal cancer can reduce colorectal cancer incidence through detection and removal of precancerous polyps before they become cancerous, we analyzed trends with and without colorectal cancer. (more…)
Author Interviews, Occupational Health, Weight Research / 09.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sun Miaomiao Prof. Shelly Tse JC School of Public Health and Primary Care The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sha Tin, Hong Kong MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Approximately 20% of the overall workforce is involving in a shift work schedule, which is equivalent to nearly 0.7 billion workers. It has been several studies and systematic reviews reported that shift work could contribute a risk to abdominal obesity, that was identified to be associated with increased mortality. However, the previous related studies derived from different industries and companies that held with various occupational settings of night shift work, and the results have been inconsistent or lack of statistical power. We believed that a better understanding of the knowledge gaps on the associations between specific obesity types and different shift work settings has important implications for occupational health practice. Our meta-analysis provided a clearer picture for the association between night shift work and overweight/ obesity with a potential gradient association, especially for the abdominal obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gender Differences / 07.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adam C. Davis, MSc PhD Education student University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario Canada  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Charles Darwin argued that animals compete with members of the same sex for desired mates (i.e., intrasexual competition). Using this framework, evolutionary researchers have explored the variety of ways in which this kind of competition may play out across human cultures. Several researchers have argued that gossip may be an effective way for humans to compete for mates, but most of the research has been indirect up until this point. In our study, we provide evidence that the reported tendency to compete with same-sex others for mates is associated with gossiping and positive attitudes toward learning about and spreading gossip. Gossip has also been argued to be women’s weapon of choice to compete for mates; however, few studies have tested this hypothesis. We provide evidence that women gossip to a greater extent than men, particularly about social information (e.g., friendships, romantic relationships) and the physical appearance of others (e.g., clothing), whereas men gossip more about achievement (e.g., salaries, promotions). Women also expressed more favourable attitudes toward gossiping than men. (more…)
Author Interviews, Kidney Stones / 07.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Benjamin Freedman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor | University of Washington Department of Medicine | Division of Nephrology Member, Kidney Research Institute Member, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Seattle WA 98109  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this new technology and study? What are the main findings? Response: Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is the leading genetic cause of end stage renal disease, affecting approximately twelve million people. The hallmark of the disease is the massive expansion of kidney tubules into large, fluid-filled cysts. Although we know the genes that are mutated in this disease, we do not have a firm grasp on what they do to protect the body from disease. We used a new system, human kidney organoids with gene-edited PKD mutations, to discover how factors outside the cell affect cyst formation. We found that liberating the organoids from plastic dishes into floating cultures greatly increased the number and size of cysts that formed. We also found that PKD organoids had problems in their ability to change the shape of collagen scaffolds surrounding them, compared to control organoids of the same genetic background. (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, PLoS / 07.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Colin Sharpe School of Biology Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science School of Biological Sciences University of Portsmouth Portsmouth, United Kingdom  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have long been fascinated by the question of what underpins the increasing complexity of multicellular animals. In a recent publication we looked at changes to the diversity of the NCoR family corepressors (NCoRs) across the Deuterostomes and found an increase in diversity from sea urchins to humans (1). This is due to gene duplication, an increase in alternative splicing and the encorporation of more protein motifs and domains. In this study we devised a measure of functional diversity based on these three factors and calculated this value for over 12000 genes involved in transcription in nine species from the nematode worm to humans. Orthologues whose increase in diversity correlated with the increase in complexity of these animals were then selected and we looked for common features and interactions between the selected genes. We found that proteins that regulate the dynamic organisation of chromatin were significantly enriched within the selection. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ / 07.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Mark A Green BA (Hons), MSc, PhD, AFHEA Lecturer in Health Geography University of Liverpool MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Between Dec 2013 and Dec 2015 there was an increase of 41% in the number of acute patients delayed being discharged from hospital. If we compare the previous year of data –Dec 2012- Dec 2014 – there was only a 10% increase. 2015 saw one of the largest annual spikes in mortality rates for almost 50 years – we wanted to explore if there was any correlation between these two trends. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Medical Imaging, MRI / 06.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sanja Josef Golubic, dr. sc Department of Physics, Faculty of Science University of Zagreb, Croatia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Our study was aimed to search the topological biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease. A recent evidences suggest that the decades long progression of brain degeneration that is irreversible by the stage of symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease, may account for failures to develop successful disease-modifying therapies. Currently, there is a pressing worldwide search for a marker of very early, possibly reversible, pathological changes related to Alzheimer’s disease in still cognitively intact individuals, that could provide a critical opportunity for evolving of efficient therapeutic interventions. Three years ago we reported the discovery of the novel, fast brain pathway specialized for rapid processing of the simple tones. We named it gating loop. Gating loop directly links auditory brain areas to prefrontal brain area. We have also noticed the high sensitivity of the gating loop processing on AD pathology. It was inspiration to focus our Alzheimer’s disease biomarker search in the direction of prefrontal brain activation during listening of simple tones. (more…)
Annals Thoracic Surgery, Author Interviews, Gender Differences, Heart Disease, Surgical Research, Women's Heart Health / 06.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Habib Jabagi B.Sc., M.Sc., M.D. Department of Surgery University of Ottawa , Ottawa MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings Response: Women with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at a significant disadvantage compared to men, as they do not consistently receive the same intensive treatment. For example, when surgery is done in men, it is more common to use arteries, as opposed to saphenous veins from the leg to complete the bypass graft. Arteries, such as the left internal thoracic artery, appear to have much better long-term patency than veins, which translates into improved outcomes. The motivation for this study was to see if our centre, which has embraced the use of arteries quite aggressively, has suffered the same gender disparities with respect to the use of multiple arterial revascularization strategies in coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). (more…)
Author Interviews, HIV, Infections / 06.10.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Paul M. Salcuni, MPH Department of Health and Mental Hygiene New York City MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: NYC Health Department is committed to ensuring equitable access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for all New Yorkers who are HIV-negative and may be exposed to HIV. We examined trends in PrEP prescribing by 602 ambulatory care practices in New York City from 2014 to 2016, as well as associated patient and practice factors, to inform our comprehensive scale-up efforts. For every 100,000 medical visits in the first three months of 2014, roughly 39 involved a patient being prescribed PrEP. In the second quarter of 2016, 419 of every 100,000 medical visits at those same practices involved a PrEP prescription. Despite this nine-fold increase overall, some groups of patients among these practices were less likely to be prescribed PrEP. Those groups include men of color, women, and people getting health care at smaller private practices or practices outside of the city center. (more…)