Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Pancreatic, Surgical Research / 25.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nancy You, MD, MHSc, FACS Department of Surgical Oncology The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Houston  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This study was motivated by the emerging promise of precision medicine and the emerging evidence that immunotherapy may have phenomenal efficacy in particular molecular subtypes of cancers.  This specific molecular subtype shows deficiency in DNA mismatch repair mechanisms and therefore is thought to be more immunogenic.  DNA mismatch repair deficiency can arise from germline defects such as in the case of patients with Lynch Syndrome, an inherited cancer syndrome, or from epigenetic inactivation DNA mismatch repair genes. Overall, pancreas cancer has seen limited success with conventional chemotherapy.  In our study, we demonstrated that there is a particular molecular subtype of pancreas cancer that is characterized by defect in DNA mismatch repair genes and by microsatelie instability that has a different prognosis than other pancreas cancers.  This subtype of pancreas cancer is suspected to also respond to immunotherapy. (more…)
Addiction, Author Interviews, JAMA, Opiods, University of Pittsburgh / 24.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Julie M. Donohue, Ph.D. Associate professor in Pitt Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Medicaid Research Center Pitt’s Health Policy Institute University of Pittsburgh  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Medicaid enrollees have three times higher risk of opioid overdose than non-enrollees, and for every fatal opioid overdose, there are about 30 nonfatal overdoses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). My colleagues and I analyzed claims data from 2008 to 2013 for all Pennsylvania Medicaid enrollees aged 12 to 64 years with a medical record of a heroin or prescription opioid overdose and who had six months of continuous enrollment in Medicaid before and after the overdose claim. The 6,013 patients identified were divided into two groups—3,945 who overdosed on prescription opioids and 2,068 who overdosed on heroin, all of whom received treatment for overdose in a hospital or emergency department setting. We found that Pennsylvania Medicaid recipients who suffer an opioid or heroin overdose continue to be prescribed opioids at high rates, with little change in their use of medication-assisted treatment programs after the overdose. Opioid prescriptions were filled after overdose by 39.7 percent of the patients who overdosed on heroin, a decrease of 3.5 percentage points from before the overdose; and by 59.6 percent of the patients who overdosed on prescription opioids, a decrease of 6.5 percentage points. Medication-assisted treatment includes coupling prescriptions for buprenorphine, methadone or naltrexone—medications that can reduce opioid cravings—with behavioral therapy in an effort to treat the opioid use disorder. Our team found that such treatment increased modestly among the patients using heroin by 3.6 percentage points to 33 percent after the overdose, and by 1.6 percentage points to 15.1 percent for the prescription opioid overdose patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Psychological Science / 24.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dan Romer PhD Research director, Annenberg Public Policy Center Director of its Adolescent Communication Institute University of Pennsylvania MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In recent years, findings from research in developmental neuroscience indicate that the myelination of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) extends into the third decade of life, proceeding more slowly than in other brain regions. Because subcortical and sensory brain regions appear to mature earlier, this and other findings have been taken as evidence that adolescents may have less ability to control their behavior than children do. These findings spawned theories of “imbalanced” adolescent brain development that were proposed to explain heightened vulnerability to risky behavior and adverse health outcomes during adolescence. Although there is little doubt that as adolescents enter adulthood, they are at risk for many health outcomes that can accompany the initiation of such behaviors as driving, having sex, using drugs, and playing sports. But most adolescents make it through this period of development without serious health consequences. Thus, the argument that a brain deficit is responsible for such adverse health outcomes seemed to overgeneralize effects that only occur for a minority of adolescents. Furthermore, when my colleagues and I examined the evidence in support of imbalance theories, we found it unconvincing. Indeed, it seemed that findings from neuroscience were interpreted through the lens of stereotypes about adolescents that conflate exploration with impulsivity. That is, many of the risky behaviors that attract adolescents are novel activities that reflect lack of experience rather than lack of control over behavior.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, NEJM / 23.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dan Berlowitz, MD, MPH Investigator, CHOIR Chief of Staff, Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial VA Hospital Professor, Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The main results from the SPRINT study, published in 2015, demonstrated that intensive hypertension therapy targeting a systolic blood pressure (SBP) of 120 mm Hg results in reduced cardiovascular morbidity and mortality when compared to standard therapy targeting a SBP of 140. Yet many have expressed concerns that lowering SBP to 120 may be associated with a variety of symptoms, including dizziness, fatigue, and depression, especially in older and frailer patients. This study using SPRINT data examined patient-reported outcomes including health-related quality of life, depressive symptoms, and satisfaction. The main findings are that there were no differences in patient-reported outcomes among patients receiving intensive therapy compared to standard therapy, even among older SPRINT participants with multiple comorbidities. (more…)
Author Interviews, JNCI, Mental Health Research, Pharmacology, UT Southwestern, Weight Research / 23.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chen Liu, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Departments of Internal Medicine and Neuroscience Division of Hypothalamic Research The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Dallas, Texas 75390-9077  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Atypical antipsychotics are second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) that have been increasingly used to treat a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, and autism. Many patients taking these medications, however, are left in an agonizing dilemma. On one hand, they rely on these drugs’ psychotropic effect for normal functioning in daily life. On the other, many SGAs, including the most widely prescribed olanzapine and clozapine, can cause a metabolic syndrome that is known for excessive weight gain, dyslipidemia, and type-2 diabetes_ENREF_2. Notably, while full-blown type 2 diabetes and morbid obesity typically take years to unfold in the general population, these conditions progress at a much faster pace (within months) following second-generation antipsychotics treatment. Other factors such as ethnicity, age, and sex can also aggravate SGA-induced metabolic syndrome. Together, these peculiar features strongly suggest a distinct etiology underlying SGA-induced metabolic syndrome that has yet been fully elucidated. Currently, there is no medication specifically targeting SGA-induced metabolic syndrome. For many youths and adults taking second-generation antipsychotics, metabolic complications are difficult to manage as lifestyle changes, nutritional consulting, and commonly used anti-diabetic medications only provide limited relief. (more…)
Author Interviews, Journal Clinical Oncology, Lung Cancer / 23.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Theodore M. Brasky, PhD Research Assistant Professor The Ohio State University – James Comprehensive Cancer Center Columbus, OH 43201 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Prior literature has been suggestive of both a protective and harmful effect of certain B vitamins on lung cancer risk. We wanted to examine the association of intakes of vitamins B6, folic acid (B9), and B12 from supplements –which are typically taken at very high doses– and lung cancer risk in a large, prospective study of 77,000 men and women living in Washington State. The study is unique as it was designed specifically to examine associations of dietary supplements with cancer occurrence. We found that men who took high doses of vitamin B6 and B12 from individual supplements over a long period of time (meaning, doses much higher than the US RDA and much greater than what one would receive from taking a multivitamin over the long term) were at nearly 2-fold increased risk of lung cancer compared to men who did not have B6 or B12 intake from any supplemental source. This finding of increased risk appeared to be specific to men who were current smokers. Among them, long term high-dose supplementation was associated with 3-4 fold increases in lung cancer risk. We observed no increased risk for any of the supplements – B6, B12, or folic acid – with lung cancer risk in women or women who smoked. (more…)
Addiction, Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Social Issues / 23.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Beth Han, MD, PhD, MPH From Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, Maryland and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Washington, DC.  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Using the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), this is the first study examining the prevalence of overall prescription opioid use in addition to misuse, use disorders, and motivations for misuse in the U.S. adult population. The 2015 NSDUH collected nationally representative data on prescription opioid use, misuse, use disorder, and motivations for misuse among the U.S. civilian, noninstitutionalized population aged 12 or older. In 2015, NSDUH started to collect data on overall prescription opioid use as well as data on motivations for prescription opioid misuse. This study found that in 2015, 91.8 million (37.8%) U.S. civilian, non-institutionalized adults used prescription opioids, 11.5 million (4.7%) misused them, and 1.9 million (0.8%) had a prescription opioid use disorder. Among adults who used prescription opioids, 12.5% reported misuse and, of those reporting misuse, 16.7% reported a prescription opioid use disorder. The most common reported misuse motivation was to relieve physical pain (63.4%). Misuse and use disorders were most commonly reported in adults who were uninsured, were unemployed, had low income, or had behavioral health problems. Among adults with misuse, 59.9% reported using opioids without a prescription, and 40.8% obtained prescription opioids free from friends or relatives for their most recent misuse. (more…)
Author Interviews, OBGYNE, PLoS, Weight Research / 23.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Deborah A Lawlor MSc(Lond), MBChB, PhD(Bristol), MPH(Leeds), MRCGP, MFPHM Professor of Epidemiology MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School Oakfield House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As the obesity epidemic has occurred there has been increasing concern about pregnant women being more adipose (having higher levels of fat) during their pregnancy. One particular concern is that women who are on average fatter will have more extreme changes in pregnancy on their lipid, fatty acid, amino acid and glucose levels. In normal ‘healthy’ pregnancy these metabolites increase during pregnancy as part of the physiological response to pregnancy which ensures that the developing fetus has sufficient fuel (nutrients – fats, proteins, sugars) for healthy growth and development. Women who are more adipose tend to have a more extreme change in these fuels and as a consequence the developing fetus is ‘overfed’. There is a linear relationship between a pregnant woman’s body mass index and her infants birth weight, such that each increment greater adiposity (body mass index) of the mother there is on average and increment greater infant birth weight. Recently, using a method that uses genetic variants (Mendelian randomization) we have shown that this association is likely to be causal (JAMA 2016). But whether there is a lasting effect on offspring health of being overfed in the uterus is unknown. There are concerns that there will be a lasting effect and that for daughters of more adipose women, this would mean that they go into their pregnancies on average fatter and with higher levels of the metabolites that could then overfeed their developing fetus. If this were the case it would mean the obesity epidemic could be accelerated across generations. There are associations of mothers body mass index with later offspring body mass index, BUT this might not be anything to do with developmental overfeeding of the feeding in the uterus – it could simply reflect shared lifestyles that offspring adopt from their mother (and father) or shared genetic effects. In this study we tried to separate out whether there was evidence for a long-term offspring effect on their lipids, fatty acids, amino acids, glucose, and an inflammatory marker, of having a mother who was on average fatter during her pregnancy that was due to overfeeding in the uterus, as opposed to shared family lifestyle and genetics. We did this by comparing associations of mothers pre-pregnancy BMI with offspring outcomes to the same associations of fathers pre-pregnancy BMI with the same outcomes. Our assumption here was that fathers BMI could not directly result in overfeeding of the fetus and so if the associations were similar this would suggest that they were largely driven by family factors. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, UCLA / 22.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christian de Virgilio, MD LA BioMed lead researcher and corresponding author for the study He also is the former director of the general surgery residency program Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the recipient of several teaching awards. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Recent forecasts have predicted the United States will have a deficit of as many as 29,000 surgeons by 2030 because of the expected growth in the nation’s population and the aging of the Baby Boomers. This expected shortfall in surgeons has made the successful training of the next generation of surgeons even more important than it was before. Yet recent studies have shown that as many as one in five general surgery residents leave their training programs before completion to pursue other specialties. Our team of researchers studied 21 training programs for general surgeons and published our findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association Surgery (JAMA Surgery) on August 16, 2017. What we found was the attrition rate among residents training in general surgery was lower than previously determined – just 8.8% instead of 20% – in the 21 programs we surveyed. Our study also found that program directors’ attitudes and support for struggling residents and resident education were significantly different when the authors compared high- and low-attrition programs. General surgeons specialize in the most common surgical procedures, including abdominal, trauma, gastrointestinal, breast, cancer, endocrine and skin and soft tissue surgeries. General surgery residency training follows medical school and generally requires five to seven years. The programs are offered through universities, university affiliated hospitals and independent programs. In this study, the research team surveyed 12 university-based programs, three program affiliated with a university and six independent programs. In those programs, 85 of the 966 general surgery residents failed to complete their training during the five-year period the research team studied, July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2015. Of those who failed to complete their general surgery training, 15 left during the first year of training; 34 during the second year, and 36 during the third year or later. Notably, we found a nearly seven-fold difference between the training program with the lowest attrition rate, 2.2%, and the one with the highest rate, 14.3%, over the five-year period surveyed. In the programs with lower attrition rates, we found about one in five residents received some support or remediation to help ensure they would complete their https://medicalresearch.com/author-interviews/reduction_in_surgical_residents_work_hours/4475/ In the programs with higher attrition rates, the research team reported that only about one in 15 residents received such remediation. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Microbiome, PNAS / 22.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel Kalman, Ph.D. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Emory University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
  1. We think a lot about living longer, but that means we will also have a longer period of frailty and infirmity, which isn't optimal. Moreover, with geriatric populations projected to expand by 350 fold over the next 40 years, healthcare costs will be unsustainable.
  2. We were interested in understanding how health span of animals is regulated, and whether the microbiota plays a role. The microbiota, which is composed of bacteria inside and on us, when dysregulated (called dysbiosis) contributes to disease; the question we asked was whether it could also contribute to healthy aging, and how.
  3. We showed that animals of widely divergent phyla and separated by hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary time, all utilize indoles to regulate how well they age; in short indoles  make older animals look younger by various metrics, including motility, and fecundity.
(more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders, University of Michigan / 22.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Galit Dunietz, Ph.D., MPH Epidemiologist, Sleep Disorders Center Department of Neurology University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Insufficient sleep has a negative impact on health, cognition and mood and is linked to motor vehicle accidents. However, sleep loss in adolescents has become an epidemic and arises in part from biological processes that delay sleep and wake timing at the onset of puberty. This biology does not fit well with early school start times (before 8:30 a.m.). Despite recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to delay school start times, most schools in the U.S. have current start times before 8:30 a.m. In this nationally representative study of US parents of teens, we examined whether parents supported or opposed later school start times (after 8:30 a.m.). We also examined what may have influenced their opinions. We found that only about half of surveyed parents of teens with early school start times supported later school start times. Opinions appeared to depend in part on what challenges and benefits were expected to result from the change. For example, parents who expected an improvement in their teen’s academic performance or sleep quantity tended to support the change, whereas parents that expected negative impact on afterschool activities or transportation opposed delays in school start times.  We also found that parents had misconception about sleep needs of their adolescents, as the majority perceived 7-7.5 hours of sleep as sufficient, or possibly sufficient even at this young age when 8-10 hours are typically recommended. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA, Smoking / 22.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr.  Quinn R Pack MD Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine Baystate Northern Region Cardiology Baystate Health Springfield, MA   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and is very common among patients with heart disease.  Several smoking cessation medications are available and recommended in clinical guidelines to help smokers quite. However, it was unknown how often these were used and what factors make the use of pharmacotherapy more common. The main finding is that, across of broad range of hospitals, smoking cessation medications are infrequently used and the hospital where the patient was treated was the most important factor in determining if the patient was treated. (more…)
Author Interviews, Opiods, Orthopedics, Pain Research, Stanford / 21.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Tina Hernandez-Boussard, PhD MPH, MS Associate Professor of Medicine, Biomedical Data Science, and Surgery Stanford School of Medicine Stanford, CA 94305-5479 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Opioid addiction is a national crisis.  As surgery is thought to be a gateway to opioid misuse, opioid-sparing approaches for pain management following surgery are a top priority. We conducted a meta-analysis of 39 randomized clinical trials of common non-pharmalogical interventions used for postoperative pain management. We found that acupuncture and electrotherapy following total knee replacement reduced or delayed patients’ opioid use. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Heart Disease / 21.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alexander Egeberg, MD PhD Gentofte Hospital Department of Dermatology and Allergy Kildegårdsvej 28 2900 Hellerup Denmark MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The majority cardiovascular events in psoriasis occur in patients at low risk by traditional cardiovascular risk calculators. It has been speculated that long-term exposure to systemic inflammation may increase the risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Therefore, clinically available historical features such as disease duration may identify those at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Using a translational epidemiological approach, combining 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography computed tomography scanning with nationwide epidemiological data of more than four million individuals, we provide the first convincing evidence to suggest a detrimental effect of psoriasis duration on cardiovascular disease beyond traditional cardiovascular risk factors, even in patients deemed “low-risk” by conventional risk scores. We found a 1% increase in future major adverse cardiovascular event risk per additional year of disease duration. This finding has an effect size similar to smoking, a well-established cardiovascular risk factor. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Pediatrics / 21.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Andrei Morgan and Dr.Veronique Pierrat Obstetrical, Perinatal, and Pediatric Epidemiology Team, Epidemiology and Biostatistics Sorbonne Cité Research Center INSERM, Paris France Descartes University, Paris, France Department of Neonatal Medicine, Jeanne de Flandre Hospital, Lille, France.  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The risk of neurodevelopmental and behavioural disabilities remains high in children and adults born preterm. In the 2000s, outcomes of neonates born extremely preterm was described in several settings, but the outcome of neonates born very and moderately preterm was rarely reported. However, in absolute numbers, these infants represent a larger proportion of preterm births and account for more children with long-term deficits and learning disabilities. EPIPAGE-2 is a national study which aims to study short and long term outcomes of children born at 22-26 weeks’gestation, 27-31 weeks’gestation and 32-34 weeks’gestation in France in 2011. We also compared results from this study with the first EPIPAGE study, carried out in 1997. At two years of age, neuro motor and sensory impairment, as well as overall development, were investigated by sending questionnaires to the attending physician and the parents. (more…)
Author Interviews, CMAJ, Exercise - Fitness, Frailty, Geriatrics, Lifestyle & Health / 21.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Olga Theou, MSc PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University Affiliated Scientist, Geriatric Medicine, Nova Scotia Health Authority Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine, University of Adelaide Halifax, Nova Scotia  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We already know that moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity, such as time accumulated during exercise, is associated with numerous health benefits. More recent studies also have shown that sedentary time, such as time accumulated during prolonged sitting at work, transportation, and leisure, can also increase the risk of adverse outcomes. What was not known was whether prolonged sitting affects people across different levels of frailty similarly. This is what we examined in our study. We found that there were differences. Low frailty levels (people who are extremely healthy; frailty index score < 0.1) seemed to eliminate the increased risk of mortality associated with prolonged sitting, even among people who did not meet recommended physical activity guidelines. Among people with higher frailty levels, sedentary time was associated with mortality but only among those who did not meet recommended physical activity guidelines (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Gastrointestinal Disease, Infections, Nature, Stem Cells / 20.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Sigal PhD Clinical scientist of the Charité -- Universitätsmedizin Berlin Investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have previously found that H. pylori can colonize gastric glands and that in colonized glands the epithelial turnover was increased. We wanted to characterize the mechanisms that control the gland turnover in the stomach. We found that Axin2, a classic Wnt target gene, marks two different subpopulations of cells with stem cell properties, one of which is Lgr5-positive and the other one Lgr5-negative. Both populations are affected by Rspondin 3, that is produced in myofibroblasts right beneath the stem cell compartment. Rspondin is crucial for stem cell signaling and knockout of Rspondin 3 in myofibroblasts results in loss of Lgr5 and Axin2 expression. Once we increased the bioavailability of Rspondin, that now could also interact with cells outside of the stem cell compartment, we noticed that the number of Axin2 positive stem cells dramatically increased. Of interest, only Lgr5-negative cells expanded in number and proliferate more, while the Lgr5-positive cells remained silenced. Infection with Helicobacter pylori leads to an expansion of Axin2-positive cells which is driven by increased expression of Rspondin3. Expansion of the long lived stem cell pool could be an explanation for how H. pylori infection increases the risk for gastric cancer. (more…)
Author Interviews / 20.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jianping Huang, MD, PhD Associate Professor Director of Clinical Laboratory Operations UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program Department of Neurosurgery, University of Florida MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Identification and validation of molecules that are involved in tumor progression and reduced survival in glioma patients is the starting point for developing active, safe and effective therapy. Unfortunately, very few target molecules have been identified for the deadly disease of glioma up until recently. Our studies have identified that the molecule CD70 is ectopically expressed on gliomas and involved in promoting glioma progression. Our research shows that CD70 leads to a “double jeopardy” scenario in Glioblastoma (GBM) patients by promoting tumor aggressiveness and inhibiting our immune response to cancer. These results provide a strong scientific rationale to target CD70 using state-of-the-art therapeutic approaches, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy. (more…)
Author Interviews, Technology / 18.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ken Long, MD/PhD student Department of Bioengineering Micro and Nano Technology Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Traditional laboratory-based spectrometers are a mainstay of clinical diagnostics.  In our recent Lab on a Chip article we sought to produce a handheld device that would be able to perform three broad classes of spectrometric tests that one might normally do in a laboratory (Transmission-based, Reflection-based, and Intensity-based) on a smartphone-based handheld device that could be used at the point-of-care. Using high-resolution 3D printing, a custom optical fiber, and some off-the-shelf lenses, we were able to design, assemble, and demonstrate a device capable of reproducing results of traditional benchtop equipment when measuring results from commercially-available tests.  The device is small enough to hold in the palm of your hand, cost less than $550 to build the prototype, and has the ability to read multiple tests using the video-capture capabilities of the smartphone and a swiping motion with liquid test cartridges, much like swiping a credit card through a reader.  The two tests demonstrated in the paper were for a biomarker associated with pre-term birth in pregnant women, and a PKU test for newborns that can defect a critical nutritional enzyme deficiency. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Hepatitis - Liver Disease / 18.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mauricio Berriel Diaz Deputy Director & Head of Division Metabolic Dysfunction and Cancer Institute for Diabetes and Cancer IDC Helmholtz Center Munich and Joint Heidelberg-IDC Translational Diabetes Program Heidelberg University Hospital, Molecular Metabolic Control Medical Faculty, Technical University Munich Neuherberg, Germany  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Our institute takes part in a german collaborative research consortium (https://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=132204&L=1), in which the key objective is to understand why in diabetes mellitus late complications occur even when blood sugar is well controlled. Our study focused the role of the liver and of inflammatory signaling, as the latter is known to be increased in metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes mellitus. We found that TNF-α-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation in the liver abolished the function of the transcription factor GAbp. Impaired hepatic GAbp function resulted in transcriptional inactivation of the cellular energy sensor AMPK, which in turn induced hepatic cholesterol secretion, hypercholesterolemia and eventually atherosclerotic lesion formation. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Infections, Ophthalmology, Pediatrics / 18.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jennifer R. Cope MD Medical Officer Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases CDC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Wearing contact lenses can increase your chances of getting a severe eye infection. Eye infections can lead to serious problems, including blindness. All contact lens wearers can help prevent serious eye infections by correctly wearing and caring for their contact lenses. Eighty-one percent of young adults, 85% of adolescents, and 88% of older adults regularly did at least one risky behavior related to their contact lenses. The most frequently reported risk behaviors in adolescents were not visiting an eye doctor as least annually, sleeping or napping in lenses, and swimming in lenses. Among young adults and older adults, the most frequently reported risk behaviors were replacing lenses at intervals longer than those prescribed, replacing lens storage cases at intervals longer than those recommended, swimming in lenses, and sleeping or napping in lenses. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, PTSD / 17.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jun-Hyeong Cho MD PhD Department of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology University of California, Riverside Riverside, CA 92521 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: To survive in a dynamic environment, animals develop fear responses to dangerous situations. For these adaptive fear responses to be developed, the brain must discriminate between different sensory cues and associate only relevant stimuli with aversive events. In our current study, we investigated the neural mechanism how the brain does this, using a mouse model of fear learning and memory. Our study demonstrates that the formation of fear memory associated with an auditory cue requires selective synaptic strengthening in neural pathways that convey the auditory signals to the amygdala, an essential brain area for fear learning and memory. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, UCSF, Urology / 17.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Thomas W. Gaither, BS Department of Urology University of California, San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We study genitourinary trauma and reconstruction. This study was motivated from a previous study showing that Emergency Room visits due to grooming were increasing over the past nine year. We sought to better characterize who was at most risk for grooming injuries. We found that grooming is extremely common in both men and women and minor injuries occur in about 25% of groomers. Surprisingly, a little over one percent sought medical care due to their injury. Participants at most risk our those who remove all of their pubic hair frequently ( as opposed to those who just trim). We did not find any instruments that were necessarily putting participants at risk for injury. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pain Research, Pharmacology, PLoS / 17.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Harsha Shanthanna MBBS, MD, MSc Associate Professor, Anesthesiology Chronic Pain Physician St Joseph's Healthcare,McMaster University Hamilton, Canada Diplomate in National Board, Anesthesiology (India) Fellow in Interventional Pain Practice (WIP) European Diplomate in Regional Anesthesia and Pain MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Pregabalin (PG) and gabapentin (GB) are increasingly used for nonspecific Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) despite a lack of evidence. There have been concerns expressed over their increased prescribing for various non cancer pain indications in recent years. Their use requires slow titration to therapeutic doses and establishing maintenance on a long-term basis. With prolonged treatment, the potential gain over possible adverse effects and risks could become unclear. We searched Cochrane, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases for randomized control trials reporting the use of gabapentinoids for chronic lower back pain treatment of 3 months or more in adult patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gender Differences, Sexual Health / 17.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Traci K. Gillig Doctoral Candidate Annenberg School of Communication and Erica L. Rosenthal Senior Research Associate Hollywood, Health & Society University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90211   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Time magazine declared America reached a “transgender tipping point” in 2014, with the media visibility of transgender people reaching new levels. While research has shown that entertainment shapes viewers' attitudes, no prior studies had explored the cumulative effects of exposure to media portrayals of transgender people. To address this gap, we worked with the TV show Royal Pains (USA Network) to assess how viewers’ attitudes toward transgender people and related policy issues were influenced by seeing a brief fictional portrayal of a transgender teen as well as other transgender TV characters and up until a few years ago the only transgender many had even heard of were the lady boy shows in Thailand, or shemales on shemale hd sex. We had advance notice of the storyline through Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S), an organization affiliated with the USC Annenberg School of Communication. HH&S serves as a free resource to the entertainment industry, providing accurate health (and other) information through consultation with subject matter experts. Royal Pains assisted us in recruiting viewers for our study through their social media accounts. A total of 391 viewers who saw the episode featuring a transgender teen participated in our study, and we supplemented this sample with Royal Pains viewers who had not seen the episode, accessed through market research panels. Findings of our study showed that viewers who saw the Royal Pains episode featuring a transgender character had more supportive attitudes toward transgender people and related policies, compared to viewers who did not see the episode. Additionally, cumulative exposure to transgender entertainment narratives improved viewers' attitudes toward transgender people and policies. Neither exposure to transgender issues in the news nor Caitlyn Jenner’s story influenced attitudes. Further, aligning with prior research, viewers who were more politically conservative reported more negative attitudes toward transgender people and less support for transgender-affirming policies. However, seeing multiple such storylines reduced the strength of this link by one half. Political ideology also influenced viewers’ responses to the Royal Pains episode. Those who were politically liberal were more likely to feel hope or identify with the transgender character in the episode, while those who were politically conservative were more likely to react with disgust. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Dermatology / 17.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Gary M. Halliday Discipline of Dermatology, Bosch Institute Central Clinical School University of Sydney Sydney, NSW, Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The recently published article is a review paper- we reviewed previous laboratory studies of the effects of nicotinamide on normal pigment cells and on melanoma, and also the previous studies showing that nicotinamide can reduce rates of non-melanoma skin cancer (basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma) in high risk patients. We have not done any clinical investigations of nicotinamide as a preventive agent for melanoma. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, NEJM, Surgical Research / 16.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: A. Laurie Shroyer, Ph.D., M.S.H.A. WOC Health Science Officer Northport VAMC Research and Development Office (151) Northport, NY 11768 Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Surgery Stony Brook University, School of Medicine Stony Brook, NY  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Since the 1990’s, two different approaches have been commonly used by cardiac surgeons to perform an adult coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedure, these approaches have been referred to as  “on-pump” (with cardiopulmonary bypass) or “off-pump” (without cardiopulmonary bypass) procedures. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Randomized On/Off Bypass Follow-up Study” (ROOBY-FS) compared the relative performance of off-pump versus on-pump approaches upon 5-year patients’ clinical outcomes including mortality and major adverse cardiovascular events. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Pain Research, Rheumatology / 16.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jos Runhaar, PhD Erasmus MC Department of General Practice Rotterdam The Netherlands MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Most international guidelines report an overall lack of efficacy of glucosamine for osteoarthrits. We however know that it is a very heterogeneous disease. Therefore, it is possible that there are certain subgroups of osteoarthritis patients that actually might have effect from glucosamine; for instance subgroups based on different pathologies underlying the clinical presentation, different co-morbidities, or different disease stages. For investigating efficacy in subgroups large sample sizes are needed, and certain methodological techniques are necessary, to get a valid and robust answer. Several years ago, a group of renowned international osteoarthritis researchers started the OA Trial Bank especially for investigating these subgroup effects of osteoarthritis treatments and collect individual patient data of worldwide-performed intervention studies in osteoarthritis patients. When using the individual patient data of multiple studies, it brings us the large sample size and allows us to use the right methods. We do these subgroup analyses in the OA Trial Bank for many different interventions, not just for glucosamine. The subgroup analyses for glucosamine and for corticosteroid injections are published, the others are ongoing (for instance exercise, orthoses and topicals) or planned and still waiting for funding. The study did show, however, that glucosamine can be extremely beneficial for pets, and specifically dogs who have joint related issues. Knowing the most valuable sources of glucosamine for dogs is important, as it can be extracted and gained from multiple sources, and each have their own varied levels of quality and potency. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Dermatology, JAMA / 16.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kyle T. Amber, MD Department of Dermatology UC Irvine Health Irvine, CA 92697-2400  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The use of IVIg has been shown in randomized controlled trials to be safe and highly effective in the treatment of both pemphigus and bullous pemphigoid. Despite its efficacy, its cost remains a deterrent to its use. Cost studies in the United States point towards IVIg being an overall cost-saving therapy in the treatment of  Autoimmune Blistering Diseases when compared to traditional immunosuppressive treatment due to the decrease in associated infections, complications, and hospitalizations. (more…)