MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Hannah Arem Ph.D. M.H.S. Postdoctoral Fellow Nutritional Epidemiology Branch Division Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics National Cancer Institute MedicalResearch: What is the...
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Michael S. Irwig MD
Division of Endocrinology Medical Faculty Associates
George Washington University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Many factors are associated with lower testosterone levels and many men who have their testosterone levels checked have non-specific depressive symptoms. The main finding is a remarkably high rate of depression and depressive symptoms (56%) in men who are referred for borderline testosterone levels. Other significant findings include a prevalence of overweight and obesity higher than the general population.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Aileen Gariepy, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor Section of Family Planning
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Gariepy: Women who have just given birth are often highly motivated to prevent a rapid, repeat pregnancy. For women who desire the contraceptive implant, a highly effective reversible form of contraception that is placed in the arm and can last for 3 years, new research shows that it is more cost-effective to place the implant while women are still in the hospital after giving birth, compared to delaying insertion to the postpartum visit 6-8 weeks later which is currently the most common practice.
When the costs associated with the implant insertion and the costs of unintended pregnancy are compared in women who receive immediate contraceptive implant insertion (while still in the hospital after giving birth) to women who are asked to come back in 6-8 weeks for the implant insertion (delayed insertion), immediate insertion is expected to save $1,263 per patient. Based on these estimates, for every 1,000 women using postpartum implant, immediate placement is expected to avert 191 unintended pregnancies and save $1,263,000 compared with delayed insertion in the first year. Cost savings would continue to increase for the second and third year after insertion.
In fact, over half of U.S. pregnancies are unintended. Maternal and infant care costs for unintended pregnancies amount to $11.1 billion annually for public insurance programs alone. The immediate postpartum period (after delivery but before discharge home) provides an ideal opportunity for initiating contraceptives as patients are motivated and timing is convenient.
However, the majority of insurance company policies do not provide coverage for insertion of the contraceptive implant when the new mother is still in the hospital. This lack of reimbursement is the most significant barrier to providing this highly effective contraceptive method for women who have just delivered a baby. Surprisingly, the reason most insurance companies do not offer reimbursement for immediate insertion is due to an outdated insurance protocol, “the global obstetric fee” which precludes separate reimbursement of individual procedures (like inserting the implant).
The main reason that immediate insertion results in cost savings is because more women will get the implant compared to a strategy of delayed insertion. Women can get pregnant again within 4 weeks of delivering a baby. Starting contraception as soon as possible after giving birth is important because most women will resume sexual activity before their postpartum office visit and therefore will be at risk of pregnancy. And approximately 35% of women do not return for a postpartum visit.
Even for women who want another pregnancy soon, the implant has benefits. When women conceive and deliver a baby within 2 years of last giving birth, there is a significantly higher risk of poor maternal and neonatal outcomes, including preterm birth, low birth weight, and even early neonatal and maternal death. Birth spacing is better for moms and babies.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr.Carey Gleason Ph.D
School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin
Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center
William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital
Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Madison, Wisconsin
Dr. Gleason: In this response I refer to hormone therapy (HT), which was formally called hormone "replacement" therapy. In particular, we examined menopausal HT, i.e., the use of HT during the menopausal transition to address menopausal symptoms.
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Gleason: The WHI Memory Study (WHIMS) suggested that HT was associated with cognitive harm for women age 65 and older. In contrast, we found that the cognitive performance of women randomized to receive menopausal hormone therapy did not differ from that of women randomized to receive the placebo. On a measure of mood states, women treated with conjugated equine estrogens showed improvements compared to those on placebo.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kevin Yarasheski, PhD
Assistant Director, Biomedical Mass Spectrometry Research Facility
Professor of Medicine, Cell Biology & Physiology, Physical Therapy
Washington University School of Medicine
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Yarasheski: People living with HIV and taking combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) have successfully reduced the amount of HIV virus in their blood and have partially reconstituted their immune system (CD4+ T-cell count >250 cells/µL). Despite this, many still experience residual immune cell activation and inflammation that is believed to increase HIV morbidity (non-AIDS conditions e.g., CVD, T2DM, obesity, liver fat, bone loss, dementia) and mortality. Scientists are seeking safe and effective interventions for residual immune cell activation and inflammation, that have the potential to reduce non-AIDS complications that threaten quality and quantity of life among HIV infected adults.
We have been testing the safety and efficacy of sitagliptin in people living with HIV; a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor that is FDA approved for treating T2DM, and appears to have favorable anti-inflammatory and immune modulatory properties that might specifically benefit people living with HIV and experiencing cardiometabolic complications associated with residual immune cell activation and inflammation.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Yarasheski: In a randomized, double-blinded, placebo controlled 8-wk trial, we found that sitagliptin had beneficial anti-inflammatory, immune regulatory, hematopoietic progenitor cell mobilizing, and glucose lowering effects in cART-treated virally suppressed HIV adults with impaired glucose tolerance. Sitagliptin improved glucose tolerance (a risk factor for CVD), reduced circulating and adipose-specific inflammatory markers (risk factors for obesity, T2DM, liver fat accumulation, and CVD), and increased the number of blood stem cells that can repair damage and inflammation in the vascular walls.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Ranjith Ramasamy MD
Assistant Professor of Urology
University of Miami
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Ramasamy: The association between testosterone supplementation therapy (TST) and thrombotic risk in elderly men remains controversial. We evaluated the prevalence of thrombotic events and all-cause mortality in men older than 65 years with hypogonadism treated with testosterone therapy. We compared men treated with testosterone to an age and comorbidity matched cohort of hypogonadal men not treated with testosterone supplementation therapy.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Ramasamy: No man who received testosterone supplementation therapy died, whereas 6 hypogonadal men who did not receive TST died (p=0.007). There were 4 thrombotic events (1 MI - myocardial infarction, 2 CVA/TIA - stroke, 1 PE - pulmonary embolism) in men who received testosterone supplementation therapy compared to 1 event (CVA/TIA) among men who did not receive TST (p = 0.8). All the events (except one death which took place at 6 months of follow–up) occurred 2 years or more after follow–up. Strengths of the study include long follow–up (>3 years), availability of serum testosterone levels before and after therapy and of a control group (hypogonadal men not treated with TST) for comparison. Limitations included retrospective study design, and a small sample size.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jim Dupree, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Department of Urology, Division of Andrology
University of Michigan
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Dupree: There are increasing discussions in the United States about testosterone therapy and men with clinical hypogonadism (or low testosterone). Yet, to date, there have not been any nationally-representative studies of the prevalence of low testosterone in the United States. Using a validated national health examination program from the CDC, we found that the national prevalence of low testosterone (serum testosterone ≤ 300 ng/dL) in adult males in the US was 28.9%. Among other factors, men who were older, had a higher body mass index (BMI), or had a larger waist circumference were at risk for having lower testosterone levels.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Bianca Jones Marlin, PhD
Froemke Laboratory
New York University Langone School of Medicine
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Marlin: Oxytocin is a hormone that plays an important role in the expression of social and parental behaviors, but little is know about how it works in the brain to produce these behaviors. Virgin mice will usually ignore, and sometimes cannibalize newborn mouse pups. Our study has shown that oxytocin works in the auditory cortex of virgin mice to change both their neural responses, and eventually their behaviors, to mirror the maternal response.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Mohamed Kabbaj, PHD
Professor of Biomedical Sciences & Neurosciences
College of Medicine
Florida State University
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Kabbaj: While anxiety and depressive disorders a major public health concern worldwide, so too are the pervasive sex differences that exist within these pathologies. Fluctuations in the predominant female reproductive hormones, estradiol and progesterone, are thought to be a major contributor to the higher prevalence of anxiety and depression in women compared to men. However, many studies in humans and rodents alike have demonstrated that testosterone, the primary male sex hormone, also influences affective status and may yield protective benefits against the development of mood-related disturbances. Indeed, hypogonadal males with low testosterone levels experience increased rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms. In many of these cases, testosterone replacement alone or in addition to antidepressant medication have been shown to effectively improve mood. How this hormone acts in the brain to exert its beneficial effects, however, is much less clear. Interestingly, it is well-known that many of testosterone’s effects in the brain occur via its conversion to estrogen by the enzyme aromatase. What remained unclear was whether or not this conversion to estrogen was critical for testosterone’s protective anxiolytic and antidepressant effects—so Nicole Carrier and Samantha Saland from Dr. Kabbaj’s lab aimed to figure out just that.
To do this, Carrier and Saland targeted an area of the hippocampus in the brain involved in mood regulation where testosterone is known to act to carry out some of its anxiolytic and antidepressant effects in male rats. Here, they inhibited the enzyme responsible for the conversion of testosterone into estrogen and investigated performance in mood-related behaviors. In doing so, they discovered that testosterone’s anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects were lost unless this hormone was first converted into estrogen. Importantly, they also found that continuous testosterone and estrogen treatments had very similar effects on the expression of genes within this brain region that are highly implicated in the regulation of mood as well as antidepressant treatments.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nan Hee Kim M.D., Ph.D., Professor
Korea University Ansan Hospital,
Gojan1-dong, Danwon-gu, Gyunggi-do, Korea
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Nan Hee Kim: Many individuals in modern society experience a discrepancy between social and biological time. Especially during the work or school week, we are often forced to be awake against our preferred time. In addition, the increase of light, TV, computer and internet make people stay up late at night. However, night owls (evening persons) have been reported to have more health and behavioral problems than morning persons. Evening persons experience eating disorders, negative mood and insufficient sleep compared to morning persons. They initiate sleep later in the night but need to wake up earlier than their biologic morning due to social demands. There is abundant evidence that short sleep duration and insomnia are significant risk factors for obesity and diabetes. Therefore, we feel the necessity to reveal whether evening persons are associated with metabolic abnormalities in the general population.
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings?
Dr. Nan Hee Kim: In middle-aged adults, people who stayed up late had a 1.7-fold increased risk for type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and a 3.2-fold increase in risk for sarcopenia as compared with morning persons, independent of sleep duration and lifestyle. Evening persons were associated with reduced muscle mass in men and increased fat mass including visceral fat in women.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Elizabeth A. Lawson, M.D., M.M.Sc.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Director, Interdisciplinary Oxytocin Research Program
Neuroendocrine Unit Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA 02114
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain that has been shown to reduce food intake in animal studies. The role of oxytocin on appetite and food consumption in humans is not well understood. We therefore performed a randomized, placebo controlled cross-over study of single dose administration of intranasal oxytocin (Syntocinon, Novartis) in healthy men. Subjects presented fasting in the early morning and were randomized to receive 24 IU intranasal oxytocin or placebo. They selected breakfast from a menu and were offered double portions. The caloric content of the food they ate was calculated. They returned for a second visit, which was the same except for this time, they received the other treatment (placebo or oxytocin). There was no difference in how much food the men reported eating in the three days leading up to each of the study visits. On average, the men ate 122 fewer calories and about 9 grams less fat after receiving oxytocin compared to placebo. There was also evidence that oxytocin resulted in greater use of fat as a fuel for the body, and improved insulin sensitivity.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Roy Kim, MD
Depts. Endocrinology and Pediatrics
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Medical Research: What was the problem you were focused on?
Dr. Kim: We were focused on the problem of adolescent metabolic syndrome, a major public health problem. Our objective was to determine whether nut intake is linked with any difference in odds for metabolic syndrome in US adolescents.
Medical Research: How is metabolic syndrome defined?
Dr. Kim: In general it is diagnosed when there are 3 or more of the following things: increased belly fat, high blood pressure, high fasting glucose, elevated triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol.
Medical Research: How did you do your study?
Dr. Kim: We used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), years 2003-2010, to examine health status and the diet history for 2,322 US adolescents age 12 to 19 years.
Dr. Kim: Our first major finding was that adolescents who ate at least 12.9 grams of nuts per day - this is the equivalent of about 1 ounce of nuts 3 times per week – had a dramatically lower odds for metabolic syndrome compared to adolescents who ate less than that amount. The odds for nut-consumers was only about 43% of the odds for non-consumers. This remained true after controlling for age, gender, race, income, and dietary factors including sugar, fruit, and vegetable intake.
Our second major finding was that average nut intake is very low among US adolescents – only about 5 grams per day - and more than 75% of US adolescents eat no nuts at all on a typical day.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with;
Sebastiano Filetti MD
Dipartimento di Medicina Interna
Università di Roma Roma
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Filetti: Thyroid nodule diagnosis is becoming more and more frequent in clinical practice. This trend stems largely from the incidental discovery of small nodules due to the increased use of diagnostic imaging for purposes unrelated to the thyroid. Ultrasound studies, for example, are widely used for evaluating other structures in the neck, such as the carotid arteries, parathyroid glands, lymph nodes, and salivary glands. Over 90% of detected thyroid nodules are clinically insignificant, in that they have been cytologically proven to be benign or they have no ultrasound features that raise the suspicion of malignancy. However, consensus is lacking regarding the best way to follow these nodules, mainly because little is known about the actual frequency and magnitude of their growth. The results of our study suggest that most benign nodules exhibit no significant size changes over time, and some actually decrease in size. Only a small subgroup of nodules can be expected to grow, about 15% in our series. However, the growth is slow and limited in magnitude. Most important, the occurrence of cancer is very rare in nodules like this, that appear to be benign.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dave Kennaway, PhD Professor
Lloyd Cox Senior Research Fellow,
Head Circadian Physiology Laboratory
School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health
Robinson Research Institute,
Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical School,
University of Adelaide Australia
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this review? What are the main findings?
Dr. Kennaway: There is evidence that melatonin is being prescribed to for sleep disorders in children and adolescents who are developing normally despite the fact that there have been no properly designed studies on the effects of prolonged administration to children. In countries where melatonin has been registered, it is for use as a monotherapy for the short term treatment of primary insomnia, characterised by poor quality of sleep in patients who are aged 55 years and over. Use in Paediatrics is always “off-label”. After more than 50 years of melatonin research in animals there is overwhelming evidence that melatonin administration affects many organ systems. These include important effects on the reproductive organs of rodents, cats, ruminants and primates and melatonin is in fact registered as a veterinary drug for this purpose. The effects of melatonin, however, go beyond the potential reproductive consequences, including effects on cardiovascular, immune and metabolic systems. It is clear that many paediatricians, practitioners and parents are unaware of this.
MedicalResearch: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Kennaway: Clinicians and patients need to recognise that melatonin is a hormone and not a drug developed for a specific purpose or illness. There have been no appropriate trials in children addressing the effects of prolonged administration of melatonin in children. Given the extensive literature on the role of the hormone in normal physiology it is unlikely that such trials would ever be approved. Should endocrine or other abnormalities appear in the future in children previously treated with melatonin it will not be tenable to argue that we were surprised.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Stephen Peckham
Director, Centre for Health Services Studies
Professor of Health Policy
Department of Health Services Research and Policy
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Director, Policy Research Unit in Commissioning and the Healthcare System University of Kent
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Community water fluoridation remains a controversial public health measure. There have been continued debates about both its effectiveness in the prevention of dental caries and also its safety. Previous studies have suggested that there is an association between fluoride ingestion and the incidence of hypothyroidism few population level studies have been undertaken. In April 2014 Public Health England published a monitoring report that used secondary analysis of routine health statistics to identify whether water fluoridation in England was associated with any adverse health outcomes. While hypothyroidism data is available this was not included in their monitoring report. In England approximately 10% of the population lives in areas with community fluoridation schemes and hypothyroidism prevalence can be assessed from general practice data. Tt examine whether there is a relationship – as suggested in smaller studies – we used a cross-sectional study design using secondary data to develop binary logistic regression models of predictive factors for hypothyroidism prevalence at practice level using 2012 data on fluoride levels in drinking water, 2012/13 Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) diagnosed hypothyroidism prevalence data, 2013 General Practitioner (GP) registered patient numbers, and 2012 practice level Index of Multiple Deprivation scores. We found a positive association between fluoride levels and hypothyroidism. High hypothyroidism prevalence was found to be at least 30% more likely in practices located in areas with fluoride levels in excess of 0.3mg/L. This population study supports earlier hypotheses that fluoride is associated with hypothyroidism. In the UK water is fluoridated at 1ppm (1mg/L) and in areas where water is fluoridated the model predicts that after controlling for other factors, practice populations are significantly more likely to have higher levels of hypothyroidism than those in non-fluoridated areas. Higher levels of fluoride in drinking water, therefore, provide a useful contribution for predicting prevalence of hypothyroidism. For example in contrasting two urban areas we found that practices located in the West Midlands (a wholly fluoridated area) are nearly twice as likely to report high hypothyroidism prevalence in comparison to Greater Manchester (non-fluoridated area).
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Almudena Zapatero MD PhD
Senior Consultant Dpt Radiation Oncology
Instituto Investigación Sanitaria IIS-IP
Hospital Universitario de la Princesa
Madrid
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Zapatero: There is a significant body of evidence from randomized trials showing a significant improvement in clinical outcome with the combination of androgen deprivation and conventional-dose radiotherapy (≤70 Gy) in patients with high-risk and intermediate-risk prostate cancer. However, the optimal duration the optimum duration of androgen deprivation in the setting of high-dose radiotherapy remained to be determined.
The results of our trial (DART01/05) show that 2 years of adjuvant androgen deprivation is superior to 4 months androgen deprivation when combined with plus high-dose radiotherapy in terms of biochemical control, freedom from metastasis and overall survival, particularly in patients with high-risk prostate cancer.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Joshua D. Safer MD, FACP
Director, Endocrinology Fellowship Training and Endocrinology Education
Boston University Medical Center
Associate Professor of Medicine and Molecular Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Safer: This is a review of the current medical literature in favor of the biologic nature of gender identity. The main barrier to medical care for transgender patients is lack of physicians with the knowledge and willingness to provide that care. A major concern of physicians is that this is a mental health issue, meaning that transgender hormone therapy and surgery may be too drastic a response to an individual who should be counseled instead. The review lays out the evidence to make it clear that a major component of gender identity is biologic even if we don’t have the exact details worked out. Therefore, counseling alone cannot address the disconnect between transgender individuals’ gender identity and their physical bodies.
(more…)MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Tower, PhD Professor, Molecular and Computational Biology Program Department of Biological Sciences USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters,...
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Andrea Gore PhD
Gustavus & Louise Pfeiffer Professor
University of Texas Austin/Div of Pharmacology/Toxicology
MedicalResearch.com Editor’s Note: Dr. Gore, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Endocrinology, has graciously answered several questions regarding the recent concerns of environmental chemicals linked to both early puberty and early menopause.
Medical Research: How can chemicals found inside the home impact onset of menopause?
Dr. Gore: It is important to clarify that the cause-and-effect relationship between chemicals and menopause is not established. The timing of menopause in women is due to a variety of factors including genetic traits, nutritional status, and general health or chronic disease. Some research on humans, including the recent study by Grindler et al., also suggests that environmental chemicals may contribute to the timing of earlier menopause. Animal models also suggest an advance in the timing of reproductive failure following earlier life exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). [See references below]. The question of exactly how chemicals may change the timing of menopause is therefore unresolved, but based on animal studies it is likely that the mechanisms include effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on the expression of genes and proteins involved in ovarian function that may lead to premature loss of follicles (eggs). Because the control of reproduction involves the brain and the pituitary gland, as well as the ovary, it is possible that endocrine-disrupting chemicals also impair how these organs regulate reproductive hormones.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Roger Hart MD FRANZCOG MRCOG CREI
Winthrop Professor of Reproductive MedicineSchool of Women's and Infants Health
Director of Fertility Specialists of Western Australia
The University of Western Australia Perth Western Australia 6008
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Hart: PCOS is a very common condition affecting approximately 1 in 12 women and has an estimated annual impact upon the health system in the USA of up to $4.36 billion per year. PCOS is a condition that often manifests itself early in girls life with menstrual problems in adolescence and may lead to reduced fertility in later life due to problems with ovulation. Previous studies have suggested that women with this condition may have other problems in later life, however they have generally been small studies over a short duration. We studied women from 15 years of age, who were admitted to a hospital in Western Australia where a diagnosis of PCOS was recorded on admission. We compared them to women who did not have a PCOS diagnosis recorded on admission using our state-wide hospital database system data linkage.
The medical records of 2,566 women with a PCOS diagnosis were followed from 1980 onwards until an average of almost 36 years, and these women were matched to 25,660 women without PCOS.
Women with PCOS on average had twice as many hospital admissions and unfortunately were twice as likely to die during the study period.
As expected women with PCOS women had a higher rate of menstrual problems and infertility, and require IVF treatment, have a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy, and ultimately require surgical intervention for heavy periods and a hysterectomy.
In pregnancy women with PCOS were more likely to deliver preterm or have a stillbirth.
In addition women with PCOS were four times more likely to develop late onset diabetes, even after taking into consideration obesity. These women wore more likely to have problems with blood pressure and ischemic heart disease, despite being relatively young. They were more likely to develop a deep vein thrombosis and have a diagnosis of asthma.
With regard to mental health women with PCOS were twice as likely to have a diagnosis of stress and anxiety and depression. They were more likely to be a victim of self-harm and be involved with a land transport accidents.
With regard to cancer; cervical cancer was diagnosed less frequently in women with PCOS, but they had an increased risk of cancer of the womb. The incidence of breast and skin cancers was no different between the groups.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Abraham Morgentaler, MD
Director and Founder
Men’s Health Boston
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: There has been tremendous media attention over the last 15 months to two retrospective studies that reported increased cardiovascular risks with testosterone. Those reports anchored a variety of stories critical of testosterone therapy for non-scientific reasons, such as alleged dangers of direct-to-consumer advertising. In this review we investigated the two recent studies in depth, as well as the broader literature regarding testosterone and cardiovascular issues. One primary finding was that the studies alleging risk were remarkably weak and flawed- one reported low rates of MI and had no control group, and the other had such large data errors (nearly 10% of the all-male population turned out to be female!) that 29 medical societies have called for its retraction. In contrast, there is substantial literature suggesting that testosterone therapy, or naturally occurring higher levels of testosterone, is protective against atherosclerosis, and mortality. Several small randomized controlled trials in men with known heart disease- angina and congestive heart failure- have even shown benefits for men that received testosterone compared with placebo.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Vasantha Padmanabhan, MS, PhD
Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Molecular and Integrative Physiology, and Environmental Health Sciences
University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Mi 48109
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Controversy exists regarding the human health effects of bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine-disrupting industrial chemical, present in plastic products, baby bottles, food can liners, and wide array of paper products including cash receipts. BPA has been linked to adverse metabolic effects, including obesity, diabetes and cardiac disease. This study examined if exposure to bisphenol A during pregnancy, at levels humans are exposed to, induces oxidative stress, a major contributor to the development of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. Findings from this multi species study show an association between higher maternal- and cord-blood BPA levels and 3-nitrotyrosine Y (NY), a marker of oxidative stress, in 24 pregnant women. Similar effect on oxidative stress was also found when human-comparable BPA doses were given to pregnant sheep and rats. Similarity of findings between BPA exposure and oxidative stress in the human association study and animals testing study raises concern about potential risk of BPA later in life.
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MedicalResearch.com interview with:
Caroline M. Apovian, MD
Chair of the Endocrine Society task force that developed “Pharmacological Management of Obesity: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline” Boston University School of Medicine
Boston Medical Center
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this report?
Dr. Apovian: The Food and Drug Administration has approved four new anti-obesity drugs – lorcaserin, phentermine/topiramate, naltrexone/bupropion and liraglutide – in the past two years. To help clinicians navigate this changing landscape, the Endocrine Society developed its Clinical Practice Guideline to provide strategies for prescribing drugs to manage obesity and promote weight loss.
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings?
Dr. Apovian: In the Clinical Practice Guideline, the Endocrine Society recommends that diet, exercise and behavioral modifications be part of all obesity management approaches. Other tools such as weight loss medications and bariatric surgery can be combined with behavioral changes to reduce food intake and increase physical activity, in appropriate patients. Patients who have been unable to successfully lose weight and maintain a goal weight may be candidates for prescription medication if they meet the criteria on the drug’s label as well as BMI criteria (BMI greater than or equal to 30 or greater than or equal to 27 with at least one comorbidity).
Other recommendations from the CPG include:
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Carolyn J. Crandall, MD, MS
Professor of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine
UCLA Medicine/GIM
Los Angeles, California 90024
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Crandall: In a large group of postmenopausal women aged 50-79, we found that women who reporting having hot flashes at baseline had increased risk of hip fracture during the subsequent 8 years of observation, nearly double the risk compared with women who did not have hot flashes at baseline.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:with
Stuart M. Sprague, DO, FACP, FASN, FNKF
Chairperson, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
NorthShore University HealthSystem
Evanston, Illinois 60201
Medical Research: Congratulations, Dr. Sprague, on your presentation of another successful phase 3 clinical trial program at the recently concluded Annual Meeting of the American Society of Nephrology. Your presentation unveiled a new vitamin D repletion therapy that effectively controls secondary hyperparathyroidism in chronic kidney disease. Can you give us a little background for the presented studies?
Dr. Sprague: Thanks! Vitamin D insufficiency is a big problem in chronic kidney decease (or CKD): it afflicts more than 20 million adults in the United States who have stages 1 through 4 CKD. Its prevalence increases with CKD severity and it drives secondary hyperparathyroidism. The studies which I presented evaluated a novel therapy to treat secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) arising from vitamin D insufficiency in patients diagnosed with stage 3 or 4 CKD. This new therapy is a modified-release formulation of calcifediol.
Medical Research: Can you tell us more about vitamin D insufficiency?
Dr. Sprague: Vitamin D insufficiency is a condition in which the body has low vitamin D stores. It is characterized by inadequate blood levels of the vitamin D, known as 25-hydroxyvitamin D. An estimated 70-90% of CKD patients have vitamin D insufficiency, which can lead to SHPT and resultant debilitating bone diseases. Vitamin D insufficiency has also been associated with increased mortality in CKD.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Jenny Hoang MBBS (Hons)
Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiation Oncology
Duke University Medical Center
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Hoang: The incidental thyroid nodule (ITN) is a very common finding on imaging studies of the neck, chest and cervical spine. The workup of incidental thyroid nodules has led to increased costs from additional procedures and in some cases to increased risk to the patient. Physicians are concerned about the risk of malignancy and a delayed cancer diagnosis, but the majority of incidental thyroid nodules are benign and small incidental thyroid malignancies typically have indolent behavior.
The American College of Radiology (ACR) formed the Incidental Thyroid Findings Committee to derive a practical approach to managing ITNs on CT, MRI, nuclear medicine, and ultrasound studies. This white paper describes consensus recommendations representing the Committee’s review of the literature and their practice experience. (more…)