MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Andrea Kaye Chomistek ScD
Assistant Professor Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Indiana University Bloomington
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Chomistek: Although mortality rates from coronary heart disease in the U.S. have been in steady decline for the last four decades, women aged 35-44 have not experienced the same reduction. This disparity may be explained by unhealthy lifestyle choices. Thus, the purpose of our study was to determine what proportion of heart disease cases and cardiovascular risk factors (diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol) could be attributed to unhealthy habits.
We defined healthy habits as not smoking, a normal body mass index, physical activity of at least 2.5 hours per week, watching seven or fewer hours of television a week, consumption of a maximum of one alcoholic drink per day on average, and a diet in the top 40 percent of a measure of diet quality based on the Alternative Healthy Eating Index.
We found that women who adhered to all six healthy lifestyle practices had a 92 percent lower risk of heart attack and a 66 percent lower risk of developing a risk factor for heart disease. This lower risk would mean three quarters of heart attacks and nearly half of all risk factors in younger women may have been prevented if all of the women had adhered to all six healthy lifestyle factors. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof. Roberto Lent
Diretor, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas
Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Bloco K, sala 2-35
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Prof. Lent: Our group has been studying the absolute numbers of cells in the human brain, using a novel technique that we have developed. We have done it for
the whole male brain, and arrived at a figure of 86 billion neurons and 85
billion glial cells, 15% less than the round number that became a neuromyth
(one hundred billion neurons). We did it also for the demented brain, in
this case working with females, and showed that it is dementia that is
associated with a loss of neurons, because people with alzheimer, but no
dementia, displayed normal numbers of neurons.
The present paper focuses on sexual dimorphism in the olfactory bulb, and
revealed that women have around 40% more neurons and glial cells than men,
what correlates with their superior performance in many olfactory
abilities.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sunni Mumford PhD
Earl Stadtman Investigator in the DESPR Epidemiology Branch
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health and Human Development
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Mumford:Depressive symptoms in healthy women who don’t have diagnosed clinical depression isn’t related to reproductive hormone levels, like estrogen, or impaired ovulation.
Medical Research: What was most surprising about the results?Dr. Mumford: Earlier research indicates that changes in estrogen may be associated with depression, for instance during the menopausal transition. Our study identified significant associations between estrogen and depressive symptoms in models that didn’t account for confounding factors, but this relationship was completed eliminated when adjustments were made for common confounding factors like age, race, BMI, and also stress level in these premenopausal women. Another interesting finding was that a score describing mood-related menstrual symptoms indicated that such symptoms are highest in the premenstrual phase, but remain lower throughout the rest of women’s cycles. This tells us that altered mood symptoms are most frequent prior to menstruation.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Zainab Samad, M.D., M.H.S.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, North Carolina
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Samad: This was a sub study of REMIT, an NHLBI funded study. Our research team headed by Dr. Wei Jiang conducted the REMIT study between 2006-2011 at the Duke Heart Center. We found that women and men differ significantly in their physiological and psychological responses to mental stress. We explored sex differences across various domains felt to have implications towards cardiovascular disease pathophysiology and prognosis. We found that women had greater negative emotion, less positive emotion, while men had greater blood pressure increases in response to mental stress. On the contrary, women showed greater platelet reactivity compared to men in response to mental stress. A greater frequency of women had cardiac ischemia in response to mental stress compared to men.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Earl S. Ford, MD, MPH
Medical officer, U.S Public Health Service
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, GA 30341
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ford: The main finding of the study is that mean waist circumference and the prevalence of abdominal obesity in US adults have increased since 1999-2000 and that these increases are being driven primarily by trends in women. Mean waist circumference and the percentage of abdominal obesity in men has been relatively stable since 2003-2004. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Eero Haapala, MSc in Exercise Medicine, BASc PhD student
University of Eastern Finland,School of Medicine
Institute of Biomedicine, Physiology
Kuopio, Finland
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Our study is one of the first studies to investigate the different types of physical activity and sedentary behavior with academic achievement in children. Our main finding was that children who were more physically active during school recess were better readers in Grades 1-3 than less active children. We also found a direct relationship between physically active school transportation, which was mainly walking and cycling, and reading skills in boys. These findings suggest that particularly physical activity within a school day benefits academic achievement and that physical activity benefit academic achievement more in boys than in girls 6-8 years of age.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sumeet S. Chugh MD
Pauline and Harold Price Endowed Professor
Associate Director, the Heart Institute
Section Chief, Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Chugh: Our study, conducted in the community, showed that there are unique alterations in sex hormone levels identified among patients who have sudden cardiac arrest. Male victims have lower testosterone and both males and females have higher estrogren levels.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Melina Kibbe, MD, FACS, FAHA
Professor and Vice Chair of Research
Edward G. Elcock Professor of Surgical Research
Department of Surgery,Northwestern University
Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine Deputy Director
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Kibbe: We found that approximately 1/3 of all peer-reviewed published manuscripts in 5 top surgery journals did not state the sex of the animal or cell used for research. Of those that did state the sex, 80% used only males.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with Marco Perez, MD
Instructor in Cardiovascular Medicine
Director, Inherited Cardiac Arrhythmia Clinic
Stanford University Medical Center
Cardiac Electrophysiology & Arrhythmia Service
Stanford, CA 94305-5233
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Perez: It was already known that obesity is an important risk factor for atrial fibrillation. We studied over 80,000 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative who were followed for the onset of atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm associated with stroke and death. We found that those who exercised more than 9 MET-hours/week (equivalent to a brisk walk of 30 minutes six days a week) were 10% less likely to get atrial fibrillation than those who were sedentary. Importantly, the more obese the women were, the more they benefited from the exercise in terms of atrial fibrillation risk reduction.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with Dr. John C. Lieske, MD
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Lieske:We followed 11 women before, 6 and 12 months after Roux en Y gastric bypass surgery. The patients successfully lost weight as mean BMI fell from 46 kg/m2 preoperatively to 28 kg/m2 postoperatively. Mean serum creatinine did not significantly change from baseline (0.8 mg/dl) to 12 months (0.7 mg/dl). Hence mean GFR estimated by the CKD-EPI equation (eGFR) did not significantly change from 84 ml/min/1.73 m2 (baseline) to 90 ml/min/1.73 m2 (12 months). However, GFR measured by iothalamate clearance (mGFR) significantly decreased from 108 ml/min/1.73m2 (121 ml/min) to 85 ml/min/1.73 m2 (90 ml/min).
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview Invitation Dr. Eileen Hsich MD
Director of the Women’s Heart Failure Clinic
Associate Medical Director for the Heart Transplant Program
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Hsich:Women are dying on the heart transplant waiting list at a faster rate than men for almost a decade (see Figure 1) and few studies have even addressed this problem. The occurrence is largely driven by gender differences in survival at the most urgent status (UNOS Status 1A) but the cause remains unclear. Although data is limited our findings raise concern that women are not successfully bridged to transplantation while they remain at high status and are inactivated due to worsening condition.
Figure 1. Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients: Mortality on Waiting List For Heart Transplantation
Figure derived from table in Scientific registry of transplant recipients: Heart waiting list by gender 2000-2009. Available at:
Http://srtr.Transplant.Hrsa.Gov/annual_reports/2010/1103_can-gender_hr.Htm
accessed january 9, 2014.(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Aakriti Gupta, MD, MBBS
Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation
Yale-New Haven Hospital,
New Haven, Connecticut
Medical Research: What were the main findings?
Dr. Gupta: Using a national database, we found that heart attack hospitalization rates for patients under the age of 55 have not declined in the past decade while their Medicare-age counterparts have seen a 20 percent drop.
We also found that among younger patients below 55 years of age, women fare worse because they have longer hospital stays, and are more likely to die in the hospital after a heart attack. Young women were also more likely to have higher prevalence of co-existing medical conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure and higher cholesterol levels. Overall, all patient groups in the study saw increases in these conditions including diabetes and high blood pressure in the past decade.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Lisa A. McDonnell
Program Manager, Prevention & Wellness Centre,
Division of Prevention and Rehabilitation,
University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer:The analysis focuses on a comparison of women’s perceptions of their heart disease knowledge and heart health risk with their self‐reported knowledge and heart health risk status. In summary, it gives insight into the Perceptions vs Reality when it comes to women and their heart health.
Heart disease knowledge:
For the purposes of measuring knowledge related to heart health, a scoring index was created on which women responding to the survey could score as low as 0 or as high as 40. The overall mean score among women in the survey was 15.0, which is fairly modest given the maximum of 40. In a comparison of actual and perceived heart disease knowledge, 80% of respondents with a low knowledge score perceived that they were moderately or well informed.
The risk factors that Canadian women most commonly associate with heart disease are being overweight/having abdominal obesity (ov/ob), physical inactivity, smoking, and lacking fruits/vegetables. Smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure account for up to 53% of MI’s, followed by Ov/Ob, psychosocial factors, a lack of physical activity, and a lack of fruits/vegetables. The limited awareness of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes as key risk factors is particularly surprising, given that these are key determinants of heart disease.
Low awareness of symptomology among women in our survey were noted when comparing the occurrence of symptoms versus their recognition of these symptoms as possibly being related to their heart. Only 4 in 10 women could name chest pain as a symptom of heart disease, and a smaller proportion could identify symptoms including dyspnea, radiating pain, or typical prodromal symptoms. Such shortcomings might contribute to the greater number of unrecognized myocardial infarctions in women than in men, not to mention inappropriate treatment of acute events and premature discharge from emergency care.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Flora I Matheson PhD
Centre for Research on Inner City Health
St. Michael's Hospital
Toronto, ON, Canada
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Matheson:
We found that women were 10 per cent more likely to use mental health services than men.
And that within any 3-year period, women with physical illness used medical services for mental health treatment 6 months earlier than men.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Strauss, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Author
Medical Officer
Center for Devices and Radiological Health
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Md
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Strauss:The underrepresentation of women in clinical trials for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices, as with other devices, has made it difficult to assess differences in the safety and effectiveness of these devices for women vs. men. The FDA is exploring the potential of pooling and analyzing data from multiple trials to bridge the knowledge gap for certain subpopulations (such as women) often underrepresented in medical device clinical trials. By conducting one such meta-analysis, the FDA found that women benefit from cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) significantly more than men do.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Luke Kim, M.D., FACC, FSCAI
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Interventional Cardiac and Endovascular Laboratory
Greenberg Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College/The New York Presbyterian Hospital
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of this study?Dr. Kim:The main findings of the study include:
From 2007-2011, there was no significant change in the rate of acute MI in both male and female cohorts in U.S. . Although there was a decline in the rate of ST-elevation (STEMI) in those ≥55 years old, the rate remains steady in patients < 55 years old, especially in the female cohort after 2009.
Female patients <55 years old with MI were sicker at baseline than the male counterparts with more likelihood of having diabetes, hypertension, chronic renal insufficiency, peripheral vascular disease, congestive heart failure and obesity.
Female patients were more likely to present with non– STEMI vs. STEMI and more likely to develop shock complicating their MIs.
Female patients are less likely to undergo coronary artery revascularization including percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass surgery.
Unadjusted risk of death was higher in female vs male (5.2% vs. 3.7%, p<0.001) along with higher incidence of stroke (0.5% vs. 0.3%, p<0.001), bleeding (4.9% vs. 3.0%, p<0.001), vascular complication (0.6% vs. 0.4%, p<0.001) and ARF (11.6% vs. 9.6%, p<0.001). After adjustment, death (OR 1.10 CI 1.04-1.17), stroke (OR 1.31 CI 1.10-1.55), bleeding (OR 1.30 CI 1.22-1.37), and vascular complications (OR 1.33 CI 1.15-1.55) were all significantly higher for female cohort.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. Carolyn Crandall, M.D.
Division of General Internal Medicine,
David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California,
Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Crandall: We found that higher social class was linked with a lower risk of fractures among non-Caucasian women. Compared with non-Caucasian women who had no more than a high school education, those with at least some postgraduate education had nearly 90% lower rates of non-traumatic fracture. These results were present even after we accounted for income.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Roxanne Pelletier, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Division of Clinical Epidemiology
McGill University Health Centre (MUHC)
687 Pine Avenue West, V Building, Room V2.17
Montreal, Qc
MedicalResearch.com: What made you want to study this disparity between men and women and heart attacks? Dr. Pelletier: Despite enhanced medical treatment and decrease in the incidence of heart diseases, important sex disparities persist in the risk of mortality following a cardiac event: the risk of mortality is higher in women compared to men, and this sex difference is even more important in younger adults. Therefore, we aimed to investigate potential mechanisms underlying this sex difference in mortality.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Gang Hu, MD, MPH, PhD, FAHA
Assistant professor & Director
Chronic Disease Epidemiology Lab
Adjunct assistant professor, School of Public Health
LSU Health Sciences Center
Pennington Biomedical Research Center,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Gang Hu: Our study suggests a graded association between HbA1c and the risk of stroke among female patients with type 2 diabetes and poor control of blood sugar has a stronger effect in women older than 55 years.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carlos M Ferrario, MD, FAHA, FASH, FACC
Dewitt-Cordelll Professor of Surgical Sciences
Professor, Internal Medicine-Nephrology
Professor, Physiology-Pharmacology
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1032
Vice-President, Consortium Southeastern Hypertension Control
Editor-in-Chief, Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ferrario: A significant and unexpected difference in the hemodynamic mechanisms that account for the elevated blood pressure between untreated hypertensive men and women.
The main findings were:
"Despite there being no differences between women and men in terms of office blood pressure, heart rate and body mass index, men demonstrated lower values of pulse pressure, systemic vascular resistance, brachial artery pulse wave velocity and augmentation index. In each of the three hypertension categories, the increased blood pressure in men was associated with significant augmentations in stroke volume and cardiac output compared with women. Sex-related hemodynamic differences were associated in women with higher plasma levels of leptin, hs-CRP, plasma angiotensin II and serum aldosterone. In women but not men, hs-CRP correlated with plasma concentrations of transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1) and body weight; in addition, plasma TGFβ1 correlated with levels of serum vascular cell adhesion molecule 1."
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Mike Head
Network Manager
Infectious Disease Research Network
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: The differences in total funding received between male and female principal investigators (PIs) is considerable. This can be partially explained by there being far more male senior scientists than female. But this in itself is not ideal, and there are two further causes for concern:
1. The median award size - male PIs receive larger awards than female PIs, across virtually every topic area and type of science.
2. The differences in median award size and total funding awarded by gender remain virtually unchanged across the fourteen years of this dataset. The gap is not closing.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Guy Fagherazzi, PhD
Epidemiologist
Scientific manager – E4N cohort study (www.e4n.fr)
Inserm U1018 Team 9
Nutrition,hormones and women’s health
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Fagherazzi: Our study of more than 60 000 French women from the E3N cohort study has shown that higher overall acidity of the diet, regardless of the individual foods making up that diet, was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Joshua Lewis, Ph.D
Raine Foundation / Alan Robson Fellow
Bone and Vascular Research Group
School of Medicine and Pharmacology
University of Western Australia
Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital
Hospital Avenue, Nedlands 6009
www.boneandvascularresearch.org.au
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Lewis: The paper reports the findings from an ancillary study of the effects of 1200 mg per day of calcium supplementation on a major predictor of heart disease risk, carotid artery intima-medial thickness and atherosclerosis. The principle study was a large five-year double blind randomized controlled trial of calcium supplements or a placebo. After 3 years of calcium supplementation or placebo measures of carotid artery intima-medial thickness were identical in the placebo and calcium treated patients. Atherosclerotic plaque was reduced in calcium treated patients when analysed as total calcium intake. These findings argue strongly against an adverse effect of high dose calcium tablets on cardiovascular risk.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr. W.M. Lijfering, MD, PhD
Department of Clinical Epidemiology, C7-P-89
Leiden University Medical Center
PO Box 9600
2300 RC Leiden
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Lijfering: In this study we found that the risk of a first venous thrombosis* is two-fold higher in men than in women once female reproductive risk factors for venous thrombosis are taken into account (odds ratio 1.9, 95% CI 1.7-2.2). These results were found in all age categories (18-70 years) and were not affected by adjustment for body mass index and smoking, or by excluding participants with malignancy.
(more…)
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