Why Don’t Younger Men Get Health Check Ups?

Posted on November 15, 2018 by Marie Benz MD FAAD

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Pallavi Bhandarkar MPH
Nova Southeastern University
Kirkland, Washington

preetipshenoy@gmail.com

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Gender based preventative health has been of interest to medical community since 1900’s with health disparities between males and females being of particular interest. United States founded National Research Institutes for female health in 1900. This led to comprehensive and systematic medical services being offered which have improved female health care significantly. Similar research programs and initiatives to improve men’s health were started only in 2000 (1).

Cultural depiction of men being fearless and based on perception of masculinity leads them to underutilize the preventative health care screenings available to them or sometimes even delay care when they need it the most. Males have been found to have higher mortality rates compared to females.

Life expectancy for females was 5.0 years higher than for males. The difference in life expectancy between the sexes has narrowed since 1979, when it was 7.8 years, but it increased 0.2 year in 2016 from 2015, the first increase since 1990. Death rates for males increased significantly for age groups 15–24, 25–34, 35–44, and 55–64. Rates decreased significantly for age groups 75–84 and 85 and over” (2)

My research study adopted the basic survey design and conducted an anonymous survey throughout United States with men aged 18 to 40 being the participants.

Our goal was to identify these gaps, analyze the reasons for underutilization and identify opportunities to improve preventative care guidelines among the male population. The main findings were almost similar to the BFRSS data obtained by CDC in the year 2016. Continue reading →

Should Patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Ride Roller Coasters?

Posted on November 11, 2018 by Marie Benz MD FAAD

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Papoutsidakis

Nikolaos Papoutsidakis, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Research Scientist,
Yale University School of Medicine
New Haven, CT

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Lifestyle education is a significant part of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy management. HCM patients, who frequently have to abstain from intense athletics, often ask if such restrictions extend to thrill-seeking activities they previously enjoyed, such as rollercoaster rides. Werealized there is very little data on this topic, which prompted us to set up this study.

We found that for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy patients who elected to participate in thrill-seeking activities, adverse events (defined as losing consciousness or experiencing a shock from an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator) were rare. We also asked patients (participating and non participating) about advice received from their physician on this topic. We found that, probably due to the lack of data, physicians often avoid providing advice or provide conflicting advice regarding participation in thrill seeking activities. Continue reading →

SMArT Work: Stand More AT Work Increased Work Engagement and Quality of Life

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Marie Benz MD FAAD

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr Fehmidah Munir CPsychol, AFBPsS
Reader in Health Psychology
Athena SWAN School Champion
School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences
National Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine
Loughborough University

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Given the evidence of the harmful effects of high levels of sitting time on health and the high proportion of time the majority of adults spend in this behaviour, particularly in the workplace, methods to reduce overall and prolonged sitting were needed.

Our SMArT Work (Stand More AT Work) programme was delivered to NHS office workers and involved brief education about the impact of sitting on health and benefits of reducing sitting, feedback on sitting behaviour, providing staff with a height-adjustable desk to enable them to work either standing up or sitting down, motivational posters and brief chats with a researcher to see how they were getting on. They received this programme over 12 months.

We found that office workers in our study spent nearly 10 hours/day sitting down, which can be bad for health, but we’ve shown that those office workers who received our SMArT Work programme had lower sitting time by around 80mins per day after 12 months compared to those who didn’t receive our programme. Those who received SMArT Work also reported an increase in work engagement, job performance and quality of life and less musculoskeletal issues such as back and neck pain, they felt less tired after a day at work, had less feelings of anxiety and lower sickness presenteeism (working whilst sick). We didn’t find any differences in the number of days absent at work though. Continue reading →

Our Brains Are Hardwired To Prefer the Sofa to the Gym

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Marie Benz MD FAAD

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Matthieu Boisgontier PhD
Movement Control & Neuroplasticity Research Group
KU Leuven
Brain Behaviour Laboratory
University of British Columbia, Canada

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: For decades, society has encouraged people to be more physically active. Yet, despite gradually scaling up actions promoting physical activity across the years, we are actually becoming less active. From 2010 to 2016, the number of inactive adults has increased by 5% worldwide, now affecting more than 1 in 4 adults (1.4 billion people). This context raised the question: Why do we still fail to be more physically active?

Our hypothesis was that this failure is explained by an “exercise paradox” in which conscious and automatic processes in the brain come into conflict. To illustrate this paradox, you can think of people taking the elevator or escalator when they go to the gym, which does not make sense. This non-sense, this paradox, could be due to the fact that their intention to exercise come into conflict with an automatic attraction to resting in the elevator.