Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Kidney Disease, Medical Research Centers / 05.09.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Gearoid M. McMahon, MB, BCh Renal Division, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts Framingham Heart Study, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and Center for Population Studies, Framingham, Massachusetts MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: This study examined the incidence, causes and outcomes of rhabdomyolysis in two large University Teaching hospitals. Rhabdomyolysis is a characterized by an increase in serum creatine phosphokinase (CPK) and results from muscle damage from a variety of causes. The most important complication of rhabdomyolysis is acute kidney injury which can result in a need for dialysis. Using a series of laboratory and clinical variables that are readily available on admission, we constructed a risk score that can predict with some accuracy the likelihood that a patient with rhabdomyolysis might die or need dialysis during an admission. The final variables included in the model were age, gender, the cause of rhabdomyolysis and the admission CPK, creatinine, phosphate, bicarbonate and calcium. One of the advantages of this study was, because we had access to data from two institutions, we were able to derive the risk score in one hospital and confirm its accuracy in the second institution. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Medical Research Centers, PLoS, Social Issues / 05.09.2013

Bert Uchino PhD Department of Psychology and Health Psychology Program University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UtahMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bert Uchino PhD Department of Psychology and Health Psychology Program University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Uchino: The main findings from our paper is that independent of one’s own social network quality, the quality of a spouse’s social network was related to daily life ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) levels.  More specifically, the more supportive (positive) ties, and the less aversive (negative) or ambivalent (both positive and negative) ties in a spouse’s social network, the lower was one’s own  ABP.  In addition, looking at the social networks of couples as a whole showed that couples who combined had more supportive ties and less aversive or ambivalent ties showed lower ABP. (more…)
BMJ, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, General Medicine, Medical Research Centers / 30.08.2013

Qi Sun, MD ScD Assistant Professor of Medicine Channing Division of Network Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115MEDICALRESEARCH.COM: INTERVIEW WITH: Qi Sun, MD ScD Assistant Professor of Medicine Channing Division of Network Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Assistant Professor Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 MEDICALRESEARCH.COM: What are the main findings of the study? Response: We have three major findings.
  • First, we found that total fruit consumption was consistently associated with lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in these large scale studies among U.S. men and women.
  • Second, we found that different individual fruits were differentially associated with diabetes risk. For example, higher intakes of blueberries, grapes or raisins, apples or pears are particularly associated with a lower diabetes risk.
  • Last, we found that fruit juice was associated with a higher diabetes risk, and replacing fruit juices with whole fruits will likely lead to reduced diabetes risk. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Medical Research Centers / 26.06.2013

Dr. Karen E. Joynt, MD MPH Cardiovascular Division Brigham and Women's Hospital and VA Boston Healthcare System Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public HealthMedicalResearch.com Interview with Dr. Karen E. Joynt, MD MPH Cardiovascular Division Brigham and Women's Hospital and VA Boston Healthcare System Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Joynt:  The main findings of the study were two-fold. First, high-cost patients in Medicare (the top decile of spenders) are responsible for about 80% of inpatient spending in the Medicare program, so understanding more about these patients' patterns of care is really important. Second, we found that only about 10% of acute-care spending for these high-cost Medicare patients were for causes that we generally think of as preventable in the short term, like uncontrolled diabetes, COPD, or heart failure. The rest of the spending was for acute conditions that we generally don't think of as preventable (at least in the short term), such as orthopedic procedures, sepsis, and cancer. (more…)
Brigham & Women's - Harvard, General Medicine, Medical Research Centers / 20.06.2013

Dr. Susan Redline M.D.,M.P.H. Peter C. Farrell Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School Brigham and Women's Hospital 221 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Susan Redline M.D.,M.P.H. Peter C. Farrell Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School Brigham and Women's Hospital 221 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115 MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Redline: Among children with sleep apnea, early adenotonsillectomy  resulted in significant improvements in breathing during sleep, daytime behavior, sleep related symptoms, sleepiness and quality of life when we valuated 6 months after surgery. MedicalResearch.com:  Were any of the findings unexpected? (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Medical Research Centers, Sleep Disorders / 17.06.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with Yanping Li, PhD Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Department of Medicine Channing Division of Network Medicine Boston, MA MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: During 8 years of follow-up, we observed that men with RLS had a 30% increased risk of death. MedicalResearch.com: Were any of the findings unexpected? Answer: Based on our hypothesis, we would like to observed a higher risk of death from cardiovascular diseases, but we do not. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, Kidney Disease, Medical Research Centers, Mediterranean Diet, Nutrition / 29.05.2013

MedicalResearch.com eInterview with Iris Shai, RD, PhD PI of the DIRECT trial Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Shai: Low-carbohydrate is as effective as Mediterranean or low-fat diets in improving renal function among moderately obese participants with or without type 2 diabetes, with baseline serum creatinine<176µmol/L (not sever renal stage).  The effect is likely to be mediated by weight-loss induced improvements in insulin sensitivity and blood pressure. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, CT Scanning, Medical Imaging, Medical Research Centers / 27.05.2013

prof_john_d_mathewsJohn D. Mathews, MBBS, MD, PhD, DSc Hon, DMedSc Hon, Professor of epidemiology at the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia Cancer risk in 680 000 people exposed to computed tomography scans in childhood or adolescence: data linkage study of 11 million Australians MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Prof Mathews: We found that for persons having at least one CT scan before the age of 20 years, and followed for an average period of 10 years, the average risk of cancer was increased by 24% compared with unexposed persons matched for age, sex and year of birth. The cancer risk increased by 16% for each CT scan that preceded the cancer by more than one year. The proportional increase in risk was greater for persons exposed at younger ages. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, JAMA, Medical Research Centers, Melatonin, Sleep Disorders / 04.04.2013

Dr. Ciaran McMullan MD from Channing Division of Network Medicine in Boston, a research division within the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston MassMedicalResearch.com Interview with Dr. Ciaran McMullan MD from Channing Division of Network Medicine in Boston, a research division within the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Mass MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. McMullan: In this observational study performed in non-diabetic women we found that lower nocturnal melatonin secretion predicted future risk of developing type 2 diabetes. When we categorized the individuals by category of nocturnal melatonin secretion we found that those in the lowest category had twice the risk as those in the highest category of nocturnal melatonin secretion. This association remained even after adjusting for other well established risk factors for development of diabetes including body mass index, physical activity, dietary factors, family history of diabetes, smoking and hypertension. This increased risk translates into the lower melatonin secretion group having an additional 5 cases of incident diabetes per 1000 person years than the high melatonin secretion group. (more…)
Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Medical Research Centers, Statins / 02.04.2013

Dr. Alexander Turchin M.D.,M.S. Director of Informatics Research Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension Brigham and Women's Hospital Boston, MAMedicalResearch.com Interview Dr. Alexander Turchin M.D.,M.S. Director of Informatics Research Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension Brigham and Women's Hospital Boston, MA MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Turchi:  A large number of patients – 17% of individuals included in our study – report side effects to statins in routine care settings. Nearly 60% of these patients stopped the statin at least temporarily. However, overwhelming majority of patients who stopped taking a statin after experiencing a possible side effect, could tolerate a statin long-term if they tried taking one again. In other words, it appears that many statin-related events are tolerable, specific to individual statins or have other causes. These findings are consistent with the current guidelines that urge a conservative approach to statin discontinuation. They are particularly important because statins have been convincingly shown to save lives – they decrease all-cause mortality, and also cardiovascular mortality and incidence of cardiovascular events in patients with ischemic heart disease and / or elevated cholesterol levels. (more…)