MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_60303" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Zafar Janjua[/caption] Naveed Zafar Janjua, MBBS, MSc, DrPH Executive Director, Data and Analytic Services BC Centre...
Dr. Esteban McCabe[/caption]
Sean Esteban McCabe, PhD
Director, Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health
Department of Health Behavior and Biological Sciences
University of Michigan School of Nursing
Ann Arbor, MI
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Prescription stimulant therapy for ADHD helps millions of people, including in my own family, and students, friends and colleagues. It's critical to balance the need for access to these medications while reducing the risk for misuse. This is more important than ever now because there have been recent increases in the prescribing of stimulant therapy for ADHD. There is a need to understand the prevalence of stimulant therapy for ADHD and prescription stimulant misuse in U.S. middle and high schools.
Dr. Buckley[/caption]
Rachel Buckley, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurology
Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: While a fair amount of studies have focused on the effects of menopause and hormone therapy on risk of dementia, far fewer studies have tested their association with the biology of Alzheimer’s disease, namely amyloid and tau. This is critical to know given that it still remains unclear what might be the driving mechanism of the menopause transition on risk for dementia. This is what our study set out to investigate.
This study is one of the first to report a link between women’s age at menopause and tau in the brain, which we measured with positron emission tomography neuroimaging. We found that in multiple areas of the brain that tend to be most likely to show higher tau in women than men, women with earlier age at menopause and elevated levels of amyloid showed higher levels of tau than those who reported an average age at menopause (~50 years in the United States). Women who reported premature menopause (<40 years at menopause onset) exhibited a much higher risk of tau in the brain. This supports the notion that longer exposure to estrogen throughout life might be protective against Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Potter[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kelly Potter, PhD, RN, CNE
T32 Postdoctoral Scholar
CRISMA Center, Department of Critical Care Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: While it is well-recognized that survivors of critical illness often experience persistent problems with mental, cognitive, and physical health, very little is known about how these problems (collectively known as post-intensive care syndrome (PICS)) affect resumption of meaningful activities, such as driving.
Dr. Mosley[/caption]
Jonathan Mosley, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Division of Clinical Pharmacology
Departments of Internal Medicine and Biomedical Informatics
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Prostate cancer is an important source of morbidity and mortality among men. Earlier detection of disease is essential to reduce these adverse outcomes. Prostate cancer is heritable, and many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with disease risk have been identified. Thus, there is considerable interest in using tools such as polygenic risk scores, which measure the burden of genetic risk variants an individual carries, to identify men at elevated risk of disease.
Hyuna Sung, PHD
Senior Principal Scientist, Cancer Surveillance Research
American Cancer Society
Kennesaw, GA 30144
Prof. Myeong-Ki Hong[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Myeong-Ki Hong, MD PhD
Professor of Cardiology
Yonsei University College of Medicine
Severance Cardiovascular Hospital
Seoul, Korea
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The background of this study was to compare the long-term clinical outcomes between the two distinct strategies regarding statin intensity in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).
One is to titrate statin intensity to meet a target low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level (treat-to-target strategy), the other is to maintain high-intensity statin without a target goal (high-intensity statin strategy).
Dr. Roca[/caption]
Anna Roca PhD
MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Fajara, The Gambia
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Context specific interventions are needed to decrease the high burden of severe neonatal morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Severe bacterial infections are a main cause of neonatal mortality in the continent. Oral intra-partum azithromycin is a cheap intervention easily scalable. Before embarking on this trial, we conducted a proof-of-concept trial that showed the intervention reduced maternal and neonatal bacterial carriage of the most prevalent bacteria causing neonatal sepsis in the continent.
Dr. Gaudino[/caption]
Mario FL Gaudino, MD, PhD, MSCE, FEBCTS, FACC, FAHA
Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Professor in Cardiothoracic Surgery (II)
Assistant Dean for Clinical Trials
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research at Weill Cornell Graduate School
Director of the Joint Clinical Trials Office (JCTO)
Director of Translational and Clinical Research, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Chair Coronary Artery Task Force, European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery
Weill Cornell Medicine | NewYork – Presbyterian Hospital
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: It is well-documented that women undergoing CABG have higher mortality and morbidity when compared with men. They are referred to surgery later than men, with more cardiovascular risk factors than men, and present more frequently with heart failure or in non-elective settings. However, overall CABG outcomes have improved over time, and so we sought to evaluate national trends in outcomes specifically in women.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Siri Choragudi Medical Student University of Miami Gil Yosipovitch, MD Professor and Stiefel endowed Chair of Medical Dermatology at the Dr Phillip...
Dr. Stevermer[/caption]
James Stevermer, M.D., M.S.P.H.
Vice chair for clinical affairs
Professor of family and community medicine
University of Missouri
Medical director of MU Health Care Family Medicine–Callaway Physicians,
Dr. Stevermer joined the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force in January 2021.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Genital herpes is a common sexually transmitted infection (STI) that unfortunately has no cure and cannot accurately be detected in people who do not have signs of the condition. The current screening tests have limitations and there is a high chance that test results will say a person has the condition when they do not. In addition, the available treatments are focused on managing symptoms and preventing the condition from reoccurring. As a result, the Task Force concluded that the harms of screening outweigh the benefits.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Nora Volkow MD Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Dardo Tomasi PhD Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National...
Michael Liu[/caption]
Michael Liu, MPhil
Rhodes Scholar,MPhil in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation.
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Over the past few decades, research has shown that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals have worse health outcomes and face unique challenges related to their experiences and costs of care. These disparities are driven by “minority stress” associated with belonging to a marginalized group. Such stressors erode health through a range of structural and interpersonal forces, including employment discrimination, family rejection, and internalized stigma
One early analysis established national baseline estimates for LGB health outcomes using 2013-2014 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data. Since then, there have been substantial shifts in social policy and public opinion that may have differentially affected sexual minority subgroups. The US Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges guaranteed the constitutional right to same-sex marriage across all states. Over the last decade, states have expanded rights and protections for LGB populations related to employment and housing discrimination, sexual orientation conversion efforts, HIV criminalization, and religious exemptions. Public support for LGB-related issues has also been increasing with more representation in media, uptake of LGB-affirming policies, and advocacy efforts.
No studies have assessed national trends in health status or healthcare access among specific sexual minority subgroups amid the rapidly shifting sociocultural and policy landscape. Thus, we sought out to evaluate if and how health status and healthcare access have changed between 2013 and 2018 in the US among LGB adults, and whether differences relative to their heterosexual counterparts have changed over time.
Dr. Mahdavi[/caption]
Dr. Sara Mahdavi, PhD
Clinical Scientist and Clinical Instructor
Research Appointment in the Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: This was a long-term study spanning 16 years and began with a population of young adults who were medically assessed on a regular basis. It was remarkable to see just how striking the effects of coffee were in the group that had the susceptible genetic variant, what we termed “slow caffeine metabolizers” yet no effect whatsoever in those who did not were termed “fast metabolizers”.
David A. Hyman, JD, MD[/caption]
David A. Hyman, JD, MD
The Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy
Georgetown University Law Center
Washington, DC
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Many doctors believe medical malpractice claiming is effectively random — meaning good doctors are equally likely as bad doctors to end up being the target of a malpractice claim. Past research has studied whether physicians with 2 paid claims are likely to have another claim than doctors with 1 paid claim.
We study whether physicians with 1 paid claim are more likely to have another paid claim, compared to physicians with zero paid claims. We also compare the pattern of observed claims with what we would expect to find if claiming were truly random (by running a simulation).
Dr. Pierce[/caption]
Karen Pierce, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Neurosciences, UCSD
Co-Director, Autism Center of Excellence, UCSD
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The mean age of ASD diagnosis and eventual treatment remains at ~52 months in the United States1 - years beyond the disorder’s prenatal origins2, and beyond the age when it can be reliably diagnosed in many cases3.
Currently the only way to determine if a child has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is to receive a developmental evaluation from an experienced clinician (usually a licensed clinical psychologist). There are often long waiting lists, and only a small number of clinicians have the experience required to make early-age (i.e., between 12-36 months) diagnoses of ASD. Thus, there are many places in the country as well as world wide wherein children wait months or years to receive a formal diagnosis due to a lack of available expertise. Moreover, diagnostic evaluations are expensive and usually cost the parent and/or insurance approximately ~$2,000 or more per evaluation. Finally, clinical evaluations usually take between 2-3 hours to complete and result in fatigue for both the parent and toddler.
Eye-tracking, which generates biologically-relevant, objective, and quantifiable metrics of both visual and auditory preference profiles in babies and toddlers in just minutes, is a technology that can dramatically change how ASD is diagnosed.
Dr. Dinkler[/caption]
Lisa Dinkler, Ph.D. | Postdoctoral researcher
Center for Eating Disorders Innovation (CEDI)
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a relatively recently defined eating disorder. Affected people severely restrict their food intake in terms of total amount or variety. This leads to serious physical, psychological, and social consequences such as weight loss, nutritional deficiencies, and social isolation. Compared to people with other eating disorders – such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder – food restriction in people with ARFID is not driven by body dissatisfaction or the desire to lose weight.
Despite how serious ARFID is, we still know very little about what causes it – making it difficult to develop effective treatments. We do know that genetic factors contribute significantly to the development of other eating disorders (so-called heritability), but we did not yet know to which degree genetic factors play a role in the development of ARFID. We therefore conducted the first twin study of ARFID, using a sample of ~34,000 Swedish twins including ~700 children with ARFID.
Neeraj Patel[/caption]
Neeraj Patel
Medical Student (MS-2), Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising has been increasing in popularity for the past two decades or so, particularly via television. But it’s highly controversial. Only two high-income countries (the U.S. and New Zealand) widely permit this type of advertising for prescription drugs. Critics have pointed to a growing body of literature that suggests that direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs can be misleading, lead to inappropriate prescribing, and inflate healthcare costs. Proponents have argued that it improves public health by promoting clinically beneficial prescribing.
Dr. Caraballo-Cordovez[/caption]
César Caraballo-Cordovez, MD
Postdoctoral Associate
Yale/YNHH Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE)
New Haven, CT 06511
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Our group has been interested in how patients’ experience during hospitalization impacts their recovery and their health for a while. In 2013, Dr. Harlan Krumholz (senior author of the current study) identified that patients who were recently hospitalized experienced a period of generalized risk for myriad adverse health events, a condition that he named ‘post-hospital syndrome’. One of the possible explanations for this observation is that the stress from being hospitalized negatively impacts patients’ health during their stay in the hospital and after being discharged. The stress in a hospital may come from different sources–including sleep deprivation.
Sleep is fundamental for recovery, and there are many challenges for patients to have adequate sleep while being hospitalized. Among the many sources of sleep interruption are early morning blood draws. Blood draws are often performed in the early morning in order to have recent lab tests results available during morning medical rounds. However, this common practice may disrupt patients’ recovery by interrupting their sleep. We were interested in determining to what extent blood draws contribute to early morning sleep disruptions and whether there has been recent progress in reducing them.
We used data from Yale New Haven Hospital from 2016 to 2019 and found that nearly 4 in 10 of total daily blood draws were collected between 4:00am and 7:00am–a proportion that was persistently high over the 3 years we studied. Importantly, we found that this occurred across patients with different sociodemographic characteristics, including older individuals who are at highest risk of adverse health events from sleep deprivation.
Casey Hribar[/caption]
Casey Hribar
Fourth-year medical student
University of North Carolina
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Several great pieces of literature already exist about patient perception of doctors wearing white coats, formal attire, business attire, and the like. But recently, scrubs are garnering favor, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While there has been some interest in what is worn over scrubs (jackets, vests, name tags, etc.), to our knowledge, there has not been any investigation into scrub color. Scrubs are a highly variable article of clothing, from fit, to pockets, pattern, and color, and it makes sense that these variations could have their own associated perceptions. Our study served as a way to open up the conversation around scrubs and the potential impact of their color on patients.
Dr. Huang[/caption]
Alison R. Huang, PhD MPH
Senior Research Associate
Cochlear Center for Hearing & Public Health
Department of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Hearing loss is a critical public health issue affecting two-thirds of older adults over 70 years old. There is growing understanding of a strong link between hearing loss and dementia, which impacts millions of Americans.
Our main findings are that in a nationally representative sample of older adults in the United States from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, every 10 decibel increase in hearing loss was associated with 16% greater prevalence of dementia, such that prevalence of dementia in older adults with moderate or greater hearing loss was 61% higher than prevalence in those with normal hearing.
We also found that in older adults with moderate or greater hearing loss, hearing aid use was associated with a 32% lower prevalence of dementia.
Dr. Goldman[/caption]
Anna L. Goldman, M.D., M.P.A., M.P.H
Assistant Professor of Medicine
General Internal Medicine
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Experts on the healthcare labor market have long debated the existence and magnitude of a physician shortage. Physician work hours are a major contributor to physician supply issues, but little research is available on recent trends in work hours by physicians. In addition, no available studies have rigorously estimated changes in the physician workforce size during the pandemic.
Dr. Harris[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Rebecca Arden Harris, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The impact of the nationwide overdose epidemic on Black women has received little attention from policy-makers, researchers, or the press.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: Over the 7-year study period, preventable overdose deaths among Black women resulted in nearly 0.75 million years of life lost (YLL). Women aged 25-34 have suffered a rising proportion of this burden.
Dr. Kubik[/caption]
Martha Kubik, Ph.D., R.N.
Professor, School of Nursing
College of Health and Human Services
George Mason University
Member, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Obstructive sleep apnea is a health condition in which part or all of a person’s airway gets blocked during sleep, causing their breathing to stop and restart many times. Untreated sleep apnea is associated with heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. However, there is currently very limited evidence on screening people who don’t have signs or symptoms like snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness.
Dr. Stevermer[/caption]
James Stevermer, M.D., M.S.P.H.
Vice chair for clinical affairs
Professor of family and community medicine
University of Missouri
Medical director of MU Health Care Family Medicine–Callaway Physicians,
Dr. Stevermer joined the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force in January 2021.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: As people get older, they are more at risk for many chronic conditions like heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, and diabetes. It’s unclear how much menopause—which typically occurs around age 50—contributes to this risk. Although we all want to stay healthy as we age, the Task Force does not recommend that people who have already gone through menopause use hormone therapy to prevent chronic health problems.
Dr. Dai[/caption]
Dr. Hongying Daisy Dai, PhD
Professor and Associate Dean of Research
The College of Public Health
University of Nebraska Medical Center.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Tobacco use landscape has been changing in the United States with fewer combustible cigarette smokers and more e-cigarette and other emerging tobacco users. Nicotine concentration level is a key product characteristic of modern e-cigarette products and high-nicotine vaping devices have recently become available. This study seeks to examine whether biomarkers of exposure to tobacco-related toxicants have changed since 2013 among adult nicotine e-cigarette users, non-nicotine e-cigarette users, and cigarette smokers.
Dr. Shan[/caption]
Zhilei Shan, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral fellow on Nutritional Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Unhealthy sleep behaviors and sleep disturbances are associated with higher risk of multiple diseases and mortality. The current profiles of sleep habits and disturbances, particularly the differences between workdays and free days, are unknown in the contemporary US.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: In this nationally representative cross-sectional analysis with 9004 adults aged 20 years or older, differences in sleep patterns between workdays and free days were observed. The mean sleep duration was 7.59 hours on workdays and 8.24 hours on free days (difference, 0.65 hour). The mean sleep and wake times were at 11:02 PM and 6:41 AM, respectively, on workdays and 11:25 PM and 7:41 AM, respectively, on free days (differences, 0.23 hour for sleep time and 1.00 hour for wake time). With regard to sleep disturbances, 30.5% of adults experienced 1 hour or more of sleep debt,46.5% experienced 1 hour or more of social jet lag, 29.8% had trouble sleeping, and 27.2% experienced daytime sleepiness.
