Author Interviews, FDA, JAMA, Smoking / 07.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marissa G. Hall, MSPH Doctoral Candidate, Department of Health Behavior Gillings School of Global Public Health University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires pictorial warnings on cigarette packs, but implementation was stalled by a 2012 lawsuit by the tobacco industry. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled against pictorial warnings, saying that FDA had “not provided a shred of evidence” that the pictorial warnings reduce smoking. To address this critique, our randomized trial examined the impact on smoking behavior of adding pictorial warnings to the front and back of cigarette packs. We found that smokers with pictorial warnings on their packs were more likely to attempt to quit and to successfully quit than those whose packs had text-only warnings. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Frailty, JAMA, Mayo Clinic / 07.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rozalina McCoy, M.D Assistant Professor of Medicine Division of Primary Care Internal Medicine Department of Medicine Mayo Clinic Rochester MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. McCoy: Hypoglycemia is a serious potential complication of diabetes treatment; it worsens quality of life and has been associated with cardiovascular events, dementia, and even death. Most professional societies recommend targeting HbA1C levels less than 6.5% or 7%, with individualized treatment targets based on patient age, other medical conditions, and risk of hypoglycemia with therapy. Treating patients to very low HbA1c levels is not likely to improve their health, especially not in the short-term, but can cause serious harms such as hypoglycemia. The goal of our study was to assess how frequently patients with type 2 diabetes are treated intensively, focusing specifically on patients who are elderly or have serious chronic conditions such as dementia, kidney disease including dialysis need, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, and cancer. Moreover, while prior studies have suggested that intensive treatment may be common, there was no strong evidence that intensive treatment does in fact increase risk of hypoglycemia. Our study was designed specifically to assess this risk. We examined medical claims, pharmacy fill data, and laboratory results of 31,542 adults with stable and controlled type 2 diabetes who were included in the OptumLabs™ Data Warehouse between 2001 and 2013. None of the patients were treated with insulin or had prior episodes of severe hypoglycemia, both known risk factors for future hypoglycemic events. None of the patients had obvious indications for very tight glycemic control, such as pregnancy. “Intensive treatment” was defined as being treated with more glucose-lowering medications than clinical guidelines consider to be necessary given their HbA1C level. Patients whose HbA1C was less than 5.6 percent (diabetes is defined by HbA1C 6.5 percent or higher) were considered intensively treated if they were taking any medications. Patients with HbA1C in the “pre-diabetes” range, 5.7-6.4 percent, were considered to be intensively treated if using two or more medications at the time of the test, or if started on additional medications after the test, because current guidelines consider patients with HbA1C less than 6.5 percent to already be optimally controlled. For patients with HbA1C of 6.5-6.9 percent the sole criteria for intensive treatment was treatment intensification with two or more drugs or insulin. The patients were separated by whether they were considered clinically complex (based on the definition by the American Geriatrics Society)—75 years of age or older; or having end-stage kidney disease, dementia; or with three or more serious chronic conditions. This distinction has been made to help identify patients for whom adding glucose-lowering medications is more likely to lead to treatment-related adverse events, including hypoglycemia, while not providing substantial long-term benefit. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 02.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: rsz_1pasfoto_mark_de_jongMark de Jong, MD, Psychiatrist Yulius Academy, Yulius Mental Health Barendrecht, the Netherlands MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Compulsory psychiatric admission, defined as admission against the will of the patient, has a strong effect on psychiatric patients and their relatives, and can be traumatic. Compulsory admission also conflicts with human rights, principles of autonomy, shared decision making, and recovery focused care. We also see, that rates of compulsory admissions in several European countries are tending to rise. So, interventions that prevent patients from being compulsory admitted are urgently needed. We reviewed and meta-analyzed all currently available RCTs, that were designed to reduce compulsory admission rates in adult psychiatric patients with severe mental illnesses in outpatients settings. We found, that advance statements, like crisis plans, showed a significant 23% risk reduction in compulsory admissions. In contrast, community treatment orders and interventions for compliance enhancement showed no significant risk reduction in compulsory admissions. Although RCTs on integrated treatment showed no statistically significant risk reduction, we found a potentially clinically relevant risk reduction of 29%. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Heart Disease, JAMA / 01.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. med. Johannes Neumann Resident physician University Heart Center Hamburg Department of General and Interventional Cardiology Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf Hamburg MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The early decision making in patients with suspected acute myocardial infarction is important. Current guidelines recommend measurement of cardiac troponin at admission and after 3 hours. In our study we evaluated the performance of a high-sensitivity troponin I assay with a rapid measurement after only 1 hour. We included 1040 patients with new onset chest pain and could show, that a low cutoff concentration of 6 ng/L after 1 hour allows safe rule-out of acute myocardial infarction. The results were comparable to the recommended 3-hour approach and were validated in 2 external cohorts. When using the 99th percentile to rule-out myocardial infarction, as recommended by current guidelines, the negative predictive value was much lower. Furthermore, a troponin I concentration above 6 ng/L in combination with an absolute change of 12 ng/L after 1 hour showed a high positive predictive value for the final diagnosis of myocardial infarction. This allows early decision making after only 1 hour. (more…)
Abuse and Neglect, Author Interviews, Heart Disease, HIV, JAMA / 31.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Steven Grinspoon, MD Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School MGH Endowed Chair in Neuroendocrinology and Metabolism Director, MGH Program in Nutritional Metabolism and Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard MGH Boston, MA 02114 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Grinspoon: Numerous epidemiologic studies have shown that people living with HIV face a 1.5 to 2-fold increased risk of heart attack, or myocardial infarction, as compared to individuals without the virus. Mechanisms underlying the increased risk of myocardial infarction in HIV are incompletely understood. It is possible that among people living with HIV, increased systemic immune activation fuels arterial inflammation. Arterial inflammation may, in turn, promote the development of high-risk morphology coronary atherosclerotic plaque, which is liable to rupture and result in myocardial infarction. For people diagnosed with HIV, the overall health benefits of immediate antiretroviral therapy (ART) are clear. However, the effects of newly-initiated antiretroviral therapy on arterial inflammation have not previously been studied. In this study, we set out to assess among a cohort of treatment-naive HIV-infected subjects, the effects of newly-initiated ART with a contemporary regimen on both immune function and arterial inflammation. We found that among treatment-naive HIV-infected individuals without clinical cardiovascular disease, newly initiated combined antiretroviral therapy has discordant effects to restore immune function without reducing the degree of arterial inflammation. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety / 31.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cynthia J. Brown, MD, MSPH, AGSF Parrish Professor of Medicine and Director, Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging University of Alabama at Birmingham Birmingham, Alabama 35294 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Brown: Low mobility is common during hospitalization and associated with loss of activities of daily living ability and community mobility. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of an in-hospital mobility program on post-hospital function and community mobility. Brown and colleagues, using a single blind randomized trial design, found that a mobility program that included offering assistance with ambulation linked with a behavioral intervention that focused on goal setting and addressing mobility barriers prevented loss of community mobility one month after hospital discharge. Those who received usual care experienced a clinically significant decline in community mobility. Functional status as measured by activities of daily living was not significantly different between the usual care and mobility program groups either before or after the hospitalization. Because low mobility in the hospital is associated with adverse outcomes including functional decline and nursing home placement even after controlling for illness severity and comorbid illness, these findings have potentially significant clinical implications. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 27.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Robert J. Ursano, M.D. Professor and Chair Department of Psychiatry/ Director Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Ursano: This study is part of STARRS-LS (Study to address risk and resilience in service members-longitudinal study). STARRS is a group of studies that address suicide risk in the US Army. Suicidal behavior includes suicide ideation, plans, attempts and completions. Understanding the transitions between these is an important goal. One component of STARRS is the examination of data available on all soldiers who were in the Army 2004-2009. This study examines suicide attempts in soldiers serving 2004-2009 in order to understand the association with deployment and the timing of suicide attempts as well as their association with mental health problems. STARRS is directed to identifying the who, when and where of service member risk. Then interventions can better be developed for these soldiers. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 26.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charles W. Hoge, M.D. Senior Scientist Walter Reed Army Institute of Research MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Hoge: Psychiatric definitions are revised periodically based on emerging science, with the intention of enhancing diagnostic accuracy, clinical utility, and communication. The latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was published in 2013 (DSM-5). However, there were an unusually large number of changes to the PTSD definition compared with other common conditions affecting adults, raising concerns with how well these changes truly reflected emerging evidence. Since DSM-5 was published, evidence has accumulated that indicates that the revision did not improve the definition, and more importantly excludes nearly a third of individuals who would have met the previous DSM-IV definition. This article in JAMA Psychiatry provides a thorough critique of the problems with the new definition. It was written by 12 of the leading PTSD experts in the world, including strong representation from experts with experience treating veterans and service members. An accompanying editorial by U.S. Veterans Affairs researchers criticizes our findings, but lacks the scientific rigor of our analysis; for example, every reference they cite we also cite in direct support of our conclusions. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Colon Cancer, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA / 26.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: NaNa Keum, ScD| Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Department of Nutrition Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA 02115 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: While general health benefits of physical activity are well-known, evidence on its specific benefits on cancer endpoints is limited and physical activity guidelines for cancer prevention lack details in terms of the optimal dose, type and intensity of physical activity. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: We found that the optimal exercise regime to prevent overall digestive system cancers may be to accumulate 30 MET-hours/week of physical activity primarily through aerobic exercise and regardless of its intensity. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Heart Disease, JAMA / 26.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Conen MD MPH Department of Medicine University Hospital Basel Basel Switzerland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Conen: A previous study of a contemporary population with atrial fibrillation (AF) treated with oral anticoagulation showed that over a third of all deaths were due to non-cardiovascular causes, and malignancies accounted for the largest proportion of these deaths. These data suggested that AF patients may have an increased risk of malignancies, but little data existed to support this hypothesis. During more than 19 years of follow-up, our study showed that atrial fibrillation was a significant risk factor for the occurrence of malignant cancer. After taking into account a large number of other risk factors and co-morbidities, the risk of cancer was approximately 50% higher among women with new-onset AF compared to women without AF. The risk of cancer was highest in the first 3 months after new-onset AF but remained significant beyond 1 year after new-onset AF (adjusted HR 1.42, p<0.001). We also observed a trend towards an increased risk of cancer mortality among women with new-onset AF. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA, Kidney Disease, Salt-Sodium / 25.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jiang He, M.D., Ph.D. Joseph S. Copes Chair and Professor Department of Epidemiology School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine Tulane University, New Orleans MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? Dr. Jiang He: Chronic kidney disease is associated with increased risk of end-stage renal disease, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. A positive association between sodium intake and blood pressure is well established in observational studies and clinical trials. However, the association between sodium intake and clinical cardiovascular disease remains less clear. Positive monotonic, J-shaped, and U-shaped associations have been reported. Methodologic limitations, including inconsistencies in dietary sodium measurement methods, could be contributing to these conflicting findings. Furthermore, no previous studies have examined the association between sodium intake and incident cardiovascular disease among patients with chronic kidney disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, End of Life Care, Heart Disease, JAMA / 24.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: James N. Kirkpatrick, MD Director of the Echocardiography Laboratory Division of Cardiology Ethics Consultation Service University of Washington, Seattle MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Kirkpatrick: With significant advances in technology, implanted cardiac devices like pacemakers and defibrillators, replacement heart valves, and mechanical pumps which assist or replace the pumping function of the heart have become standard therapies for patients with severe cardiac disease. Many patients who would previously have died after living with severe symptoms live longer and with improved quality of life. This is particularly true for elderly patients who receive transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR—valve replacement that doesn’t require open heart surgery) and ventricular assist device (VAD—a durable mechanical heart pump) implantation. However, like everyone, these patients will die, and some of the patients will experience device complications which will shorten their lives. Elderly patients, in particular, are at risk for device complications, high symptom burden, and loss of the ability to make healthcare decisions, due to illnesses like strokes or dementia. Symptom management and advance care planning are the hallmarks of the medical specialty of Palliative Care and are particularly important in patients with TAVR and VADs, yet patients and clinicians don’t often think of Palliative Care when considering high tech, life-prolonging therapies. The Palliative Care Working Group of the American College of Cardiology’s Geriatrics Section therefore sought to gather data on the attitudes toward Palliative Care among cardiovascular clinicians and the current state of involvement of Palliative Care in the care of patients with TAVR and VAD. (more…)
ADHD, Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 23.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Luis Augusto Rohde MD, PhD Full Professor Department of Psychiatry Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Director ADHD Program Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The idea that Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder always begins in childhood has been held for decades even without proper testing. The main manuals of psychiatric diagnoses require age at onset in childhood as a core feature of the disorder. In a large birth cohort followed until age 18, we identified many young adults presenting with a full impairing ADHD syndrome. They had consistently worse outcomes - criminality, substance abuse, traffic accidents, among others - than their counterparts without ADHD. However, most of these young adults (84.6%) presenting with a full impairing syndrome did not have a prior diagnosis in their childhood years. This surprising observation held after many secondary analyses exploring possible biases, like comorbidities in young adulthood, subthreshold ADHD in childhood and change of information source. (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA, Lifestyle & Health / 23.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Steven C. Moore PhD, MPH Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics Rockville, MD  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Moore: More than half of Americans fail to meet recommended levels of regular physical activity; physical inactivity has become a major public health concern. Physical activity during leisure time is known to reduce risks of heart-disease and all-cause mortality, as well as risks of colon, breast, and endometrial cancers. However, less is known about whether physical activity reduces risk of other cancers. Hundreds of prospective studies have examined associations between physical activity and risk of different cancers. Due to small case numbers, results have been inconclusive for most cancer types. In this study, we examined how leisure-time physical activity relates to risk of 26 different cancer types in a pooled analysis of 12 prospective cohort studies with 1.44 million participants. Our objectives were to identify cancers associated with leisure-time physical activity, and determine whether associations varied by body size and/or smoking history. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, JAMA, Lifestyle & Health / 23.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mingyang Song
Research Fellow
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Although substantial data support the importance of lifestyle factors for cancer risk, a study published in Science early last year “led some to conclude that only a third of the variation in cancer risk among tissues is attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions, while most is due to random mutations arising during stem cell divisions, so-called bad luck.” That study “has been widely covered by the press and has created confusion for the public regarding the preventability of cancer.” In response to that study, we conducted this study to estimate how many cancer cases and deaths in the US can be potentially attributed to common lifestyle factors. Our study showed that about 20-30% of cancer incidences and 40-50% of cancer deaths may be avoided if everyone in the US adopted a lifestyle pattern that is characterized by “never or past smoking (pack-years <5), no or moderate alcohol drinking ([1]1 drink/d for women,[1]2 drinks/d for men), BMI of at least 18.5 but lower than 27.5, and weekly aerobic physical activity of at least 75 vigorous-intensity or 150 moderate-intensity minutes”. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 23.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Saroj Saigal, MD, FRCP(C) Department of Pediatrics McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Saigal: We started to follow infants who were born between 1977-82 and weighed less than 1000g or 2.2 pounds (extremely low birthweight, ELBW) because not much was known about the outcomes of these infants at the time.We have reported the findings at several ages, from infancy to adulthood, in comparison with normal birth weight (NBW) infants . In this report, 100 ELBW participants between 29-36 years of age were compared with 89 NBW participants. To our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study that has followed infants from birth into their 30s. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Menopause, Telemedicine / 19.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Susan McCurry Principal Investigator Clinical psychologist and research professor School of Nursing University of Washington MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. McCurry: Every woman goes through menopause.  Most women experience nighttime hot flashes/sweats and problems sleeping at some point during the menopause transition.  Poor sleep leads to daytime fatigue, negative mood, and reduced daytime productivity.  When sleep problems become chronic – as they often do – there are also a host of negative physical consequences including increased risk for weight gain, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.  Many women do not want to use sleeping medications or hormonal therapies to treat their sleep problems because of concerns about side effect risks.  For these reasons, having effective non-pharmacological options to offer them is important. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Heart Disease, JAMA / 19.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yvan Devaux, PhD Associate Head of Laboratory Cardiovascular Research Unit Department of Population Health Luxembourg Institute of Health Luxembourg MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Devaux: Being able to predict outcome after cardiac arrest would allow tailoring healthcare and would represent a major step forward towards personalized medicine. However, available predictive tools suffer serious limitations and would benefit from novel biomarkers. The value of microRNAs (miRNAs) as biomarkers has been investigated in various clinical contexts and initial small-scale studies suggested that miRNAs might be useful indicators of outcome after cardiac arrest. Our work aimed at testing whether these molecules, and in particular the brain-enriched miR-124-3p, can be used to predict outcome after cardiac arrest. We found that, indeed, circulating levels of miR-124-3p measured 48h after cardiac arrest are robust predictors of neurological outcome and mortality. The strengths of the study are the use of a large multicenter international cohort (TTM-trial) and the collaboration between LIH and European partners (members of the TTM-trial and the Cardiolinc network) bringing complementary clinical and basic expertise. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 19.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: PD Dr. med. Giancarlo Natalucci OberarztKlinik für Neonatologie UniversitätsSpital Zürich MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Natalucci:: Survival of very preterm infants has increased over the last decades but still they are at risk of developing long-term neurodevelopmental delay. The underlying pathology is termed encephalopathy of prematurity where both structural lesions of the very fragile brain and the disturbance of the physiologic maturational processes are recognized as the main causative entities. Among many pharmacological candidates to prevent brain injury and improve development, erythropoietin has been shown to be among the most promising. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Sexual Health, University of Michigan / 17.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Jagsi: There has recently been considerable media attention to certain egregious individual cases of sexual harassment, but it has been less clear whether these cases were isolated and uncommon incidents or whether they are indicative of situations more commonly experienced by academic medical faculty.  An excellent survey study had previously documented that 52% of female faculty in 1995 had experienced harassment, but many of those women had attended medical school when women were only a small minority of the medical students (let alone faculty).  More recent estimates of faculty experiences are necessary to guide ongoing policies to promote gender equity in an era when nearly half of all medical students are women. We found that in a modern sample of academic medical faculty, 30% of women and 4% of men had experienced harassment in their careers. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA / 17.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrew M. Ibrahim, MD Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar (VA Scholar), Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Ibrahim: Critical access hospital designation was created to help ensure access to the more than 59 million people living in rural populations. Hospitals were eligible for critical access designation if they had less than 25 beds and were located more than 35 miles away from another hospital. With this designation they were paid above total cost for the care they provided. Previous reports suggest these centers provide lower quality of care for common medical admissions, however little was known about surgical conditions.  MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Dr. Ibrahim: This study included a review of 1,631,904 Medicare beneficiary admissions to critical access hospitals (n = 828) and non-critical access hospitals (n = 3,676) for 1 of 4 common types of surgical procedures: appendectomy, gall bladder removal, removal of all or part of the colon, and hernia repair. Patient who underwent surgery at critical access hospitals were, on average, less medically complex. Compared to larger urban hospitals, these small rural hospitals (i.e. critical access hospitals) had the same 30-day mortality rates and lower complications rates. In addition, critical access hospitals costs on average $1400 less per patient to Medicare, despite being paid in an alternative payment system. These findings remained significant after accounting for the patient’s pre-operation health condition.   (more…)
Author Interviews, CT Scanning, JAMA, Lung Cancer, NIH / 16.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hormuzd A. Katki, PhD Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics National Cancer Institute National Institutes of Health Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Katki: The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed that 3 annual CT screens reduced lung cancer death by 20% in a subgroup of high-risk smokers.  However, selecting smokers for screening based on their individual lung cancer risk might improve the effectiveness and efficiency of screening.  We developed and validated new lung cancer risk tools, and used them to project the potential impact of different selection strategies for CT lung cancer screening. We found that risk-based selection might substantially increase the number of prevented lung cancer deaths versus current subgroup-based guidelines.  Risk-based screening might also improve the effectiveness of screening, as measured by reducing the number needed to screening to prevent 1 death.  Risk-based screening might also improve the efficiency of screening, as measured by reducing the number of false-positive CT screens per prevented death. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Telemedicine, UCSF / 16.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jack Resneck, Jr, MD Professor and Vice-Chair of Dermatology Core Faculty, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies UCSF School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Resneck: Telemedicine, when done right, can improve access and offer convenience to patients.  We have seen proven high-quality care in telemedicine services where patients are using digital platforms to communicate with their existing doctors who know them, and where doctors are getting teleconsultations from other specialists about their patients.  But our study shows major quality problems with the rapidly growing corporate direct-to-consumer services where patients send consults via the web or phone apps to clinicians they don’t know. Most of these sites aren’t giving patients a choice of the clinician who will care for them or disclosing the credentials of those clinicians – patients should know whether their rash is being cared for by a board-certified dermatologist, a pain management specialist, or a nurse practitioner who usually works in an emergency department.  Some of these sites are even using doctors who aren’t licensed in the US.   We also found that these sites were regularly missing important diagnoses, and prescribing medications without discussing risks and side-effects, putting patients at risk.  We observed that if you upload photos of a highly contagious syphilis rash but state that you think you have psoriasis, most clinicians working for these direct-to-consumer sites will just agree with your self-diagnosis and prescribe psoriasis medications, leaving you with a contagious STD. Perhaps the biggest problem with many of these sites is the lack of coordinating care for patients – most of them didn’t offer to send records to a patient’s existing local doctors.  And when patients end up needing in-person care if their condition worsens, or they have a medication side-effect, those distant clinicians often don’t have local contacts, and are unable to facilitate needed appointments. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 16.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Benjamin D. Sommers, MD, PhD Assistant Professor of Health Policy & Economics Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health / Brigham & Women's Hospital Boston, MA 02115  Molly E. Frean Data Analyst Department of Health Policy and Management Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA 02115 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Sommers: We conducted this study in an effort to see how Native Americans have fared under the Affordable Care Act. In addition to the law's expansion of coverage via Medicaid and tax credits for the health insurance marketplaces, the law also provided support for Native Americans’ health care specifically through continued funding of the Indian Health Service (IHS). We sought to see how both health insurance coverage patterns and IHS use changed in the first year of the law's implementation. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Lifestyle & Health, Social Issues / 16.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Tyler VanderWeele PhD Professor of Epidemiology Department of Epidemiology Department of Biostatistics Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. VanderWeele: There have been some prior studies on religious service attendance and mortality. Many of these have been criticized for poor methodology including the possibility of reverse causation – that only those who are healthy can attend services, so that attendance isn’t necessarily influencing health. We tried to address some of these criticisms with better methodology. We used repeated measures of attendance and health over time to address this, and a very large sample, and controlled for an extensive range of common causes of religious service attendance and health. This was arguably the strongest study on the topic to date and addressed many of the methodological critiques of prior literature. We found that compared with women who never attended religious services, women who attended more than once per week had 33% lower mortality risk during the study period. Those who attended weekly had 26% lower risk and those who attended less than once a week had 13% lower risk. (more…)
Artificial Sweeteners, Author Interviews, Brain Injury, JAMA, Neurological Disorders, Ophthalmology / 12.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. T. Dianne Langford PhD Associate Professor, Neuroscience and Neurovirology Lewis Katz School of Medicine Temple University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Langford: The ocular-motor system has been shown to reflect neural damage, and one of ocular-motor functions, near point of convergence (NPC), was reported to worsen after a sport-related concussion (Mucha et al. Am J Sport Med). But the effects of subconcussive head impact, a milder form of head injury in the absence of outward symptoms remains unknown.  Prior to this study, we found that in a controlled soccer heading experimental paradigm decreased NPC function, and even 24h after the headings, NPC was not normalized back to baseline (Kawata et al. 2016 Int J Sport Med). To extend our findings from the human laboratory study, we launched longitudinal clinical studies in collaboration with the Temple football team, to see if repetitive exposure to subconcussive head impacts negatively affects NPC. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Ophthalmology / 12.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler MD Boxer Wachler Vision Institute Beverly Hills, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As an eye surgeon, I observed patients tended to have more age spots on the left side of their faces.  I was examining a patient with Keratoconus and after I noted her age spots on her left cheeks, I began to look into this phenomenon.  It turns out there are many studies that found more skin cancer on the left side of the face compared to the right side of the face.  In Australia (where people drive on the left side of the road) it’s the opposite – more skin cancer on the right side of the face.   Our study found that cars on average have significantly lower UVA (ultraviolet A) protection in the side windows compared to windshields which have universally high UVA protection.  I believe this can be the missing link that can explain higher rates of skin cancer on the side of the face by the driver’s window. There are also more cataracts in left eyes vs right eyes.  There was no relationship between high-end cars and low-end cars for side window UV protection – in other words many more pricey cars had just as poor side window UV protection as less expensive cars. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Weight Research / 12.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Shoaib Afzal, MD, PhD Department of Clinical Biochemistry Copenhagen General Population Study Herlev and Gentofte Hospital, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Afzal: Previous findings indicate that while average BMI has increased over time in most countries, the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors may be decreasing among obese individuals. Thus, the BMI associated with the lowest all-cause mortality may have changed over time. This study included three cohorts from the same general population enrolled at different times: the Copenhagen City Heart Study in 1976-1978 (n = 13,704) and 1991-1994 (n = 9,482) and the Copenhagen General Population Study in 2003-2013 (n = 97,362). The increased risk for all-cause mortality that was associated with obesity compared to normal weight decreased from 30% in 1976-1978 to 0% in 2003-2013, that is, over a 30-year period. In addition, the optimal BMI for lowest all-cause mortality increased by 3.3 from 23.7 in 1976-1978 through 24.6 in 1991-1994 to 27 in 2003-2013. Another interesting finding in this study is that the optimal BMI in relation to lowest mortality is placed in the overweight category in the most recent 2003-2013 cohort. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA, Social Issues / 12.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Erica Spatz, MD, MHS Assistant Professor, Section of Cardiovascular Medicine Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation Yale University School of Medicine/Yale-New Haven Hospital New Haven, CT 06520 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Dr. Spatz: Rates of heart attack have declined during the last 15 years. But whether communities of different economic status or in different geographic regions experienced similar declines is unknown, especially as efforts to prevent cardiovascular disease and manage heart attacks may not have been equally successful in communities with different resource capacity. Our study shows that trends in the incidence of and mortality from heart attack were similar in low, average and high income communities. However, low-income communities had higher hospitalization rates than average and high income communities throughout the 15 year study period. Interestingly mortality rates were similar. (more…)