Medical Research Journals
30 Aug Doctors More Likely To Prescribe Opioids When They Are Running Late
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51102" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Neprash[/caption]
Dr. Hannah T. Neprash, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Health Policy and Management
School of Public Health
University of Minnesota
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Physicians play a pivotal role in the opioid epidemic and it's important to understand what factors that drive opioid prescribing. Variation in opioid prescribing across physicians has been well-documented, but there’s very little research on variation within physicians…which is surprising, given the widespread concern about time pressure and cognitive fatigue having a potentially detrimental effect on the quality of care provided by physicians.
28 Aug USPSTF Issues Genetic Testing Recommendations for BRCA-Related Cancers
Posted at 20:25h
in Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Cancer Research, Genetic Research, JAMA, Ovarian Cancer, USPSTF
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_46135" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Mangione[/caption]
Dr. Carol Mangione, M.D., M.S.P.H., F.A.C.P.
Division Chief of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research
Professor of Medicine
Barbara A. Levey, MD, and Gerald S. Levey, MD, endowed chair in Medicine David Geffen School of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Professor of public health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Every year, too many American women are faced with the challenge of dealing with a cancer diagnosis related to potentially harmful mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. However, the Task Force found that there are several steps women can take to determine if they’re potentially at increased risk for BRCA gene mutations – and if genetic counseling and BRCA testing are needed.
It is important to note that while some women can benefit from risk assessment, counseling, and testing, these services are not for everyone.
28 Aug Small and Large Brain Infarctions Associated with Cognitive Decline
Posted at 19:26h
in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Heart Disease, Stroke
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51044" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Windham[/caption]
Gwen Windham, MD MHS
Professor of Medicine
Memory Impairment & Neurodegenerative Dementia (MIND) Center
University of Mississippi Medical Center
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Silent infarctions are a primary cause of strokes in the brain, but they are also common in people without a history of a stroke. Infarctions are generally only reported if they are larger (at least 3mm) and are ignored clinically if they are smaller (less than 3mm).
We examined 20 years of cognitive decline among stroke free, middle-aged people with and without smaller, and larger infarctions. The comparison groups included participants as follows: those with
(1) no infarctions, the reference group;
(2) only smaller infarctions;
(3) only larger infarctions
4) both smaller and larger infarctions
28 Aug ‘Observation Stays’ vs Hospitalzations for Ambulatory Care–Sensitive Conditions
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51047" align="alignleft" width="128"] Dr. Figueroa[/caption]
Jose F. Figueroa, MD, MPH
Instructor , Harvard Medical School,
Department of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Hospitalizations related to ambulatory-care sensitive conditions are widely considered a key measure of access to high-quality ambulatory care. It is included as a quality measure in many national value-based care programs. To date, we do not really know whether rates of these avoidable hospitalizations are meaningfully improving for Medicare beneficiaries over time.
28 Aug Life Expectancy Declining For Non-College Educated White Men
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51077" align="alignleft" width="180"] Dr. Sasson[/caption]
Isaac Sasson, PhD
Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the
Herczeg Institute on Aging
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Life expectancy at birth in the United States has been declining steadily since 2014, which is very unusual for a high-income country in times of peace. In fact, the last time that life expectancy declined in the US was in the early 1990s, and only briefly. Studies from the past few years have shown that the rise in mortality is concentrated among middle-aged Americans and particularly the lower socioeconomic classes.
Our study analyzed over 4.6 million death records in 2010 and 2017 to understand which causes of death account for the rise in mortality among white and black non-Hispanic US adults. In addition, given the substantial socioeconomic inequality in health in the US, we broke down our results by level of education, which is a good proxy for socioeconomic status. Essentially, our goal was to measure how many years of life were lost, on average, to each cause of death across different social groups.
26 Aug Concussions Linked to Risk of Low Testosterone and Erectile Dysfunction
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51050" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Grashow[/caption]
Rachel Grashow PhD
Research Associate
Department of Environmental Health
Football Players Health Study at Harvard University
Harvard T.H. Chan
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: It has been previously shown in small studies of boxers and military personnel that traumatic brain injuries can damage the pituitary gland, which serves as the "master controller" of hormone function in the brain. These studies on individuals at risk for repeated head injury found that hits on the head caused deficiencies in certain hormones, such as growth hormone and testosterone, which could have downstream effects on sexual function. Only one large study was conducted that used Taiwanese health insurance data and looked at single traumatic brain injuries and risk of erectile function (ED). In that study, men who experienced a single severe TBI were more than twice as like to report ED after their injury. In light of these findings, important questions remain regarding whether multiple head injuries are associated with pituitary or sexual dysfunction in a large population with other ED-related health issues. The Football Players Health Study at Harvard University asked former NFL players to fill out a questionnaire that interrogated demographic factors, football-related exposures and current health conditions. Specifically, we asked participants to self-report the frequency of ten different concussion symptoms experienced during professional play, as well as whether a clinician had ever recommended or prescribed medication for low testosterone or ED.
26 Aug French More Likely to Transplant Kidneys from Older, Sicker Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51066" align="alignleft" width="186"] Prof. Loupy[/caption]
Alexandre Loupy, MD PhD
Nephrologist, Department of Nephrology & Kidney Transplantation
Necker Hospital, Paris
Head of the Paris Transplant Group (Inserm)
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The lack of organs for kidney transplantation is a major public health problem across the world, due to its attributable mortality and excess cost to healthcare systems while waitlisted patients are maintained on chronic dialysis. Nearly 5,000 people in the US and 3,500 people in Europe die each year while waiting for a kidney transplant. Yet in the US, over 3,500 donated kidneys are discarded annually, representing almost 18% of the available organs, while the discard rate in France is only 6,8%, though these countries have similar organ allocation systems and offer the same treatments to patients after transplant.
We thus compared the use of donated kidneys in the US to France from 2004-2014 in much more depth, using a new approach based on validated analytic methods and computer simulation.
23 Aug Female Caregivers of Dementia Patients Suffer from Poor Sleep
Posted at 16:52h
in Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Sleep Disorders
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Chenlu Gao, MA
Graduate Student
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Baylor University
Michael Scullin, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Baylor University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: According to the World Alzheimer Report, dementia affects 50 million adults worldwide, and this number is expected to approach 131 million by 2050. Dementia patients often require assistance with daily activities from caregivers. The Alzheimer’s Association reported that, in the United States, 16 million caregivers spend on average 21.9 hours per week providing care for patients with dementia.
Being a caregiver is stressful, which not only challenges emotional, cognitive, and physical health, but is also associated with shorter and poorer sleep at night. If a caregiver cannot obtain restorative sleep at night, their quality of life and their abilities to perform the caregiving role can be compromised. For example, sleep loss may jeopardize caregivers’ memory, causing them to forget medications or medical appointments for the patients. Sleep loss can also impair immune functions, causing the caregivers to suffer from illnesses. In the long-term, sleep loss is associated with cortical thinning and accumulation of beta-amyloid and tau, which increase the risks of dementia.
Undoubtedly, there is a need to systematically study whether caregivers sleep less or worse during the night and whether we can improve their sleep quality through low-cost behavioral interventions. To answer these questions, we systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed 35 studies with data from 3,268 caregivers of dementia patients.
23 Aug Every Little Step Helps – Any Physical Activity Linked to Decreased Mortality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50978" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Prof. Ekelund[/caption]
Prof. Ulf Ekelund PhD
Professor in Physical Activity and Health
Department of Sport Medicine
Norwegian School of Sport Sciences
Oslo, Norway
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We know that physical activity of a moderate or vigorous intensity (such as brisk walking) is good for your health. More recently, it has also been shown that prolonged sitting is also linked to an increased risk for many chronic diseases and premature death.
Current physical activity recommendations suggest that all adults should participate in at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity and that prolonged sitting should be avoided. However, how much sitting is too much? This is not specified and is widely debated. In addition, are levels of physical activity below those recommended still beneficial for health and does light intensity physical activity still count? Answering these questions have huge relevance for health promotion.
We therefore performed a study analysing data from eight studies in which physical activity was assessed precisely with an activity monitor in about 36000 individuals followed for about six years during which more than 2500 died.
23 Aug Omega-3 Supplements Did Not Protect Agains Diabetes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50975" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Hooper[/caption]
Lee Hooper PhD, RD
Reader in Research Synthesis, Nutrition & Hydration
Norwich Medical School
University of East Anglia
England, UK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The World Health Organization asked us to carry out a set of studies (systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials) assessing health effects of omega-3 and omega-6, which are polyunsaturated fats. This is because the WHO are planning to update their dietary guidance on fats in the near future.
Worries about effects of long chain omega-3 on control of diabetes have long existed, and some experimental studies have suggested that omega-3 supplementation and diets high in PUFA and omega-3 raise fasting glucose. Pollutants such as methylmercury and polychlorinated biphenyl levels exceeding recommended thresholds are rarer now, but have been reported in seafoods and fish oil supplements; elevated mercury levels interrupt insulin signalling, raising fasting glucose, in mouse models. Body concentrations of organic pollutants are correlated with prevalence of diabetes in the US, but other cross sectional studies have suggested either no association with or benefits of eating fish on glycaemic control. Systematic reviews of observational studies have suggested both positive and negative associations with glucose metabolism, but strong evidence shows that omega-3 supplements reduce raised triglycerides and have little or no effect on body weight. Theories suggest that omega-3 and omega-6 fats compete in some metabolic pathways so that the omega-3/omega-6 ratio is more important than absolute intakes of either.
23 Aug Checkpoint Inhibitors’ Adverse Events Linked to Tumor Mutational Burden
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51041" align="alignleft" width="200"] Prof. Flatz[/caption]
Prof. Dr. Lukas Flatz MD
Institute of Immunobiology
Kantonsspital St Gallen, St Gallen
Switzerland
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Toxicity is an important limiting factor of treatment with checkpoint inhibitors. We aimed in investigating the relationship between immune-related adverse events during anti-PD-1 therapy and tumor mutational burden by comparing large scale surveillance data of irAEs with the median tumor mutational burden across multiple cancer types.
22 Aug For Cardiovascular Health Plant Food Quality Matters
Posted at 11:25h
in AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, Nutrition, Vegetarians
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51018" align="alignleft" width="173"] Dr. Baden[/caption]
Megu Baden, MD, PhD
Department of Nutrition
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA02115
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you give an example of healthful vs non-healthful plantbased diet?
Response: Plant-based diets are recommended for health and recently also for their environmental benefits. However, most previous studies defined it as either vegetarian or non-vegetarian, and importantly, without differentiation for the quality of plant foods. As you know, not all plant foods are equally good to our health.
Therefore, to capture the quality of plant-based diets, we established overall, healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indices. A higher score on the overall plant based diet index indicates greater intake of all types of plant foods and less of animal foods. A higher score on the healthful plant based diet index indicates greater intake of only healthy plant foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, tea/coffee), and less of less healthy plant foods (fruit juices, refined grains, potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, sweets/desserts) and animal foods. A higher score on the unhealthful plant based diet index indicates greater intake of only less healthy plant foods, and less of healthy plant foods and animal foods.
In this study, we used these plant-based diet indices and investigated the associations between 12-year changes in plant-based diet quality and subsequent total and cause-specific mortality in two large US cohorts.
22 Aug AHA Issues Guidance on Use of Omega-3 Fatty Acids for High Triglycerides
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51022" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Skulas-Ray[/caption]
Ann Skulas-Ray, PhD.
Assistant Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences
University of Arizona
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The prior guidance from the AHA regarding omega-3 fatty acids and high triglycerides was published in 2002, prior to the availability of prescription omega-3 concentrates and results from many of the clinical studies we were able to review. Our advisory was able to address questions such as dose and concomitant use of statin therapy. Another unique feature of our advisory is that we evaluated studies of the effects of omega-3 fatty acids in people with triglycerides (TG) > or = 500 mg/dL and 200-499 mg/dL separately, so we were able to see patterns relating to dose of omega-3 fatty acids and baseline triglyceride values. We came to separate conclusions for populations above and below TG of 500 mg/dL and concluded that 4 g/d was most effective. In contrast, the 2002 guidance recommended 2-4 g/d EPA + DHA under a physician's care for high triglycerides.
21 Aug US Pediatric Tuberculosis Rates Higher in Children Born in Endemic Countries
Posted at 23:54h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Global Health, Infections, Lancet, Pediatrics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51012" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Tori Cowger[/caption]
Tori Cowger, MPH
Ph.D Student | Population Health Sciences
Department of Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Globally, approximately one million cases of tuberculosis disease (TB) and 233,000 TB-related deaths occurred among children aged younger than 15 years during 2018. TB in children and adolescents is clinically and epidemiologically heterogeneous, making diagnosis, care, and prevention challenging. Understanding this heterogeneity can inform TB care and prevention efforts, and efforts to eliminate disparities in TB incidence and mortality in these groups.
In this study, we describe the epidemiology of TB among children and adolescents in the United States, and report TB incidence rates for US territories and freely associated states and by parental country of birth, which have not been previously described.
21 Aug Despite Progress, Dalit in India Still Suffer From Excessive Pediatric Mortalitiy
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_51027" align="alignleft" width="149"]
Jayanta Bora[/caption]
Jayanta Kumar Bora
Guest Researcher
IIASA|Laxenburg, Austria
& Ph.D. Scholar
Indian Institute of Dalit Studies
New Delhi, India
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Although under-five mortality rate (U5MR) is declining in India, it is still high in a few selected states and among the scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) population of the country. We examined the disparities in under-five mortality in high focus states of India. The high-focus states in India were designated as such by the Indian government because of their persistently high child mortality and relatively poor socio-economic and health indicators. This study re-examines the association between castes and under-five mortality in high focus Indian states using the most recent Indian Demographic Health Survey data conducted in 2015-16. The study also aims to quantify the relative contribution of socioeconomic determinants to under-five deaths by explaining the gap between socially disadvantaged (SC and ST) and non-disadvantaged castes in high focus states. Identifying disadvantaged groups in high focus states can help to reduce the absolute and relative burden of under-five deaths in India.
21 Aug Air Pollution from Traffic Linked to Age-Related Macular Degeneration
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Suh-Hang Hank Ju, PhD Kaohsiung Medical University Taiwan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) are 2 major traffic pollutants, which have been shown to increase a risk for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. We previously showed that chronic exposure of NO2 is also associated with dementia. age-related macula degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness. Given the increase of traffic pollutants in many urbanized cities, we investigated whether these two traffic pollutants are associated with the development of age-related macula degeneration in Taiwan.
21 Aug Meaningful PTSD Improvement Associated with Lower Risk of Diabetes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50945" align="alignleft" width="174"] Dr. Jeff Scherrer[/caption]
Jeff Scherrer, Ph.D.
Associate professor; Research director
Department of Family and Community Medicine
Saint Louis University Center for Health Outcomes Research
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: This study was part of a larger NIH grant to determine if PTSD is associated with poor health behaviors and subsequently whether PTSD remains an independent risk factor for diabetes and heart disease. Our second focus of the grant was to measure if those patients who experience clinically meaningful PTSD improvement have improved health behaviors (e.g. seeking help to lose weight) and a lower risk for diabetes and heart disease.
The rationale for this study of PTSD improvement and lower risk for diabetes is supported from other investigators' findings that PTSD treatment completion is often followed by improvement in sleep, depression, pain and general physical complaints and lower blood pressure. Because we have found the association between PTSD and incident diabetes is largely explained by obesity, depression and other comorbid conditions that are more common in patients with vs. without PTSD, we hypothesized that improvements in PTSD would be associated with lower risk of diabetes either directly or due to improvements in these comorbid diabetes risk factors.
20 Aug Single-Patient Rooms Did Not Decrease MRSA or C.Diff Infections
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50892" align="alignleft" width="176"] Dr. Todd Lee[/caption]
Todd Campbell Lee MD MPH FACP FIDSA
Consultant in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases
Director, MI4 Clinical Trials Platform
Associate Professor of Medicine, McGill University
Montreal, Quebec
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: For a number of years people have been advocating for a move towards single-patient rooms in hospital design. This was articulately argued for in an opinion piece by Detsky and Etchells in 2008 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/182433) as being important for a move to safe and patient-centered design.
One of the major selling points has always been a reduction in the risk of nosocomial, or hospital-associated, infections given reduced opportunities for contamination between patients; however, only a few studies have specifically looked at this issue. Overall, despite some strong work, many of these studies were limited by only looking at specific units, over limited periods of time, and using before-after comparisons which did not account for change over time either within or outside of the institution.
We knew that in 2015 our old hospital would close and within the same day all patients would be moved to a brand new hospital with 100% single patient rooms -- most of which have a private bathroom for patients and a separate hand-washing sink for staff. So in 2014, we designed this study, obtained ethics review, and then waited patiently for several years to pass after the move so that we could rigorously evaluate the impact. We looked at monthly rates of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) colonizations and infections, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization and infections, and Clostridium (now Clostrideroides) difficile infections (CDI).
We chose these because we had good long term data on their rates and because we could compare the rates over time before and after the move and contrast them with the province of Quebec as a whole.
19 Aug Could Prenatal Fluoride Exposure Lower IQ Scores?
Posted at 15:13h
in Author Interviews, Dental Research, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Mineral Metabolism, Pediatrics
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_50911" align="alignleft" width="200"] Rivka Green[/caption]
Rivka Green, MA
Doctoral Candidate
Clinical Developmental Neuropsychology
York University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We conducted a study on 512 mother-child pairs from 6 major cities across Canada, about half of whom lived in a region that receives fluoridated water.
We found that prenatal fluoride exposure was associated with lower IQ scores in 3-4 year old children.
16 Aug Men With Dementia More Likely to Receive Aggressive Care at End of Life
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50851" align="alignleft" width="142"]
Dr. Stall[/caption]
Dr. Nathan Stall, MD
Geriatrician and Research fellow
Women’s College Research Institute
[caption id="attachment_50852" align="alignleft" width="133"] Dr. Rochon[/caption]
Dr. Paula Rochon, MD, MPH, FRCPC
Periatrician and Vice-President of Research
Women’s College Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The advanced stages of the dementia are characterized by profound memory impairment, an inability to recognize family, minimal verbal communication, loss of ambulatory abilities, and an inability to perform basic activities of daily living. Nursing homes become a common site of care for people living with advanced dementia, who have a median survival of 1.3 years. In the advanced stages of the disease, the focus of care should generally be on maximizing quality of life.
Our study examined the frequency and sex-based differences in burdensome interventions received by nursing home residents with advanced dementia at the very end of life. Burdensome interventions include a variety of treatment and procedures that are often avoidable, may not improve comfort, and are frequently distressing to residents and their families. We found that in the last 30 days of life, nearly one in 10 nursing home residents visited an emergency department, more than one in five were hospitalized, and one in seven died in an acute care setting. In addition, almost one in 10 residents received life-threatening critical care; more than one in four were physically restrained; and more than one in three received antibiotics.
15 Aug Surgical Volume Standards Not Practical For Most Hospitals
Posted at 14:15h
in Author Interviews, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety, Surgical Research, University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_50705" align="alignleft" width="160"] Dr. Sheetz[/caption]
Kyle Sheetz, MD, MSc
Research Fellow
Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy
University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Various patient safety organizations and clinical societies continue to advocate for volume thresholds as a means to improve the short-term safety and overall effectiveness of high risk cancer surgeries in the United States.
We asked two questions with this study:
1) What proportion of U.S. hospitals meet discretionary volume standards?
2) Do these standards differentiate hospitals based on short-term safety outcomes (mortality and complications)?
We found that a relatively low proportion of hospitals meet even modest volume standards put forth by the Leapfrog Group. These standards did not differentiate hospitals based on outcomes for 3 of 4 high risk cancer operations reported by the Leapfrog Group. However, using higher thresholds, we were able to demonstrate a significant relationship between higher hospital volume and better outcomes, which has been reported numerous times.
14 Aug USPSTF Recommends Against Routine Pancreatic Cancer Screening for Asymptomatic Low-Risk Adults
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50834" align="alignleft" width="138"] Dr. Doubeni[/caption]
Dr. Chyke A. Doubeni, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Doubeni is a family physician and
The inaugural director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Health Equity and Community Engagement Research
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force uses systematic review of existing research to make recommendations on clinical preventive services that are delivered in primary care, with the goal to promote and improve health for all Americans. Although pancreatic cancer is an uncommon condition in the general population, it is often deadly.
Pancreatic cancer is now the third most common cause of cancer death in the United States, and could become the second leading cause if current trends continue. The vast majority of people with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed at a late stage and, unfortunately, even when caught early enough when surgery could be most effective, only a little over one-third of patients survive beyond five years.
14 Aug Not Just in the Clinic: Day and Night Blood Pressures Linked to Heart Disease Risk in African Americans
Posted at 15:21h
in Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Duke, Heart Disease, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_50729" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Yano[/caption]
Yuichiro Yano MD
Assistant Professor in Family Medicine and Community Health
Duke University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: African Americans are disproportionally affected by hypertension-related cardiovascular disease compared with other racial/ethnic groups in the United States and have higher blood pressure levels inside and outside the clinic than whites and Asians. However, little is known, among African Americans, regarding whether higher mean blood pressure measured outside of the clinic setting on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease events, independent of blood pressure measured in the clinic setting.
14 Aug Predicting Sudden Death in Children with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50819" align="alignleft" width="177"] Dr. Kaski[/caption]
Dr Juan Pablo Kaski MD(Res) FRCP FESC
Director of the GOSH Centre for Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases
Great Ormond Street Hospital,
University College London Institute of Cardiovascular Science,
London, UK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly explain what is meant by Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy?
Response: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic condition characterised by abnormal thickening of the muscle of the heart and can affect people of all ages. It is associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) and, in the last few years, a clinical risk tool that estimates the 5-year risk of SCD in adults with HCM has been developed.
However, there are no similar risk models in children, where risk stratification has traditionally been based on clinical risk factors extrapolated from the adult population. We have recently shown that this approach does not discriminate risk well in children, and so the aim of this study was to develop a new risk tool to provide an individualised risk of SCD in children with HCM.
13 Aug High Gluten Diet Adds to Risk of Celiac Disease in Genetically Predisposed Children
This study adds another piece to the celiac puzzle, i.e. what main risk factors are involved in the devolpment of celiac disease...
13 Aug Ozone and Traffic Pollution May Be Important Contributors to Lung Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50697" align="alignleft" width="150"] Prof. Kaufman[/caption]
Joel Kaufman, MD, MPH, Professor
Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, Medicine, and Epidemiology
University of Washington
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Increasingly, it is recognized that chronic lung diseases like emphysema occur in nonsmokers and rates of these diseases are continuing to increase. We really need to understand what’s causing chronic lung disease. Air pollutants are known to make disease worse in people with prior lung disease, but little is known about whether long-term exposure to air pollutants can cause chronic lung disease.
We found that higher residential concentrations of air pollutants—especially ozone and traffic-related air pollutants—are associated with changes in the lung—emphysema-like changes in the lung. The associations were strong and suggest that air pollution may be an important contributor to chronic lung disease.
13 Aug Apples, Blueberries, Broccoli Decrease Mortality Risk
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Nicola Bondonno PhD
National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Research Fellow
School of Medical and Health Sciences
Edith Cowan University
Joondalup Perth WA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: In an aging society, there could be a huge importance in appropriate evidence-based diets to reduce mortality risk. Therefore, our main question was ‘do diets high in flavonoids reduce the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality and is this relationship affected by lifestyle risk factors for early mortality’?
In brief, this is the largest study of flavonoid intake and mortality outcomes to date. This population based cohort study was conducted in 56,048 men and women of the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Cohort, followed for 23 years, with estimated intakes of 219 individual flavonoid compounds. The results provide a clarity not seen in previous smaller, often underpowered studies.
13 Aug No “Hispanic Paradox” Obesity Strongly Associated With Mortality in Latinx Population
Posted at 11:35h
in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Weight Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_50610" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Emberson[/caption]
Jonathan Emberson, PhD
Associate Professor
(Medical Statistics and Epidemiology)
Deputy Director of Graduate Studies
Medical Research Council Population Health Research Unit
Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit
Nuffield Department Population Health
University of Oxford
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Some previous studies had claimed that being overweight is not strongly associated with mortality in Hispanic populations (the ‘Hispanic paradox’). However, these studies had not accounted for the fact that while obesity makes diabetes and several other chronic diseases more common, these diseases may then result in substantial weight loss, thereby hiding the reason why those diseases arose in the first place.
12 Aug AI Better At Reading Some Forms of Early Breast Cancer Pathology Slides
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_50709" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Elmore[/caption]
Joann G. Elmore, MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine,
Director of the UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
- A pathologist makes the diagnosis of breast cancer versus non-cancer after reviewing the biopsy specimen. Breast biopsies are performed on millions of women each year and It is critical to get a correct diagnosis so that we can guide patients to the most effective treatments.
- Our prior work (Elmore et al. 2015 JAMA) found significant levels of disagreement among pathologists when they interpreted the same breast biopsy specimen. We also found that pathologists would disagree with their own interpretations of breast biopsies when they where shown the same biopsy specimen a year later.
- In this study, 240 breast biopsy images were fed into a computer, training it to recognize patterns associated with several types of breast lesions, ranging from benign (noncancerous) to invasive breast cancer. We compared the computer readings to independent diagnoses made by 87 practicing U.S. pathologists and found that while our artificial intelligence program came close to performing as well as human doctors in differentiating cancer from non-cancer, the AI program outperformed doctors when differentiating ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) from atypia, which is considered the greatest diagnostic challenge.