Medical Research Journals
30 Jul Avoidance of Blue Light Might Be A Good Anti-Aging Strategy
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59381" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Giebultowicz[/caption]
Dr. Jaga Giebultowicz
Professor Emeritus,
Department of Integrative Biology
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Where is blue light commonly found?
Response: Our study in short-lived model organism Drosophila revealed that cumulative, long-term exposure to blue light impacts brain function, accelerates the aging process and significantly shortens lifespan compared to flies maintained in constant darkness or in white light with blue wavelengths blocked.
Blue light is predominantly produced by the light-emitting diodes (LEDs); it appears white due to the addition of yellow fluorescent powder which is activated by blue light. LEDs has become a main source of display screens (phones, laptops, desktops, TV), and ambient lights. Indeed, humans have become awash in LEDs for most of their waking hours.
28 Jul Huge Number of Children Newly Classified as Obese In Only a Decade
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59343" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Staiano[/caption]
Amanda Staiano, PhD
Associate Professor
Director, Pediatric Obesity and Health Behavior Laboratory
Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Baton Rouge, LA
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: The U.S. government funds the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is an ongoing surveillance study on the health and nutritional status of people living in the U.S. What is special about NHANES is it’s designed to be nationally representative and it uses objective measurements, so we’re more confident that this accurately reflects the health of the country. For this paper, we looked at the most recently released data to see how many children in the U.S. have obesity, meaning they’re above the 95th percentile for height and weight based on their age and sex. We extracted data from 2011 to 2020, which includes nearly 15,000 children and adolescents and is the most recently available data prior to the March 2020 COVID-19 shutdown when NHANES paused.
27 Jul PTSD: Veterans Paired with Less Excitable Dogs Have Stronger Bonds
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59346" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Clare Jensen[/caption]
Clare Jensen
O’Haire Research Team
Center for the Human-Animal Bond
Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Service dogs for PTSD are becoming more common and the evidence shows they can help improve mental health and quality of life for many veterans with PTSD. However, some veterans benefit more than others. Our research goal was to ask for the very first time: Why?
27 Jul Brigham Study of Supplemental Vitamin D and Risk of Bone Fractures Reported in NEJM
Posted at 23:06h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Endocrinology, Hip Fractures, NEJM, Osteoporosis, Vitamin D
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_59361" align="alignleft" width="120"]
Dr. LeBoff[/caption]
Meryl S. LeBoff, MD
Chief, Calcium and Bone SectionDirector of the Skeletal Health and Osteoporosis CenterDirector, Bone Density UnitDistinguished Chair in Skeletal Health and Osteoporosis
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Women's Health
Brigham And Women's Hospital
[caption id="attachment_59356" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Manson[/caption]
JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH
Professor, Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School Of Public Health
Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women's Health, Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Preventive Medicine, Brigham And Women's Hospital
Co-Director, Womens Health, Brigham And Women's Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Osteoporosis is a major public health problem. Although supplemental vitamin D has been widely used to reduce the risk of fractures in the general population, studies of the effects of vitamin D on fractures, the most important bone health outcome, have been conflicting.
Randomized controlled trials, the highest quality studies, from around the world have shown benefit, no effect, or even harm of supplemental vitamin D on risk of fractures. Some of the trials used bolus dosing, had small samples sizes or short study duration, and co-administered calcium. No large RCTS of this scale tested whether daily supplemental vitamin D (without co-administration with calcium) prevented fractures in the US population.
To fill these knowledge gaps, we tested the hypothesis in this ancillary study to VITAL, whether daily supplemental vitamin D3 reduced the risk of incident total, non-spine and hip fractures in women and men in the US.
15 Jul Medical School Drop-Out Rates Highest Among Low Income Students from Marginalized Neighborhoods
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59333" align="alignleft" width="92"] Mytien Nguyen[/caption]
Mytien Nguyen, MS
MD-PhD Program, Yale School of Medicine,
New Haven, Connecticut
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: It is well-recognized that diversity in the medical workforce is critical to improve health care access and achieve equity for neglected communities. Despite increased efforts to recruit diverse medical trainees, there remains a large chasm between the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the patient population and that of the physician workforce.
12 Jul Financially Distressed Hospitals Found to Benefit from System Affiliation
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Joanna Jiang, PhD
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Rockville, Maryland
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Over the last decade we have seen two trends occurring to rural hospitals – closures and mergers. A hospital in financial distress could likely face closure. But if the hospital affiliates with a multihospital system, it may have access to resources from the system that help shelter the hospital from closure.
That is exactly what we found in this study. System affiliation was associated with a lower risk of closure for financially distressed hospitals. However, among hospitals that were financially stable, system affiliation was associated with a higher risk of closure. This is somewhat puzzling and needs further study to better understand the reason for closure.
06 Jul Maternal Exposure to Environmental Chemicals may play role in Pediatric Liver Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59315" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Midya[/caption]
Dania Valvi, MD MPH PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health
Co-Director, MS in Epidemiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Email: dania.valvi@mssm.edu
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease in children in the U.S., Europe and other world regions, currently affecting 1 in every 10 children, and 1 in every 3 children with obesity in the U.S. The rate of pediatric NAFLD has more than doubled in recent decades following the epidemic rates also noted for childhood obesity. There is increasing interest in the role that environmental chemical exposures may play in NAFLD etiology, since several animal studies have shown that prenatal exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) cause liver injury and damage; but, until now, the potential effects of prenatal EDC mixture exposures in pediatric NAFLD had not been studied.
06 Jul Geisinger Study Found 79 Physician Contributors to UpToDate and DynaMed with Potential Conflicts of Interest of Nearly $8 Million
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59310" align="alignleft" width="125"]
SooYoung VanDeMar[/caption]
SooYoung VanDeMark, MBS
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Scranton, Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Health care providers utilize subscription-based, point-of-care databases such as DynaMed and UpToDate to provide clinical care guidance and remain current on the latest evidence-based findings. Both of these websites maintain this content through a cadre of physician contributors who write and edit articles for these sites. These physician contributors are required to self-report any conflicts of interest (COI) as outlined by the respective policies on each website. However, prior COI research into similarly self-regulated areas, such as medical and pharmacology textbooks, and clinical practice guidelines, has found both appreciable potential COI and inconsistencies between self-reported and industry mandated disclosures (1-3).
This study (4) explored the accuracy of physician contributors to DynaMed and UpToDate by comparing their self-reported disclosure status with the financial remunerations they received from the healthcare industry (e.g., pharmaceutical companies) as reported to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Open Payments database. Physician contributors who reported “nothing to disclose” on their respective article topic but had an entry on Open Payments for having received money from industry, were classified as discordant and, thus, as having the potential for a COI. Additionally, total remuneration, gender, and payment category were investigated more in depth for each database.
06 Jul Pediatric Peanut Allergies Blunted But Not Eliminated by Early Introduction
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59303" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Soriano[/caption]
Victoria Soriano PhD
Research Assistant/Officer, Population Allergy
University of Melbourne
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Peanut allergy is one of the most common childhood food allergies, and children rarely grow out of it. The only proven way to prevent peanut allergy is to give infants age-appropriate peanut products in the first year of life.
We previously showed there was a dramatic increase in peanut introduction from 2007-11 to 2018-19, following changes to infant feeding guidelines. We wanted to know if earlier peanut introduction would reduce peanut allergy in the general population (in Melbourne, Australia).
30 Jun USPSTF: Task Force Recommends Against Beta Carotene and Vitamin E to Prevent Heart Disease or Cancer
Posted at 08:59h
in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, JAMA, Lung Cancer, Supplements, USPSTF
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_40206" align="alignleft" width="143"]
Dr. Barry[/caption]
Michael J. Barry, M.D
Director of the Informed Medical Decisions Program
Health Decision Sciences Center
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School
Dr. Barry was appointed as Vice Chair of USPSTF in March 2021.
He previously served as a member from January 2017 through December 2020.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The Task Force looked at the use of vitamin and mineral supplementation specifically for the prevention of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. We found that there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against taking multivitamin supplements, nor the use of single or paired nutrient supplements, to prevent these conditions.
However, we do know that you should not take vitamin E or beta-carotene for this purpose.
15 Jun NEJM: Trial of IV Vitamin C for Septic ICU Patients
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: François Lamontagne MD MSc (pharmacology) MSc (CEB) Professor of Medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke Endowed research chair on patient-centred research Dr. Neill Adhikari MDCM, M.Sc. Sunnybrook Research Institute and University of Toronto Toronto, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The use of intravenous vitamin C for sepsis has been a hot topic for a few years. It was biologically plausible that vitamin C could reduce organ injury and death by scavenging reactive oxygen species and modulating the immune response to sepsis. It also seemed like an intervention that would be reasonably easy to administer globally should it prove beneficial. On the other hand, no intervention is benign and every aspect of health care should be rigorously studied. Regarding vitamin C, there were strongly held opinions in both camps and this motivated us to design and conduct the LOVIT trial.
15 Jun UCSF Study Suggests Women with Dense Breasts or Increased Risk Should Be Offered Digital Breast Tomosynthesis
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59257" align="alignleft" width="180"] Dr. Kerlikowske[/caption]
Karla Kerlikowske, MD.
Professor, Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology/Biostatistics,
Cancer Center Program Membership. Breast Oncology
UCSF
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) was developed with the expectation it would improve detection of breast cancer in women with dense breasts and decrease false-positive results. DBT is now available at most breast screening centers.
10 Jun Rural Cancer Survival Trails Urban Patients, Especially for Minorities
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59246" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Lewis-Thames[/caption]
Marquita W. Lewis-Thames, PhD (she/her/Dr.)
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Social Science
Center for Community Health, Member Researcher
Assistant Directors of Community Outreach and Engagement, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center
Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Incidence, mortality, and survivorship provide a comprehensive description of cancer for a group of people. Differences in cancer incidence and mortality trends by rural-urban status and race and ethnicity are well documented, but urban-rural cancer survivorship trends by race and ethnicity are unknown. To this end, we examined almost 40 years of racial and ethnic differences by rural-urban status for 5-year survival of patients with lung, prostate, breast, and colorectal cancers.
Using a nationwide epidemiological assessment of 1975-2011 data from the SEER database, we found that 5-year cancer-specific survival trends increased for all cancer types and race and ethnic groups, regardless of rural or urban status.
Generally, rural, and non-Hispanic Black cancer patients had worse survival outcomes than others.
09 Jun Expensive New Drugs Often Provide Little Substantial Benefit Over Existing Medications
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59244" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Rome[/caption]
Benjamin N. Rome MD
Instructor, Harvard Medical School
Internal Medicine
Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
What are the main findings?
Response: Manufacturers of brand-name drugs are granted periods, free from direct competition, during which they can set and raise prices as they choose.
We found that the prices for newly marketed brand-name drugs increased by 20% per year from 2008 to 2021. In 2020 and 2021, nearly half of new drugs were launched at a price greater than $150,000 per year, compared with 9% of drugs in 2008-2013. These dramatic trends are only partly explained by changes in the types of drugs coming to market.
09 Jun Low Incidence of CTE Found Among US Service Members
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel Perl MD Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Professor of Pathology at USUHS and Director of the CNRM's Brain Tissue Repository Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Bethesda, Maryland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a brain disorder that is predominantly seen in individuals who have suffered from repeated impact head trauma, such as occurs in former boxers or American football players. CTE has very specific alterations in the brain and can only be diagnosed at autopsy. Some have claimed that, in addition to former contact sport participants, individuals who served in the military and were repeatedly exposed to blast (explosions) are also at increased risk for developing CTE. However, this claim has been based on a rather small number of anecdotal cases. The DoD/USU Brain Tissue Repository is the only facility in the world that is exclusively dedicated to the collection and study of donated brain specimens derived from deceased active duty and retired service members. We used the resources of this facility to examine 225 consecutively collected brain specimens for the presence of CTE. This would to provide a view of how common CTE was in this setting and, when diagnosed, was the disease correlated with prior blast exposure, participation in contact sports and other forms of head trauma, and with certain forms of symptomatology such as development of PTSD, alcohol/substance abuse, death by suicide, etc.
07 Jun First-Line Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes: Cardiovascular Outcomes of SGLT-2 Inhibitors vs Metformin
Posted at 16:38h
in Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Diabetes, Heart Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_59221" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. HoJin Shin[/caption]
HoJin Shin, BPharm, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics
Department of Medicine
Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The public health burden of cardiovascular disease has been increasing in people with diabetes along with the burden of diabetes itself.
- Cardiovascular disease affects approximately one-third of the population with type 2 diabetes and accounts for 50%–80% of their mortality
- 1 in 10 people in the US has diabetes
06 Jun Study Evaluates Association of Uric Acid Lowering Medications with Chronic Kidney Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_16840" align="alignleft" width="124"] Dr. .Kovesdy[/caption]
Csaba P Kovesdy MD FASN
Fred Hatch Professor of Medicine
Director, Clinical Outcomes and Clinical Trials Program
Division of Nephrology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Nephrology Section Chief, Memphis VA Medical Center
Memphis TN, 38163
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Hyperuricemia has unfavorable metabolic effects and has been associated with higher risk of progressive kidney disease and mortality. Despite this, earlier clinical trials have failed to prove a beneficial impact on kidney disease progression from uric acid lowering therapy in patients with preexisting CKD.
The effect of uric acid lowering therapy on the development of new onset CKD in patients with normal kidney function has not been well studied. In our large observational study we did not find a beneficial association between newly initiated uric acid lowering therapy (the majority of which was in the form of allopurinol).
On the contrary, uric acid lowering therapy was associated with a slightly higher risk of new onset low eGFR and new onset albuminuria, especially in patients with less elevated baseline serum acid levels.
06 Jun If FDA Approved, Dulaglutide Provides New Treatment Option for Youth with Type 2 Diabetes
Fasting plasma glucose concentrations improved with Dulaglutide....
03 Jun Risk of Pancreatic Cancer May Be Increased by Performance Enhances Like Cardarine
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59198" align="alignleft" width="200"] Prof. Shureiqi[/caption]
Imad Shureiqi, MD, MS
Professor, Division of Hematology and Oncology
Department of Internal Medicine
Rogel Cancer Center
Ann Arbor, MI, 48109
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a highly lethal form of cancer with rising occurrence, and strategies to prevent and treat the disease are urgently needed. Most cases of pancreatic cancer arise from pre-cancerous lesions called pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN); about 55-80% of adults over forty are estimated to have these low-grade pre-cancerous silent pancreatic lesions. But critical factors that promote the progression of pancreatic pre-cancerous lesions to pancreatic cancer remain poorly defined, especially those easy to target.
Findings from this publication indicate that people who have silent PanIN pre-cancerous lesions, even those that are low-grade, could increase their risk of PanIN progression into pancreatic cancer by consuming activators of a nuclear lipid receptor called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-delta (PPARδ). PPARδ activators can be natural substances, such certain fatty acids like palmitic and arachidonic acid in high-fat diets, or synthetic ones, like Cardarine (GW501516).
02 Jun USPSTF: Glaucoma Screening Recommendation Statement
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59201" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Donahue[/caption]
Katrina Donahue, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor and vice chair of research
Department of Family Medicine
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Donohue is a family physician and senior research fellow
Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research
Dr. Donahue joined the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in January 2020.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Impaired vision and glaucoma are serious and common conditions facing millions of people nationwide that can affect a person’s independence and quality of life. These recommendations looked at how primary care clinicians can help people who have not noticed any problems with their vision. Unfortunately, there is not enough evidence available to make a recommendation for or against screening adults for glaucoma or older adults for impaired vision in the primary care setting.
20 May Female physicians Disproportionality Affected by Infertility Compared to General Population
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kathryn S. Smith, BS M.D. Candidate, Class of 2023 Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Chicago, Illinois MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study Response: There are studies that show women in medicine do not achieve promotion at the same rate as men and that only a minority of women are in the upper levels of leadership such as Department Chairs and Medical School Deans. Since peak fertility coincides with peak career building years, we wanted to explore themes related to career advancement, physician burnout and ultimately whether women were being held back from their potential by the burden of fertility, family building, childcare, and household responsibilities.
20 May Medical Residents: Extended Work Hours Linked to Medical Errors and Patient Harm
Posted at 11:52h
in Author Interviews, BMJ, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Education, Health Care Systems, Sleep Disorders
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_59185" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr. Weaver[/caption]
Dr Matthew D Weaver M.P.H., Ph.D.
Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders
Departments of Medicine and Neurology
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The name “resident” stems from the historical practice of resident-physicians residing in hospitals as part of their training. Even after that practice abated, it was common for resident physicians to work 36 consecutive hours followed by 12 or fewer hours of rest. In 1989, the state of New York restricted resident physicians to work no more than 24 consecutive hours and no more than 80 hours per week as part of collective intervention to improve patient safety. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) then followed in 2003 by limiting work hours to an average of 80 per week over a month and no more than 30 consecutive hours of work.
Evidence accumulated demonstrating an association between shifts lasting ≥24 hours and adverse resident and patient safety. As a result, the Institute of Medicine convened a review and report on the issue, ultimately concluding that no resident should work more than 16 consecutive hours without sleep. This recommendation, combined with evidence following the 2003 rules, led the ACGME to issue new rules in 2011 that limited first-year resident physicians to work no more than 16 consecutive hours.
Our study compares resident-reported patient safety outcomes before and after this 2011 policy change.
18 May Breast Cancer Survivors: Time Restricted Eating Reduced Body Fat and Cardiovascular Risk
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59166" align="alignleft" width="200"] Dr. Kirkham[/caption]
Dr. Amy Kirkham, PhD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Cardiovascular Health
Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education
University of Toronto
Affiliate Scientist at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Women who have had a breast cancer diagnosis are at least two-fold and often higher risk of cardiovascular or heart disease compared to women without a history of breast cancer. Older age, higher body mass index, and receipt of chemotherapy treatment that can injure the heart are risk factors for cardiovascular death after a breast cancer diagnosis.
Time-restricted eating is a type of intermittent fasting that appears to be easy to follow and to improve some measures of metabolic health but has not been studied in populations with a cancer history. Time-restricted eating simply involves consuming all calorie intake within a specific time window, commonly 8 hours, like between 12 and 8 pm, and then only consuming water or black coffee outside of those hours.
We enrolled breast cancer survivors who were aged 60 or older, had an overweight or obese mass index, and were finished chemotherapy treatment in a single-arm trial of time-restricted eating for 8 weeks. We asked participants to restrict their calorie intake between 12 and 8 pm from Monday to Friday with no restrictions on weekend and no further instructions on what to eat.
17 May Before Initial Acute Coronary Syndrome: Study Finds Statin Therapy Reduced Heart Failure and Mortality
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59155" align="alignleft" width="150"] Prof. Bugiardini[/caption]
Dr. Raffaele Bugiardini, UNIBO Professor & MD
Clinical cardiologist
Full Professor of Cardiology at the University of Bologna
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Questions about the evidence base for primary prevention with statins continue to emerge from many quarters. It has been argued that prior estimates of statin effects were mainly based on information from both individuals with and without pre-existing cardiovascular disease, which may overestimate the true benefits of statins. Some investigators attempted to quantify the impact of statins on outcomes of women versus men and reported significantly different effect estimates.
Others have questioned the benefits of statins in adults 76 years and older as this age group was poorly represented in the randomized trials for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
There is little or no information on concomitant preventive medications in prior work. Thus, how large is the incremental benefit of statin, added to other standard preventive interventions? and is cholesterol a reliable surrogate endpoint to guide prevention of cardiovascular disease?
16 May Mistreatment of Physicians in the Health Care Workplace
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59148" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Rowe[/caption]
Susannah G. Rowe, MD, MPH
Office of Equity, Vitality and Inclusion
Boston University Medical Group
Boston Medical Center
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, Massachusetts
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We wanted to learn how frequently mistreatment occurs for clinicians at work and how it impacts their occupational well-being. We began to see more anecdotal reports of workplace mistreatment of clinicians even before the pandemic. In the extraordinarily stressful environment we are currently experiencing, with people feeling exhausted and emotionally threadbare on some level, the problem appears to be growing.
We also predicted that the burden of mistreatment would not borne be equally. It has often been said that we are all in the same storm but in different boats – some of us are riding out the storm in comfortable ocean liners, while others are paddling in canoes without life jackets. What we are learning, though, is that we are not in fact experiencing the same storm. For example, the increasing intolerance and erosion of public civility we have seen in recent years might show up as minor annoyances for some of us, and actual threats of violence for others depending in large part on our gender and racialized identities. Our relationship to privilege and oppression affects our experiences, creating protections or additional burdens, so when studying clinician occupational well-being, it seemed important to consider how these disparities play out in the workplace.
15 May Lung Disease: In Clinical Trial New Boehringer Ingelheim Drug Prevented Worsening of IPF
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59143" align="alignleft" width="160"] Prof. Richeldi[/caption]
Professor Luca Richeldi MD PhD
Chair and Head, Division of Pulmonary Medicine
Gemelli University Hospital - IRCCS
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Rome
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly explain the condition of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis?
Response: As you may know, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive, irreversible lung disease with high mortality. IPF is one of the more common forms of progressive fibrosing interstitial lung diseases and its symptoms of IPF include breathlessness during activity, a dry and persistent cough, chest discomfort, fatigue and weakness. IPF is considered a “rare” disease, but it affects more than 3 million people worldwide. Currently, there are two approved antifibrotic drugs that slow, but do not stop, the progression of fibrosis. Therefore, there is a need for additional treatments that can be used alone or with existing antifibrotic therapies.
Pre-clinical research indicated that phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) inhibition is associated with anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic effects that may be beneficial in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
In this Phase 2, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we investigated the efficacy and safety of BI 1015550, an oral preferential inhibitor of the PDE4B subtype, in patients with IPF. Patients were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to receive BI 1015550 at a dose of 18 mg twice daily or placebo.
05 May Racial Disparities in Rising Incidence and Mortality from Uterine Cancer
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59128" align="alignleft" width="125"]
Dr. Clarke[/caption]
Megan Clarke, Ph.D., M.H.S.,
Earl Stadtman Investigator
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics
National Cancer Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
- Through our prior work, we have demonstrated that uterine cancer incidence rates have been significantly increasing in the U.S. from 2003 to 2015 and that these increases were primarily driven by rising rates of aggressive (non-endometrioid) subtypes of this cancer. We observed that rates of these aggressive cancers increased among all women and were more than twice as high among Non-Hispanic Black women compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Factors explaining these trends, as well as the disproportionately higher rates of these aggressive subtypes among non-Hispanic Black women, remain unclear, in part because risk factors are poorly understood.
- In addition to differences in incidence rates by race and ethnicity, we have also observed strong disparities in our prior studies, with Non-Hispanic Black women having substantially lower 5-year survival, regardless of subtype or stage at diagnosis, compared to other racial and ethnic populations.
- The next logical step, and the focus of the current study, was to evaluate how increases in the incidence of aggressive, non-endometrioid uterine cancer affects racial disparities and rates of death from uterine cancer.
05 May Space Flight: The Brain Seems to Have a Way to Adapt to Absence of Gravity
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: [caption id="attachment_59125" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Dr. Piantino[/caption]
Juan Piantino, M.D., MCR
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Neurology, School of Medicine
Director, Inpatient Child Neurology
Oregon Health Sciences University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Astronauts are exposed to several stressors during spaceflight, including radiation, lack of gravity, and sleep deprivation. The effects of those stressors on the brain remain unknown. Is it safe to travel to space? For how long can humans survive in space? What are the effects of spending months under zero gravity? With more extended missions, and an increased number of civilians traveling to space, there is increased interest in understanding what happens to our brains when we leave earth.
04 May USPSTF Narrows Recommendations for Daily Aspirin Use
[caption id="attachment_56129" align="alignleft" width="133"]
Dr. Ogedegbe[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Gbenga Ogedegbe, MD, MPH
Dr. Adolph & Margaret Berger Professor of Population Health
Director, Division of Health & Behavior
Director Center for Healthful Behavior Change
Department of Population Health
NYU Langone Health
NYU School of Medicine
Member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of mortality in the United States, accounting for more than one in four deaths.
Taking a daily aspirin may help prevent a first heart attack or stroke in some people, but it can also cause some harm, like internal bleeding. The decision on whether or not to start taking a daily aspirin should be based primarily on age, but cardiovascular disease risk, a person’s chances of bleeding, and other factors should also be taken into account.