Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Nutrition, Pediatrics, Probiotics / 05.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Valerie Sung MBBS (Hons) FRACP MPH PhD Department of Paediatrics The University of Melbourne Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Parkville, Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Infant colic is excessive crying in babies less than 3 months old with no underlying medical cause. It affects 1 in 5 newborns, is very distressing, and is associated with maternal depression, Shaken Baby Syndrome, and early cessation of breastfeeding. Up to now, there has been no single effective treatment for colic. The probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri DSM 17938 has recently shown promise but results from trials have been conflicting. In particular, a previous trial from Australia, the largest in the world so far, did not find the probiotic to be effective in both breastfed and formula-fed infants with colic. This international collaborative study, which collected raw data from 345 infants from existing trials from Italy, Poland, Canada and Australia, confirms Lactobacillus reuteri to be effective in breastfed infants with colic. However, it cannot be recommended for formula-fed infants with colic. Compared to a placebo, the probiotic group was two times more likely to reduce crying by 50 per cent, by the 21st day of treatment, for the babies who were exclusively breastfed. The number needed to treat for day 21 success in breastfed infants was 2.6. In contrast, the formula fed infants in the probiotic group seemed to do worse than the placebo group, but the numbers for this group were limited. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JACC, Pediatrics, Surgical Research, UCSD / 04.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rakesh K. Singh MD, MS Department of Pediatrics, University of California–San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, California Steven E. Lipshultz MD Department of Pediatrics Wayne State University School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Michigan Detroit, Michigan  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a disease characterized by dilation and dysfunction of the left ventricle of the heart. While DCM is a relatively rare disease in children, nearly 40% of children with DCM require a heart transplant or die within 2 years of diagnosis. Heart transplantation has improved the outcomes of children with DCM over the last 3 decades, but is limited by donor heart availability. Newer therapies, including advanced ICU care and artificial heart machines, are now being used to treat children with DCM. This study published in the November 28, 2017 issue of the Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC) sought to determine whether more children with DCM were surviving longer in the more recent era. Specifically, it investigated whether children with DCM were surviving longer without the need for heart transplantation. Rakesh Singh, MD is the first author and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UC San Diego/Rady Children’s Hospital, while the senior author is Steven Lipshultz, MD, Professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine/Detroit Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Director of Children’s Research Center of Michigan. The Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry (PCMR) is a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) sponsored registry from 98 pediatric centers in United States and Canada created to study the outcomes of children with various heart muscle disorders known as cardiomyopathies. For this study, outcomes of 1,199 children diagnosed with DCM from 1990-1999 were compared with 754 children diagnosed with DCM from 2000-2009. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 03.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Breastfeeding welcome here” by Newtown grafitti is licensed under CC BY 2.0Clare Relton, PhD School of Health and Related Research University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England MedicalResearch.com: What are the key findings of your report? Response: Our five year research project explored whether offering financial incentives (shopping vouchers) for breastfeeding increased breastfeeding. We studied what happened to breastfeeding rates at 6 to 8 weeks post-partum in areas in England with low (<40%) breastfeeding prevalence. Our cluster randomized clinical trial (which included 10 010 mother-infant dyads) showed that areas with the financial incentive had significantly higher rates of breastfeeding at 6 to 8 weeks (37.9% vs 31.7%) compared to usual care. The financial incentive scheme was widely acceptable to healthcare providers (midwives, health visitors, doctors) and mothers. The financial incentives made it easier for everyone to discuss breastfeeding and mothers reported feeling valued (supported and rewarded) for breastfeeding. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, Nutrition, Pediatrics / 02.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Baby Bottle” by brokinhrt2 is licensed under CC BY 2.0Mikael Knip, MD, PhD Professor of Pediatrics TRIGR PI  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Experimental studies have indicated that the avoidance of early exposure to cow's milk proteins reduces the cumulative incidence of autoimmune diabetes in animal models of human type 1 diabetes, e.g. BB rats and NOD mice. Epidemiological studies in humans have suggested that there may be a link between type 1 diabetes and short breastfeeding or early introduction of infant formulas. All regular infant formulas contain intact cow's milk proteins. The main finding was that weaning to an extensively hydrolyzed formula did not reduce the cumulative incidence of Type 1 diabetes in at-risk children by the mean age of 11 years. The extensively hydrolyzed formula did not contain any intact cow's milk proteins but only small peptides (maximal size 2000 daltons). (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, NYU, Pediatrics, Pediatrics / 02.01.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Adriana Weisleder, PhD Research scientist, Department of Pediatrics NYU Langone Medical Center New York  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: An estimated 250 million children in low- and middle-income countries do not reach their developmental potential due to poverty. Many programs in the US, such as Reach Out and Read and Video Interaction Project, have shown success in reducing poverty-related disparities in early child development by promoting parent-child interactions in cognitively stimulating activities such as shared bookreading. This randomized study sought to determine whether a program focused on supporting parent-child shared bookreading would result in enhanced child development among 2- to 4-year-old children in a low-resource region in northern Brazil. Families in the program could borrow children’s books on a weekly basis and could participate in monthly parent workshops focused on reading aloud. Findings showed that participating families exhibited higher quantity and quality of shared reading interactions than families in a control group, and children showed higher vocabularies, working memory, and IQ. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Pediatrics / 27.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Babies at Brunch!” by TJ DeGroat is licensed under CC BY 2.0Kandice A. Kapinos, Ph.D. Economist Professor RAND Corporation Pardee RAND Graduate School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In the U.S., we have relatively high rates of breastfeeding initiation – about 80% of mothers will attempt breastfeeding, but rates drop off precipitously in the first few months of an infant’s life. There are tremendous health benefits for both the mother and child from breastfeeding and estimates of significant cost savings from diseases prevented from breastfeeding. However, breastfeeding can be difficult, especially when you need to return to work or school. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, but only 22% of mothers breastfeed exclusively for 6 months. My coauthors, Tami Gurley-Calvez and Lindsey Bullinger, and I were interested in evaluating provisions in recent healthcare legislation (the Affordable Care Act) that required private insurers to cover lactation support services, including breast pumps and visits with lactation consultants, without cost-sharing. (more…)
Author Interviews, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Pediatrics / 21.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Premature baby” by Elin B is licensed under CC BY 2.0Suvi Alenius, MD National Institute for Health and Welfare Helsinki and Oulu, Finland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Parents of very or extremely low birth weight infants are less likely to have subsequent children after preterm birth. We assessed whether this phenomenon extends over the whole range of prematurity. We now show that parents of preterm-born infants (gestational age less than 37 completed weeks of gestation) have fewer subsequent children than do parents of term born infants. This is not limited to the extreme group of parents of children born very preterm, but is even seen within the large groups of parents of infants born less preterm. (more…)
Addiction, Author Interviews, Cannabis, NIH, Pediatrics, Smoking / 17.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Checking your phone and vaping as you do” by Alper Çu?un is licensed under CC BY 2.0Richard Allen Miech, PhD Research Professor, Survey Research Center Institute for Social Research University of Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Monitoring the Future conducts annual, nationally-representative surveys of ~45,000 adolescents every year to assess trends in substance use. We track which drugs are gaining traction among adolescents and which are falling out of favor. The survey draws separate, nationally-representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students from about 400 total schools every year. Once a recruited school agrees to participate, a field interviewer travels to the school to administer the paper-and-pencil survey, typically in classrooms. The project is funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and is carried out by the University of Michigan. More details on the project's survey design and survey procedures can be found in chapter 3 here: http://monitoringthefutu re.org/pubs/monographs/mtf- vol1_2016.pdf (more…)
Author Interviews, Microbiome, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 15.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anita Kozyrskyj, PhD, Professor Dept Pediatrics Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta Edmonton, AB    MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The first year of an infant’s life is a critical time for the development of his or her gut microbiome. Gut microbes not only help infants digest food, but they also “train” their developing immune system. An infant’s environment, from the type of birth and infant diet to use of antibiotics, has a large impact in determining which microbes are present. Frequently these early life exposures occur together. Using data from AllerGen’s CHILD birth cohort and a new analytical approach —called Significance Analysis of Microarrays—we quantified changes to gut microbiota throughout the first year of life according to common combinations of early life exposures. We found that, compared to vaginally-born and breastfed infants, formula-fed or cesarean-delivered infants had different trajectories of microbial colonization in later infancy, which could have implications for their future health. (more…)
Asthma, Author Interviews, Microbiome, Pediatrics / 15.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anita Kozyrskyj, PhD, Professor, Dept Pediatrics Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta Edmonton, AB   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: I was motivated to study the maternal asthma-infant microbiome link by the well-established fact that maternal asthma affects infant birth weight in a sex-specific manner. Based on data from AllerGen’s CHILD birth cohort, Caucasian baby boys born to pregnant moms with asthma—putting them at the highest risk for developing asthma in early childhood—were one-third as likely to have high levels of the microbe, Lactobacillus, in their gut microbiome at 3-4 months after birth. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Lipids, Nutrition, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 15.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Angela S Donin Population Health Research Institute, St George’s University of London, London, UK  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There are increasing numbers of takeaway outlets, particularly in deprived neighbourhoods. This is driving an increase in consumption of takeaway meals, which previous evidence has shown is linked to higher risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Little is known about the dietary and health impact of high consumption of takeaway foods in children. This research found children who regularly ate takeaway meals had higher body fat and cholesterol compared to children who rarely ate take away meals, they also had overall poorer diet quality. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Karolinski Institute, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics / 14.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Emma Björkenstam PhD Department of Public Health Sciences Karolinska Institutet MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: My research team and I have previously shown that childhood adversity is associated with an elevated suicide risk in young adults, and this increased risk may be explained by maladaptive trajectories during adolescence. We also know that adolescent violent offending is linked with suicide, but up until now, less was known about the role of violent offending in the association between childhood adversity and later suicide. Our main finding in the current study, based on almost half a million Swedes, is that individuals with a history of childhood adversity who also engage in violent offending in late adolescence, have a substantial increased risk of suicide. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Neurology, Pediatrics / 13.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kaisa Lohvansuu, PhD Postdoctoral Researcher Jyväskylä Centre for Interdisciplinary Brain Research Department of Psychology University of Jyväskylä  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Developmental dyslexia, a specific reading disability, has a strong genetic basis: The risk of having developmental dyslexia at school age is eight times higher than usual if either of the parents has reading difficulty. It has been known that dyslexia and also family risk for dyslexia are strongly associated with a speech perception deficit, but the underlying mechanism of how the impaired speech processing leads to reading difficulties has been unclear. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders, Technology, Weight Research / 13.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Video Game Addicts” by Michael Bentley is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. Marsha Novick, MD Associate professor of pediatrics and family and community medicine, Penn State College of Medicine  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The results of this study solidify some well-established data concerning childhood obesity – namely that children who watch more television and have a more sedentary lifestyle are more likely to have an overweight or obese BMI compared with those who are more active. The survey results highlight some associations between increased technology use and difficulty with sleep quantity in children and adolescents. The data suggest:
  • ​​Increased technology use at bedtime, namely television, cell phones, video games and computers, is associated with a decrease in the amount of sleep children are getting. These children were more likely to be tired in the morning and less likely to eat breakfast.
  • Specifically, children who reported watching TV or playing video games before bed got an average of 30 minutes less sleep than those who did not, while kids who used their phone or a computer before bed averaged an hour less of sleep than those who did not.
  • The data also suggests that children with overweight or obesity were more likely to have trouble falling asleep and trouble staying asleep than their normal BMI counterparts
  • When children were reported by their parents to use one form of technology at bedtime, they were more likely to use another form of technology as well.
(more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Technology / 08.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Cici loves full screen video on the XO” by Mike Lee is licensed under CC BY 2.0Sarah E. Domoff, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Psychology Central Michigan University Research Faculty Affiliate Center for Human Growth and Development University of Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There has been growing concern that children may become "addicted" to screens, such as tablets and other mobile devices. Children at younger ages are now "owning" their own mobile devices and have increased access to gaming apps and other rewarding functions of these devices. Until now, there hasn't been a parent report form available to capture addictive like use of screen media in children. The Problematic Media Use Measure (PMUM) assesses addictive-like use of screen media in children under 12 years and has strong psychometrics. We found that the PMUM does a better job in predicting psychosocial difficulties in children, over and above hours of screen time. (more…)
Author Interviews, Bone Density, Dermatology, Endocrinology, Osteoporosis, Pediatrics / 03.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Diana L. Cousminer, PhD Division of Human Genetics Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA 19104 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Osteoporosis is a significant public health burden, with origins early in life. Later puberty and lower adolescent bone mineral density are both risk factors for osteoporosis. Geneticists have identified hundreds of genetic variants across the genome that impact pubertal timing, and we found that collectively this variation also plays a role in bone mineralization during adolescence. Additionally, we found that later puberty caused lower adult bone density. (more…)
Author Interviews, Fertility, Heart Disease, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine - development of the in vitro fertilization procedure” by Solis Invicti is licensed under CC BY 2.0Paolo Cavoretto MD PhD San Raffaele Scientific Centre Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department Milan Italy MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most common forms of congenital disorders and a relevant cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality involving about 0.8% of pregnancies. IVF pregnancies are very common nowadays with increasing rates in the developed countries worldwide. There is no consensus in current practice guidelines whether IVF/ICSI conception represents an indication for performing a fetal echocardiogram according to different eminent scientific societies due to differences in the estimations of the risk for CHD in the available literature. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, NEJM, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Kovalam Beach - Obesity : a rising problem in India” by Miran Rijavec is licensed under CC BY 2.0Mr. Zachary Ward Center for Health Decision Science Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA 02115 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Although the current obesity epidemic in the US has been well documented in children and adults, less is known about the long-term risks of adult obesity for children given their current age and weight.  As part of the CHOICES project (Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost Effectiveness Study), we developed new methods to simulate height and weight trajectories across the life course based on individual-level data.  We also used a novel statistical approach to account for long-term population-level trends in weight gain, allowing us to make more realistic projections of obesity into the future.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Imperial College, Pediatrics / 30.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Baby” by Victor is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr Chris Gale Clinical Senior Lecturer in Neonatal Medicine Imperial College London and Consultant Neonatologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As part of a drive to make England a safer place to give birth, the Department of Health in England has set a target of reducing the number of babies that incur brain injury during or soon after birth by 20% by 2020 and to halve them by 2030. Before now United Kingdom health services did not have a standard definition of brain injury in babies and there has been no systematic collection of data for this purpose. With colleagues and in collaboration with the Department of Health, we have devised a practical way to measure the incidence rate of brain injury in babies using routinely recorded data held in the National Neonatal Research Database. The research estimated that 3,418 babies suffered conditions linked to brain injury at or soon after birth in 2015, which equates to an incidence rate of 5.14 per 1,000 live births. For preterm births (babies born at or less than 37 weeks) the rate was 25.88 per 1,000 live births in 2015, almost six times greater than the rate for full-term births, which was 3.47 per 1,000 live births. Overall, the research found that the most common type of condition that contributed brain injuries was damage caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, called hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy; this is seen mainly in term babies. For preterm babies, the largest contributor to brain injuries is from bleeding into and around the ventricles of the brain, a condition called periventricular haemorrhage. It is also the first time that brain injuries in babies have been measured using data gathered routinely during day to day clinical care on NHS neonatal units. The use of routine data required no additional work for clinical staff and provides a valuable way to measure the effectiveness of interventions to reduce brain injury. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics / 29.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sonia Kandel PhD Professor at the GIPSA-Lab Université Grenoble Alpes  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: How do we recall a word’s spelling from memory? How do we execute the movements to produce letters? A series of studies conducted by Professor Sonia Kandel at the GIPSA-Lab/University of Grenoble Alpes in France provide evidence indicating that writing is a linguistic process that affects the way we execute the manual movements when we write. For example, the movements involved in writing T-H-R are easier to execute in a word that is pronounced as it is spelled, (e.g. “thrill”) than in a word that is orthographically irregular (e.g. “through”). What happens with writing when spelling processes are impaired like, in dyslexia and dysgraphia? (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Pediatrics, Psychological Science, Science / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Shari Liu Dept Psychology Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Every day, we look out into the social world and see more than pixels changing across our retinas, or bodies moving in space. We see people brimming with desires, governed by their beliefs about the world and concerned about the costs of their actions and the potential rewards those actions may bring. Reasoning about these mental variables, while observing only people’s overt behaviors, is at the heart of commonsense psychology. (more…)
Allergies, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 26.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Peanuts” by Daniella Segura is licensed under CC BY 2.0Vicki McWilliam Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Food allergy affects up to 10% of children and 2-3% of adults, and appears to increasing in prevalence. The rise in food allergy prevalence has coincided with increased reports of anaphylaxis. Previous research has shown that adolescents are most at risk of experiencing adverse food reactions and appear to be at higher risk of anaphylaxis fatalities but are an understudied age group in food allergy research. In a large population representative sample of 10,000 10-14 year olds in Melbourne, Australia we found that alarmingly over 40% had experienced an allergic reaction in the past year and almost 10% reported potentially life threatening reactions. Consistent with other research peanut and tree nuts were the most common trigger foods for reactions and those with nut allergy were most at risk of anaphylaxis. Having more than two food allergies doubled the risk of a food allergic reaction compared to those with a single food allergy. Surprisingly, reactions were found to occur most commonly at home rather than restaurants or school. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics / 21.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Julie M. Zito, PhD Professor of Pharmacy and Psychiatry University of Maryland, Baltimore Pharmaceutical Health Services Department Baltimore, MD 21201  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The growth of antipsychotic use in children, mainly for the treatment of behavior, has been of increasing concern in recent years. Clinical safety issues (Burcu et al. 2017) and government reports on overuse in the treatment of poor and foster care children (GAO, 2017; 2012) motivated our assessment of peer review programs. These programs are a relatively new approach to Medicaid oversight intended to monitor and assure clinical appropriateness of second generation antipsychotics in children. Critically important is the fact that most antipsychotic use is for child behavioral problems which are off-label conditions, i.e. without sufficient evidence of effectiveness or safety. (more…)
Asthma, Author Interviews, Dermatology, Pediatrics / 20.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Eczema” by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0Malcolm R. Sears, MB ChB Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health St Joseph's Healthcare and McMaster University Ontario Canada.  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study was initiated in 2008, funded by AllerGen NCA and CIHR, to determine root causes of allergy and asthma. We recruited 3623 pregnant mothers in 4 centers across Canada and are following 3495 eligible children from pregnancy to age 5 years. In this paper we describe some of the findings in early childhood, namely that children who develop skin conditions generally called eczema or atopic dermatitis, who are also sensitized to food allergens (milk, egg, peanut) at 1 year are at high risk of developing subsequent asthma, whereas those with these skin conditions but not sensitized are not at such risk. (more…)
Author Interviews, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 14.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “1. pregnancy” by TipsTimesAdmin is licensed under CC BY 2.0Ulrika Nörby MScPharm, PhD Department of E-health and strategic IT Stockholm County Council Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The use of ADHD medication has increased rapidly during the last 10 years, especially among young women. Thereby, questions regarding treatment with these drugs during pregnancy are common. Until now, data concerning fetal safety of ADHD medication have been sparse, especially when it comes to neonatal disorders. For amphetamine preparations, most previous studies concerned illicit drug use during pregnancy, which made it difficult to draw conclusions. Our objective was to estimate birth and neonatal outcomes after maternal use of prescribed ADHD medication during pregnancy. The main findings were that infants exposed to ADHD medication in utero had a somewhat increased risk of neonatal morbidity, especially CNS-related disorders. The odds ratio (OR) for a CNS-disorder was 1.9 for exposed infants compared to non-exposed infants. Further, exposed infants more often needed treatment at a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), OR 1.5, and were more frequently moderately preterm, OR 1.3. The risk for CNS-related disorders and admission to a NICU was increased also compared to infants whose mothers used ADHD before or after, but not during, pregnancy. This finding suggests a causal relationship between treatment with ADHD medication and the neonatal outcomes. Because of large differences in maternal background characteristics between treated and non-treated women, it is however uncertain to what extent the higher neonatal morbidity is caused by the ADHD medication. (more…)
Asthma, Author Interviews, JAMA, Orthopedics, Pediatrics / 14.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Asthma” by Michael Havens is licensed under CC BY 2.0Teresa To, PhD Biostatistics, Design and Analysis Scientific Director The Hospital for Sick Children Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences Toronto, Ontario, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We studied asthma prescription drug use in Ontario children aged 2 to 18 years with physician diagnosed asthma between 2003 and 2014. We found that:
  1. Currently in Ontario, nearly 50% of children with asthma did not fill a prescription for an inhaled corticosteroid during the study period, despite these medications being considered the gold-standard for asthma management.
  2. Our findings did not show clinically important association between inhaled corticosteroids and fracture among children with asthma.
  3. However, systemic corticosteroids (oral or injection) are associated with higher fracture risk in children with asthma (17% higher risk).
(more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Heart Disease, Pediatrics / 13.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Young girl learning Hands-Only CPR at the American Heart Association Hands-Only CPR training kiosk at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. copyright American Heart Association 2017 Photos by Tommy Campbell PhotographyMimi Biswas M.D., MHSc University of California Riverside School of Medicine and Riverside Community Hospital  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This started as  My son's science project. He wanted to make a video game to teach CPR based on a science fair website. It grew to teaching the whole 6th grade using the AHA CPR training kit alone vs adding the video game or music, staying alive, to help with compression rate.  We found that a 12 year can easily learn the basic concepts of calling for help and starting hands only CPR and they can physically perform effective CPR at this age. (more…)
Abuse and Neglect, Author Interviews, Genetic Research, OBGYNE, Pediatrics / 10.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Sir Nicholas Wald FRCP FRS Professor of Preventive Medicine Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry Queen Mary University of London London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome (trisomy 21), Edwards syndrome (trisomy 18) and Patau syndrome (trisomy 13) by maternal plasma DNA analysis has an improved screening performance compared with conventional screening but is too expensive to be performed routinely and has a technical failure rate. The aim of the study was to take advantage of the improved screening performance of the DNA analysis in conjunction with the existing methods thereby providing a seamless testing interface between the “old” and the “new” methods that would detect a larger proportion of affected pregnancies with a much lower false-positive rate, at a much reduced cost compared with universal DNA testing and with no failed tests. The novel approach was to conduct a conventional screening test using a screening cut-off level that identifies about 10% of women with the highest risks of having an affected pregnancy (much higher than in conventional screening) and then to perform a DNA test using a portion of the original blood sample collected for the conventional test. Progressing to the DNA test was automatic for these high risk women without their having to be recalled for counseling and a fresh blood sample (ie as a reflex response hence the term “reflex DNA screening”). (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Social Issues, Weight Research / 09.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jianghong Li, Senior Research Fellow WZB Berlin Social Science Center Berlin, Germany Telethon KIDS Institute, The University of Western Australia West Perth, Western Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the last three to four decades, the prevalence of child overweight/obesity and maternal employment has both increased worldwide. This co-occurrence has drawn much attention to the connection between these two trends. Previous studies, predominantly based on US samples and cross-sectional data, has linked longer working hours to children’s higher body mass index (BMI), suggesting that any maternal employment was a risk for child health. (more…)