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Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, JAMA, Pediatrics / 08.08.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Tammy M. Brady, MD, PhD  (she/her/hers) Vice Chair for Clinical Research, Dept of Pediatrics Associate Director, Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Nephrology Medical Director, Pediatric Hypertension Program Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21287     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Accurate BP measurement is key to identification and treatment of hypertension which serves ultimately to prevent cardiovascular disease.  Our study describes substantial measurement error that can occur in a common office and home BP measurement scenario: use of a regular cuff size for all individuals regardless of arm size.  Many office triage measurements occur without individualized cuff selection and most home BP devices come with one cuff size – and our study shows that using a regular cuff size for people who have larger arms – those who require a large adult cuff or an extra-large adult cuff – can lead to blood pressure readings that are almost 5 and 20 mmHg greater than their actual BP, respectively.  Those require a small adult cuff can have BP readings that are almost 4 mmHg lower than their actual BP. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Emergency Care, Health Care Systems, Johns Hopkins / 19.07.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David E. Newman-Toker, MD PhD (he/him) Professor of Neurology, Ophthalmology, & Otolaryngology David Robinson Professor of Vestibular Neurology Director, Division of Neuro-Visual & Vestibular Disorders Director, Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence Johns Hopkins Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Diagnostic errors are believed to be a major public health issue, but valid, quantitative estimates of harm are lacking. In 2015, the National Academy of Medicine stated in their report Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare that improving diagnosis was a “moral, professional, and public health imperative” yet also noted that “the available research [is] not adequate to extrapolate a specific estimate or range of the incidence of diagnostic errors in clinical practice today.” We sought a scientifically robust answer to the question of how many patients in the US suffer serious harms as a result of medical misdiagnosis. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA / 13.04.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cheng-Ying Ho, MD, PhD Associate Professor Department of Pathology Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?  Response: Smell loss is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19 infection. The mechanism of COVID-19-related smell loss is unclear. Previous studies mainly focused on the effect of the viral infection on the lining of the nasal cavity. We went a step beyond to examine the olfactory bulb, a region that transmits smell-related signals to the brain.  (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JNCI, Johns Hopkins, Respiratory, Vaccine Studies / 22.04.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joel N. Blankson, MD, PhD Department of Infectious Diseases Associate Professor Cellular and Molecular Medicine Program Johns Hopkins MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Which vaccines did you evaluate? Response: Prior studies from several groups including our own have found T cell cross-recognition of peptides from SARS-CoV-2 and the common cold coronaviruses. We asked whether as a result of this cross-reactivity, immunization with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine would also enhance T cell responses to the common cold coronaviruses. Prior studies also suggested that antibodies elicited from the mRNA vaccines had a reduced ability to neutralize the emerging variants of concern. Most of the study participants had received the Pfizer vaccine, but a few had received the Moderna vaccine.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cannabis, Emergency Care / 20.06.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ryan Vandrey, Ph.D. Associate Professor Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21224  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The background for this study is that 33 states in the U.S. have legalized medicinal cannabis use and millions of people are using cannabis for therapeutic purposes, but we have very little data on the broad health impacts of medicinal cannabis use. We surveyed medicinal cannabis users and non-using controls who had a variety of health problems and found that the cannabis users reported better health, quality of life, and less healthcare utilization compared with controls.  Because we worried about group characteristics accounting for the differences observed, we then did an analysis of people who switched groups over time (e.g. non-users who later initiated cannabis use or cannabis users who later quit) and found the same differences emerged in the same individuals over time.  Important to note here is that not all individuals who used cannabis benefited from it and that most participants were using high CBD varieties of cannabis in conjunction with more traditional treatments. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Opiods, Pediatrics / 06.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel H. Alinsky, MD, MPH Adolescent Medicine and Addiction Medicine Fellow Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We know that over 4,000 adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15-24 are dying from an opioid overdose every year. Nonfatal opioid overdose has been identified as a potential touchpoint with the healthcare system when individuals can be drawn into treatment, yet very little is known about health care use following opioid overdose in youth. We were interested in figuring out the extent to which adolescents and young adults are receiving evidence-based treatment after an opioid overdose. (more…)
Author Interviews, Johns Hopkins, NEJM, Weight Research / 02.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mark P. Mattson, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The usual eating pattern of most people in modern societies is breakfast, lunch, dinner plus a snack(s) every day.   Animals used for most biomedical research – rats and mice – are usually fed ‘ad libitum’ (food is always available for them to eat).    During the past 25 years, myself and the many scientists who trained in my laboratory discovered that when rats or mice are fed intermittently such that they have no food every other day or eat only during a 4-6 hour time period each day, their overall health improves in many ways.  Animals on such intermittent fasting (IF) regimens exhibit signs of slowed aging and they live much longer than those fed ad libitum. The editors of the New England Journal of Medicine invited me and Rafa de Cabo (a former postdoc in my laboratory at the National Institute on Aging) to write this review article for two main reasons.   First, there have been a sufficient number of studies demonstrating the health benefits of IF in humans and knowledge of the underlying mechanisms to justify a review article.  Second, many physicians are being asked about IF by their patients and the physicians are not privy as to if they should recommend IF and how to prescribe specific IF eating patterns and follow-up to increase the likelihood that the patient will be successful in changing their eating pattern.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Gender Differences, Heart Disease, JAMA, Johns Hopkins, Women's Heart Health / 14.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Erin D. Michos, MD, MHS, FACC, FAHA, FASE Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology Associate Director of Preventive Cardiology Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Victor Okunrintemi, MD, MPH Department of Internal Medicine East Carolina University Greenville, North Carolina  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Women are less physically active than men on average, and the lack of regular physical activity has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and poorer health outcomes. Although recommendations encouraging regular physical activity has been in place for decades, we do not know how much of these recommendations are met, particularly among high risk women with established cardiovascular disease for secondary prevention. This study was therefore designed with the aim of describing the 10-year trends for the proportion of women with cardiovascular disease who do not meet these recommend physical activity levels, overall and by key sociodemographic groups, and the associated cost implications. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Johns Hopkins, Microbiome / 15.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Luis Garza, MD-PhD Associate Professor Department of Dermatology Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21287 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Do you think these findings would be similar with other antibiotics (oral or topical) or with isotretinoin for acne? Response: We prescribe antibiotics frequently for acne. We certainly know it affects our normal and abnormal bacteria on our skin. But we don’t fully understand how well or not people recover from antibiotics.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Johns Hopkins, Kidney Disease, Sugar / 02.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Casey M. Rebholz, PhD, MS, MNSP, MPH, FAHA Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Core Faculty, Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research Baltimore, MD 21287 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Individual beverages have been previously shown to influence risk of a wide range of cardiometabolic diseases. Less is known about beverage consumption and kidney disease risk. In this study population, we found that one such beverage pattern consisted of soda, sugar-sweetened beverages, and water, and that higher adherence to the sugar-sweetened beverage pattern was associated with greater odds of developing incident kidney disease, even after accounting for demographic characteristics and established risk factors.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Compliance, Electronic Records, JAMA, Ophthalmology / 18.12.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Vincent Boland, M.D., Ph.D. Glaucoma Center of Excellence Director of Information Technology, Wilmer Eye Institute Associate Professor of Ophthalmology Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, Maryland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Effective medications are available to treat glaucoma and prevent or stop vision loss.
Unfortunately, patients frequently do not use the eye drops as prescribed, oftentimes simply
because they forget to. Since patient medications are now managed via electronic health
records (EHRs), we built a system to deliver automated reminders to patients using the patient
portal to our EHR. We found that the majority (75%, 66 of 88) of participants that received these reminders found them to be useful, and about half (47%, 41 of 88) the participants wanted to
continue using the reminders after the study ended
(more…)
Author Interviews, Johns Hopkins, Kidney Disease, Transplantation / 18.12.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chirag R Parikh, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. Director,Division of Nephrology Professor of Medicine School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland 21287  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The initial study idea stemmed from our earlier cohort studies of predictors of delayed graft function after kidney transplantation.  We previously found that kidneys from donors with Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) were more often discarded than kidneys from donors without AKI, and transplanted donor AKI kidneys were at increased risk for delayed graft function. It was important to determine whether that increased risk for delayed graft function also translated into worse long-term outcomes for recipients of kidneys from donors with AKI. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Duke, Geriatrics, Hearing Loss, Hospital Readmissions, JAMA / 08.11.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nicholas S. Reed, AuD Assistant Professor | Department of Otolaryngology-Head/Neck Surgery Core Faculty | Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This study was a true team effort. It was funded by AARP and AARP Services, INC and the research was a collaboration of representatives from Johns Hopkins University, OptumLabs, University of California – San Francisco, and AARP Services, INC. Given all of the resent research on downstream effects of hearing loss on important health outcomes such as cognitive decline, falls, and dementia, the aim was to explore how persons with hearing loss interacted with the healthcare system in terms of cost and utilization. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: Over a 10 year period, untreated hearing loss (hearing aid users were excluded from this study as they are difficult to capture in the claims database) was associated with higher healthcare spending and utilization. Specifically, over 10 years, persons with untreated hearing loss spent 46.5% more, on average, on healthcare (to the tune of approximately $22000 more) than those without evidence of hearing loss. Furthermore, persons with untreated hearing loss had 44% and 17% higher risk for 30-day readmission and emergency department visit, respectively. Similar relationships were seen across other measures where persons with untreated hearing loss were more likely to be hospitalized and spent longer in the hospital compared to those without evidence of hearing loss. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, JAMA, Johns Hopkins, Surgical Research / 30.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “Me holding USP gun” by Nghị Trần is licensed under CC BY 2.0Faiz Gani, PhD Postdoctoral research fellow Department of Surgery Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Firearm related injuries are a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, yet, due to combination of factors, limited data exist that evaluate these injuries, particularly among younger patients (patients younger than 18 years). The objective of this study was to describe emergency department utilization for firearm related injuries and to quantitate the financial burden associated with these injuries. In our study of over 75,000 emergency department visits, we observed that each year, over 8,300 children and adolescents present to the emergency department for the treatment / management of a gunshot injury. Within this sub-population of patients, we observed that these injuries are most frequent among patients aged 15-17 years and while these injuries decreased over time initially, were observed to increase again towards the end of the time period studied. In addition to describing the clinical burden of these injuries, we also sought to describe the financial burden associated with these injuries. For patients discharged from the emergency department, the average (median) charge associated with their care was $2,445, while for patients admitted as inpatients for further care, the average (median) charge was $44,966. Collectively these injuries resulted in $2.5 billion in emergency department and hospital charges over the time period studied. This translates to an annual financial burden of approximately $270 million. (more…)
Author Interviews, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Vaccine Studies / 27.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anna Beavis, MD, MPH Assistant Professor The Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics Johns Hopkins Medicine Baltimore, MD 21287-128 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We wanted to look at reasons parents don’t vaccinate their children against HPV, including how those reasons have changed over time from 2010-2016 and how those reasons are different between boys and girls in the most recent data from 2016. We used a nationwide dataset which is publically available from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) – the National Immunization Survey-Teen, or NIS-Teen - which surveys parents of teens ages 13-17 years old every year to determine rates of all recommended vaccinations. In parents who report that they don’t intend to vaccinate their child against HPV , the survey asks parents why. We found that from 2010 to 2016, the percentage of parents reporting concerns about their child not being sexually active yet went down significantly for both boys and girls. Also, in boys specifically, parents reported male gender as a less common reason for not vaccinating. For both boys and girls, we found that concerns about safety and side effects, necessity, and lack of knowledge about the vaccine were common reasons for not planning to vaccinate.  Also, 10% of parents of girls vs. 20% of parents of boys reporting never having a provider recommendation for the vaccine as their primary reason for not vaccinating. These results may reflect the growing public understanding of the HPV vaccine as a vaccine which is best given before exposure, so before initiation of sexual activity between the ages of 11 and 12, and that it is recommended for both boys and girls. Also, over 80% of people will have an HPV infection in their lifetime, so everyone should get vaccinated regardless of anticipated sexual activity. Additionally, providers should focus their counseling and recommendation on improving knowledge about the HPV vaccine, including its decade-long track record of safety and necessity.    (more…)
Author Interviews, Johns Hopkins, Smoking, Tobacco, Tobacco Research / 11.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: "Electronic Cigarette/E-Cigs/E-Cigarettes" by Chris F is licensed under CC BY 2.0Mohammadhassan (Hassan) Mirbolouk, MD American Heart Association Tobacco Regulation Center (A-TRAC) Johns Hopkins Hospital Baltimore, MD 21224. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: E-cigarettes were introduced first in US market as a less harmful method of nicotine delivery which potentially would help smokers to have a less harmful option. However, overtime e-cigarette found its niche of consumers in the younger/tobacco naïve population. Our study is amongst the first studies that describes those who use e-cigarette without any history of combustible-cigarette smoking.  (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, Geriatrics, Inflammation, Johns Hopkins / 11.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Keenan Walker, PhD Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This study was conducted in response to anecdotal accounts and scientific evidence which suggests that major medical conditions, such as critical illness and severe infections, can have a long-term neurological effect on some individuals. There are quite a few studies to date which have found that critical illnesses, such as severe sepsis, are associated with long-term cognitive impairment. Based on this evidence, we wanted to figure out to what degree critical illness and major infection may affect later brain structure and to determine whether the structural changes associated with these events were similar to those observed in Alzheimer’s disease. Our main finding was that individuals who had one or more critical illness or major infection major infection during the decades leading up to older adulthood were more likely to have smaller brain volumes in brain regions most vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. (more…)