Aging, Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Chemotherapy, JNCI / 30.03.2014

Hanna Sanoff MD, MPH Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Department of Medicine University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NCMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hanna Sanoff MD, MPH Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Department of Medicine University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Sanoff: We measured p16, a protein that increases with cellular aging, in blood cells of women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer. We found that a standard course of chemotherapy led to an increase in p16 expression equivalent to what we have previous seen in people over the course of 10-15 years of chronological aging. This increase persisted in cancer survivors an average of three and half years after treatment. (more…)
Author Interviews, PLoS, Toxin Research, UCSD / 30.03.2014

Beatrice A. Golomb MD, PhD Professor of Medicine Family and Preventive Medicine University of California, San DiegoMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Beatrice A. Golomb MD, PhD Professor of Medicine Family and Preventive Medicine University of California, San Diego MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Golomb: The main finding is that veterans with Gulf War illness have bioenergetic defects -- dysfunction of mitochondria, the energy producing elements of cells -- that is evident in comparing affected veterans to matched healthy controls. An estimated 1/4 to 1/3 of the ~700,000 US veterans from the 1990-1 Gulf War developed chronic multisymptom health problems that entail fatigue, cognitive and other CNS problems, muscle pain, weakness and exercise intolerance, with high rates of gastrointestinal (especially diarrhea) and neurological problems, and other symptoms - as well as autonomic dysfunction. Evidence suggests these problems have not abated with time. Veterans from other nations that have conducted epidemiological studies, including the UK, Canada, and Australia, also show elevated rates of problems. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Kidney Disease / 30.03.2014

Dr. Paolo Fiorina, MD PhD Assistant Professor, Division of Nephrology, Harvard Medical SchoolMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Paolo Fiorina, MD PhD Assistant Professor, Division of Nephrology, Harvard Medical School and Dr. Roberto Bassi Post-doctoral research fellow Nephrology Department at Children's Hospital Boston. Dr. Roberto Bassi Post-doctoral research fellow Nephrology Department at Children's Hospital Boston.   MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Fiorina: It is common knowledge that type 2 diabetes is a worldwide epidemic and that diabetic nephropathy has become the leading cause of renal failure in the western world. One of the main drivers and worsening factors for the diabetic kidney disease is proteinuria associated with various degrees of tubular damage, and unfortunately, therapies to halt or prevent this complication are not available so far. Our findings show that B7-1 when expressed on podocytes (a specific subset of renal cells) determines alterations in podocytes function and morphology, predisposing individuals with T2D to the loss of proteins into the urine. We also demonstrate that Abatacept, an immunomodulatory drug currently employed for the treatment of a variety of autoimmune diseases, is able to specifically target this malignant pathway, preventing podocytes cellular alterations in vitro and proteinuria development in two murine models of diabetic nephropathy in vivo. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Duke, JAMA / 29.03.2014

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ann Marie Navar-Boggan, MD, PhD Division of Cardiology, Duke University Medical Center Durham, North Carolina MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Navar-Boggan: Two groups of adults are really affected by the updated guidelines. First, 13.5 million adults, including one in five adults over the age of 60, were previously considered to have uncontrolled blood pressure but now meet new guideline goals. Next, 14 million adults over the age of 60 (one in four adults in this age group) are currently on blood pressure lowering therapy and meeting the older, more stringent targets. The guidelines state that no changes are necessary in this group, but they may be eligible for reduced therapy, particularly if they have had side effects or difficulty with the therapies they are taking. (more…)
Sexual Health, Statins / 29.03.2014

Dr. John B. Kostis, MD Chief of Medical Service, RWJUH Professor of Medicine & Pharmacology Chair - Department of Medicine Rutgers Robert Wood JohnsonMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. John B. Kostis, MD Chief of Medical Service, RWJUH Professor of Medicine & Pharmacology Chair - Department of Medicine Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr.Kostis:  In this meta-analysis statins improved erectile function in men with decreased function on the average. (more…)
Author Interviews, Duke, Lipids, NEJM, Statins / 28.03.2014

Michael J. Pencina, PhD Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Director of Biostatistics Duke Clinical Research Institute Durham, NC 27710 MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael J. Pencina, PhD Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Director of Biostatistics Duke Clinical Research Institute Durham, NC 27710 MedicalResearch.com: What motivated your research? Dr. Pencina: After the new guidelines were issued last November, we were intrigued by the change in treatment philosophy from that based on cholesterol levels (used by the “old guidelines” known as NCEP ATPIII) to one based on 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease (used by the new AHA-ACC guidelines).  We were curious what the practical consequences of this shift would be. Furthermore, the media quoted a lot of experts making educated guesses on the impact.  We realized that this question can be answered much more precisely based on the NHANES data. (more…)
Author Interviews, Nutrition, Sugar / 28.03.2014

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: JeffJeff Niederdeppe Assistant Professor Department of Communication Cornell University. Niederdeppe Assistant Professor Department of Communication Cornell University.   MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Answer: We conducted an Internet-based survey (N = 1319) with a nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults aged 18–64 during the fall of 2012. Americans voiced the highest levels of support for calorie labeling (65%) and removing drinks from schools (62%), and the lowest support for taxes (22%) or portion size restrictions (26%). Americans were evenly split on whether or not they support restricting sugary drink to children (50%) and requiring TV stations to air ads promoting healthy eating and exercise equal to the time used to advertise for sugary drinks (51%). Democrats and those with negative views of soda companies are more likely to support each of these policies. (more…)
Author Interviews, Nutrition, Weight Research / 28.03.2014

Barbara J. Rolls, PhD Department of Nutritional Sciences The Pennsylvania State University, 226 Henderson Building University Park, PA 16802-6501MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Barbara J. Rolls, PhD Department of Nutritional Sciences The Pennsylvania State University, 226 Henderson Building University Park, PA 16802-6501 MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Rolls:  We found that as we reduced the flake size of a breakfast cereal so that it filled a smaller volume, individuals ate a greater weight and more calories of the cereal. On four occasions, we served a popular wheat flake cereal, or the same weight of cereal crushed to 80%, 60%, or 40% of its volume, to 41 adults for breakfast. As the flake size was reduced, people made reductions in the volume of cereal they poured, but they still took a greater amount of weight and calories. They ended up eating 72 more calories at breakfast when they ate the cereal with the smallest flake size, an increase of 34%. These findings show that variations in food volume due to the size of individual food pieces affect the portion of food that people take, which in turn affects how much they eat. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA / 12.03.2014

Matthias Briel, MD, MSc Basel Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University Hospital of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, CanadaMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Matthias Briel, MD, MSc Basel Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University Hospital of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada  MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Briel: Using a retrospective cohort of 1017 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) based on archived protocols approved by six research ethics committees in Switzerland, Germany, and Canada between 2000 and 2003, we found that 25% of initiated RCTs were discontinued. While discontinuation was common with RCTs involving patients (28%), it was rare in RCTs with healthy volunteers (3%). The most commonly reported reason for RCT discontinuation was poor recruitment (10% of included RCTs). We found that trials with investigator sponsor (versus industry) and those with smaller planned sample sizes were at higher risk of discontinuation due to poor recruitment. Of discontinued RCTs, up to 60% remained unpublished. Trial investigators rarely informed research ethics committees about trial discontinuation and publication. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ / 04.11.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: r. Christopher Jones MD Attending Physician Department of Emergency Medicine, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University One Cooper Plaza, Camden, NJ 08103, USADr. Christopher Jones MD Attending Physician Department of Emergency Medicine, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University One Cooper Plaza, Camden, NJ 08103, USA MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Jones: We identified a group of 585 clinical trials with at least 500 participants which had been prospectively registered with ClinicalTrials.gov and completed prior to 2009. Following an extensive search of the medical literature, we were unable to identify published manuscripts for 171 (29%) of these studies. For these unpublished studies we also determined whether results were available in the ClinicalTrials.gov results database, and we found that 133 studies had no results available either in the published literature or on ClinicalTrials.gov. (more…)