Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics, Social Issues / 27.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jianghong Li, Senior Scientist (PhD) From the President’s Project Group, WZB Berlin Social Science Center (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung GmbH: www.wzb.eu) Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Germany MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Jianghong Li: Commuting to work is a common phenomenon in developed countries. In the US full-time wage workers residing in urban counties on average commuted about 55 minutes to work. In the UK, workers commuted 42 minutes (round trip) for work in 2008. German workers commute 13 kilometers and 44 minutes both ways to work on average. The average daily commuting time for work in other European countries ranges from 29 minutes in Portugal to 51 minutes in Hungary. To make your commute a little easier, why not try the Moovit app with its handy tracking tools such as the metro map. Men commute longer than women to work and working fathers commute further to work than working mothers. Men who are employed full-time and with children commute longer than their counterparts without children, regardless of the age of the youngest child. Previous research has shown that long commuting to workplace is associated with reduced civic participation and social interactions, lower life satisfaction, elevated stress hormone and reduced task performance, and increased risk for marriage breakdown. Daily experiences of unreliable transport, conflicting time schedules, congested roads and crowded trains contribute to commuters’ physical and psychological stress. These health and psychosocial consequences of commuting raise a concern about its plausible negative impact on children’s well-being. Yet, there was no inquiry about the effect of commuting on children’s well-being, except one small-scale study in the US of mothers leaving welfare for employment. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Duke, Genetic Research, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics / 27.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Johnna Swartz, PhD Postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Ahmad Hariri Duke postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Ahmad Hariri MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Swartz: Prior research has shown that low socioeconomic status is a risk factor for the development of depression. In this study, we examined whether this risk factor was associated with changes in an epigenetic tag near the gene coding for the serotonin transporter, which has previously been linked to depression. We found that adolescents growing up in families with lower socioeconomic status accumulated more of these tags over time, which may lead to decreased gene expression. Moreover, we found that more of these tags were associated with increased activity in the amygdala, a brain region that plays an important role in the stress response. Finally, we found that adolescents with increased activity in the amygdala were more likely to develop depression symptoms a year later, particularly if they had a close relative with a history of depression. This is some of the first research to draw a link from an environmental risk factor to changes in depression symptoms through changes in epigenetic markers and brain function. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Nutrition, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 25.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Brian Stansfield MD Neonatologist Children's Hospital of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia Augusta University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Stansfield: Since the mid-20th century, we have experimental evidence in animal models and human data demonstrating the influence of maternal nutrition on the offspring - both in the short term and long term. Low birth weight has been connected with higher incidence of cardiometabolic diseases including insulin resistance, coronary artery disease, and hypertension. Interestingly, low birth weight infants grow up to be relatively thin adults compared to their normal or high birth weight counterparts. Conversely, high birth weight infants tend to become heavier adults and obesity is directly linked with the same adult outcomes. So the association of cardiac and metabolic diseases with low birth weight is not linked to adult obesity in general. Thus, speculation as to why extremes of birth weight lead to adult onset cardiometabolic disease suggests different mechanisms and modifying factors. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Dr. Stansfield: The findings of our study shed considerable light on the relationship between birth weight and risk factors for insulin resistance and visceral adiposity. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to achieve precise measurements of visceral adipose content and biomarkers for insulin resistance, we show that both low and high birth weight are associated with increased visceral adiposity and insulin resistance in a healthy population of adolescents aged 13-17 years. This association persists when we account for several recognized confounders including age, sex, race, activity level, and socioeconomic status. The most interesting finding of our study is that when you account for each adolescent’s current body mass index, a measure of obesity, the relationship between increased visceral fat and insulin resistance and low birth weight is strengthened suggesting that these adolescents had relatively high visceral adipose content despite obesity rates that were similar to their normal birth weight counterparts. On the other hand, correction for adolescent BMI (obesity) reduced the relationship between these metabolic markers and high birth weight infants. Thus, low birth weight infants may develop insulin resistance and increased visceral fat, both significant risk factors for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease, despite having a relatively normal body shape in adolescents. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 23.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Saroj Saigal, MD, FRCP(C) Department of Pediatrics McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Saigal: We started to follow infants who were born between 1977-82 and weighed less than 1000g or 2.2 pounds (extremely low birthweight, ELBW) because not much was known about the outcomes of these infants at the time.We have reported the findings at several ages, from infancy to adulthood, in comparison with normal birth weight (NBW) infants . In this report, 100 ELBW participants between 29-36 years of age were compared with 89 NBW participants. To our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study that has followed infants from birth into their 30s. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders / 22.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Summer Sherburne Hawkins, PhD, MS Assistant Professor Boston College School of Social Work Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Sleep is so important for all of us—especially for children and adolescents as their brains and bodies continue to develop. Inadequate sleep is associated with a number of health problems including obesity, cognitive functioning, and chronic illnesses. Increasing the amount and quality of sleep are public health priorities in the US. Currently, school-aged children are recommended to get at least 10 hours and adolescents to get 9-10 hours of sleep daily. However, less than one third of students report getting 8 or more hours of sleep during the school week and total sleep time decreases from infancy through adulthood. The new Healthy People 2020 ‘Sleep Health’ target only monitors adolescent sleep and there are no national data for younger children. Thus, there is little known about the age that sleep issues may begin and whether the prevalence of sleep issues is changing over time. Furthermore, only a few studies have examined the social determinants of sleep in children and adolescents, particularly whether there are differences across racial/ethnic and educational groups. An overarching gap in the literature remains—monitoring sleep and identifying disparities across the life course. Using a nationally-representative sample of US children and adolescents, we examined trends and social determinants of inadequate sleep in 6-17-year-olds. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Pediatrics / 19.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: PD Dr. med. Giancarlo Natalucci OberarztKlinik für Neonatologie UniversitätsSpital Zürich MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Natalucci:: Survival of very preterm infants has increased over the last decades but still they are at risk of developing long-term neurodevelopmental delay. The underlying pathology is termed encephalopathy of prematurity where both structural lesions of the very fragile brain and the disturbance of the physiologic maturational processes are recognized as the main causative entities. Among many pharmacological candidates to prevent brain injury and improve development, erythropoietin has been shown to be among the most promising. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 18.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Gerda Pot Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences King’s College London | Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine Diabetes & Nutritional Sciences Division | London UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Pot: Previous evidence suggested that the timing of food intake can have a significant impact on circadian rhythms (i.e. the body's internal clock) and therefore on metabolic processes within the body, potentially leading to an increased risk of being overweight or obese. However, the evidence from studies in children is very limited so we set out to establish whether this risk was also associated with the timing of children's evening meals.  MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, Pediatrics, Toxin Research, Weight Research / 18.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lori A. Hoepner, DrPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences Columbia University New York, NY 10032 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Hoepner: The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health was funded starting in 1998.  Pregnant African American and Dominican mothers residing in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx were enrolled from 1998 to 2006, and mothers and their children have been followed since this time.  We collected urine samples from the pregnant mothers in their third trimester and from the children at ages 3 and 5.  At ages 5 and 7 we measured the height and weight of the children, and at age 7 we also measured body fat and waist circumference. MedicalResearch.com:  What are the main findings? Dr. Hoepner:  We found a significant association between increased prenatal exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) and increases in childhood body fat measures of waist circumference and percent body fat at age 7.  Our research builds on earlier findings of an association between prenatal exposure to BPA and body fat in children up to age 4, and this is the first study to report an association at age 7. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 16.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chloe Barrera MPH ORISE Fellow Centers for Disease Control and PreventionChloe Barrera MPH ORISE Fellow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Previous studies have been inconsistent in whether introduction of solid foods to babies before 4 months may be associated with later obesity.  In our analysis of more than a thousand babies followed through the first year of life and contacted again at 6 years, we did not find this association. (more…)
Artificial Sweeteners, Author Interviews, Nutrition, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 15.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Meghan Azad PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics & Child Health and Community Health Sciences University of Manitoba Associate Investigator, Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Azad: It is well known that maternal nutrition plays a key role in “programming” fetal development and infant weight gain, but the impact of artificial sweetener consumption during this critical period has not been extensively studied.  Some animal research suggests that consuming artificial sweeteners during pregnancy can predispose offspring to develop obesity, but this has never been studied in humans, until now. (more…)
Asthma, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, NEJM, Pediatrics, Pulmonary Disease / 15.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael McGeachie, PhD Instructor in Medicine Harvard Medical School Channing Division of Network Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. McGeachie: In asthma, and in general but particularly in asthma, a person’s level of lung function has a big impact on his or her quality of life, level of respiratory symptoms and complications, and general morbidity. In asthma, low lung function leads to greater severity and frequency of asthma symptoms. Asthma is a common childhood illness, affecting 9-10% of children. Many children grow out of asthma as they become adults, but other asthmatics remain effected through adulthood, which can lead to a lifetime of respiratory symptoms and chronic airway obstruction, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). If you consider lung function longitudinally, throughout development, plateau, and decline, different people and different asthmatics tend to exhibit different patterns of lung function. Healthy, non-asthmatic people tend to have a period of rapid lung function increase in adolescence, a plateau of lung function level in their late teens and early 20s, and starting around 25 or so a slow, gradual decline of lung function that continues throughout old age. We call this Normal Growth of lung function. However, some people exhibit Reduced Growth, where they don’t reach their expected maximum lung function for a person of the same age, sex, height, and race. Others can show Early Decline, who might reach a normal maximum but then begin to decline immediately without a plateau or with a truncated plateau. We hypothesized that these patterns, Reduced Growth and Early Decline, might have different baseline indicators, precursors, outcomes, and risk of developing COPD. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders, Weight Research / 11.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ofir Turel, Ph.D Professor, Information Systems and Decision Sciences California State University, Fullerton Scholar in Residence, Department of Psychology University of Southern California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Turel: The study emerged as a response to the growing societal concern regarding potentially problematic information system use” lifestyles”, including videogame addiction, among adolescents. Much research in this domain has focused on negative psychological (e.g., reduced wellbeing, depression) and social/life functioning (e.g., reduction in normal activities, diminished school performance). Less is known regarding potential physiological outcomes of videogame addiction. Interestingly, the increase in videogame addiction-like symptoms among adolescents happened in conjunction with an increase in sleep curtailment and obesity in this population. These are too growing concerns in North America and perhaps elsewhere. Medical research implies that these three phenomena may be related. Hence, we hypothesized that videogame addiction will be associated with increased sleep curtailment and increased abdominal adiposity; and consequently, indirectly, with cardio-metabolic deficits. Our findings suggest that videogame addiction predicts reduced sleep duration which in turn, predicts increased abdominal adiposity. Abdominal adiposity was associated with increased blood pressure, insulin resistance and triglycerides and reduced high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Hence, sleep curtailment is an important mediating factor that helps translating videogame addiction into cardio-metabolic deficiencies. (more…)
Author Interviews, CMAJ, Pediatrics, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 10.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Atul Sharma MD, MSc(Statistics), FRCPC Researcher, Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba; Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba; Senior Consultant, Biostatistics Group, George and Fay Yee Center for Healthcare Innovation MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Sharma: Between 1978 and 2004, a previous comparison of directly measured heights and weights demonstrated an alarming increase in the prevalence of overweight or obesity in Canadian children aged 2-17y, from 23.3% (95% CI = 20.5-26.0) to 34.7% (33.0-36.4) based on the new 2007 WHO criteria. In Canada, the definitions of overweight and obesity changed with the introduction of the new '2010 WHO Growth Charts for Canada’, Previous definitions were based on Body Mass Index (BMI) percentiles from the 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) growth chart’s. In addition to revising the percentile thresholds for diagnosing overweight or obesity, the WHO charts were based on a very different reference population. As a result, the proportion of Canadian children being classified as overweight or obese increased with the introduction of the new WHO charts. Our current study applied current Canadian definitions of overweight and obesity to a contemporary sample of Canadian children age 3-19y to assess recent trends in the rates of overweight and obesity. By pooling data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS, cycle 2.2) and the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS, cycles 2 and 3), we were able to study a representative sample of more than 14000 Canadian children from the period 2004-2013.  The sample was evenly split between boys and girls and approximately 80% white. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders / 09.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Anna Pease Senior Research Associate University of Bristol MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Pease:  We tried to gather evidence of whether there was an association between swaddling for sleep and SIDS. This was a review, not a new original study, but it is the first time these data have been brought together to try to quantify any risk between swaddling and SIDS. We only found 4 studies and they were quite different making it difficult to pool the results. We did find, however, that the risk of SIDS when placing infants on their side or front for sleep increased when infants were swaddled. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders / 09.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jean-Philippe Chaput, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa Research Scientist, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute Ontario, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Chaput: Folklore has associated behaviors of animals and humans, and even werewolves, to moon phases of the lunar cycle. However, the empirical evidence that the moon exerts an influence on behaviors is weak and very limited. In order to verify if the full moon is associated with sleep and physical activity of children (and possibly debunk this myth), we used a 12-country study involving 5,812 participants and providing 33,710 24-hour accelerometer recordings of sleep and activity behaviors. Overall, we observed that sleep duration was 5 minutes (1%) shorter at full moon compared to new moon, while activity behaviors were not significantly associated with the lunar cycle in this global sample of children drawn from all inhabited continents. However, the magnitude of this effect on sleep duration is unlikely to be clinically significant from a public health standpoint and people should stop worrying about the full moon. (more…)
Author Interviews, Flu - Influenza, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Vaccine Studies / 09.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Julie H. Shakib, DO, MS, MPH Assistant Professor of Pediatrics | University of Utah Medical Director | Well Baby and Intermediate Nursery Salt Lake City  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Shakib: Immunization against influenza in the first six months of life is ineffective  due to an immature immune response. Passive protection via maternal immunization offers an alternative but only a few studies have evaluated the efficacy of this immunization strategy. We found that in infants born to women immunized against influenza during pregnancy, the risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza and influenza-related hospitalization were reduced by 70% and 81% in their first 6 months of life, respectively.This large study provides more evidence that when women are immunized against influenza during pregnancy, their infants are much less likely to be diagnosed with influenza in their first 6 months. (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, Pediatrics, Vaccine Studies / 06.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Melissa Stockwell, MD, MPH, FAAP Florence Irving Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population and Family Health Columbia University - College of Physicians & Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health Medical Director, New York-Presbyterian Hospital Immunization Registry (EzVac) Co-Director, Primary Care Clinician Research Fellowship in Community Health New York, NY 10032  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Stockwell: Fragmentation of immunization records place children at risk for underimmunization and overimmunization. Nearly all 50 states, 5 cities, and the District of Columbia operate an immunization information system, which is a system that collects and centralizes immunization data for children and adolescents from immunization providers at a regional or state level. More than 75% of US office-based physicians have adopted an electronic health record (EHR), but until recently, clinicians wanting to access patient immunization information in an IIS generally had to manually look up the patient data on a state or local IIS website, that data was not available to them within their own EHR. In this study, we demonstrated that exchange of immunization information between an immunization information system (IIS) and an EHR at point of care had a significant impact on up-to-date rates, overimmunization, and immunization record completeness for low-income, urban children and adolescents. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Vitamin D / 02.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hope Weiler, RD (CDO), PhD Associate Professor Canada Research Chair tier I, Nutrition and Health Across the Lifespan, Director, Mary Emily Clinical Nutrition Research Unit School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition McGill University Macdonald Campus Ste Anne de Bellevue, QC  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Weiler: Vitamin D is a fat soluble with important functions in growth during infancy and childhood, especially for the skeleton. It is for this reason that many policy recommendations for infants stipulate that newborn infants receive a supplemental form of vitamin D. In Canada, it is recommended by Health Canada (www.hc-sc.gc.ca) that newborn infants receive 400 international units of vitamin D from birth to a year of age or until that amount can be obtained from diet. In Canada, older children and adults can make vitamin D when their skin is exposed to direct sunlight between April and October; however, parents are advised to avoid placing their infants in direct sunlight. Thus supplemental vitamin D is particularly important in infancy. Often newborn infants begin life with low body stores of vitamin D (Weiler and colleagues, CMAJ 2005). This prompted Dr. Weiler’s research group at McGill University to test how much vitamin D is needed by newborn infants in Canada. They learned that 400 to 1200 international units of vitamin D given daily to healthy term born infants is enough to support healthy bone growth and mineral deposition (Gallo and colleagues, JAMA 2013). In conducting tests of bone health, they also learned that the amount of muscle was enhanced and fat reduced when infants had very good vitamin D stores. Vitamin D stores are reflected in the blood. Blood concentrations of a vitamin D form called 25-hydroxyvitamin D are used to establish if stores are in a healthy range. In the recent study published in Pediatric Obesity by Hazell et al, values above 75 nanomoles per litre of blood plasma were linked to lower amounts of body fat (~450 g) at 3 years of age. The 450 g difference is almost a pound of fat. This is a meaningful amount to young children where typical amounts of body fat are 10-times that equating to 4.5 kg (almost 10 pounds). Thus the lower fat is still in a healthy range. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Injury, JAMA, Pediatrics / 02.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Zachary Y. Kerr, PhD, MPH Sports Injury Epidemiologist Director, NCAA Injury Surveillance Program Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research and Prevention Indianapolis, IN 46202 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Kerr: A 2013 Institutes of Medicine report called for more research on concussion in athletes aged 5-21 years.  Although there is much research on the incidence of concussion across this age span, there is less related to outcomes such as symptoms and return to play time, let along comparisons by age. In examining sport-related concussions that occurred in youth, high school, and college football, we found differences in the symptomatology and return to play time of concussed players.  For example, the odds of return to play time being under 24 hours was higher in youth than in college.  Also, over 40% of all concussions were returned to play in 2 weeks or more. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Mental Health Research, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Pharmacology / 02.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Heli Malm, MD, PhD Specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology Teratology Information Service Helsinki University and Helsinki University Hospital  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Malm: Animal studies have demonstrated that exposure to SSRIs during early brain development can result in depression-like behavior in adolescence. Today 6% of pregnant women in the US and 4% in Finland are on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) at some stage of pregnancy. SSRIs pass the placenta but no prior studies have followed children beyond childhood to monitor the development of depressive disorders, which typically emerge after puberty onset. Results on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) have been conflicting. The study material is based on national register data from Finland. We investigated offspring psychiatric diagnoses, including depression, anxiety, ASD, and ADHD, of nearly 16,000 mothers who had used SSRIs during pregnancy between 1996 and 2010. Children in this cohort ranged in age from 0 to 15 years old. Because maternal psychiatric illness can affect offspring neurodevelopment in the absence of SSRIs, primary comparisons were made between offspring of the SSRI group and offspring of mothers with a psychiatric disorder diagnosis but no antidepressant use. Children exposed to SSRIs during gestation were diagnosed with depression at an increasing rate after age 12, reaching a cumulative incidence of 8.2% by age 15, compared to 1.9% in the group of children exposed to maternal psychiatric illness but no antidepressants. Rates of anxiety, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses did not differ significantly between the two groups. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Nutrition, Pediatrics / 01.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stephen B. Freedman MDCM, MSc, Associate Professor Department of Paediatrics, Sections of Emergency Medicine and Gastroenterology; ACHRI Healthy Outcomes Theme Group Leader Alberta Children’s Hospital, and Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Freedman: As a pediatric emergency medicine physician I continue to see large numbers of children who are brought for emergency care because of vomiting and diarrhea. In speaking with their caregivers it is clear that many of them try to administer electrolyte maintenance solutions at home but the children either refuse to drink them or they continue to vomit. As a researcher I have noticed that many children continue to receive intravenous rehydration despite not being significantly dehydrated and it appeared that this was often a physician’s response to a failed oral rehydration challenge in the emergency department, either due to refusal to consume the electrolyte maintenance solution supplied or because the children became more nauseous due to the poor palatability of the solution. It appeared that perhaps a less dogmatic approach aimed at providing fluids that children actually like, might overcome these problems leading to improved outcomes. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Dr. Freedman: Children with mild gastroenteritis and minimal dehydration experienced fewer treatment failures when offered dilute apple juice followed by their preferred fluid choice compared with those instructed to drink electrolyte maintenance solution to replace fluid losses. We found the benefit was greatest in those 24 to 60 months of age. The group provided and instructed to take their preferred fluids were administered intravenous rehydration less frequently. (more…)
Author Interviews, Autism, Pediatrics, Toxin Research / 01.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Steven Daniel Hicks, M.D., Ph.D. Penn State Hershey Medical Group Hope Drive, Pediatrics Hershey, PA 17033  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Hicks:  This research was inspired by results of the CHARGE study (examining environmental influences on autism) which showed that specific pesticides (including pyrethroids) increased the risk of autism and developmental delay, particularly when mothers were exposed in the 3rdtrimester. We recognized that the department of health sprayed pyrethroids from airplanes in a specific area near our regional medical center every summer to combat mosquito borne illnesses. We asked whether children from those areas had increased rates of autism and developmental delay. We found that they were about 25% more likely to be diagnosed with a developmental disorder at our medical center than children from control regions without aerial spraying of pyrethroids. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Pharmacology / 29.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonathan Slaughter, MD, MPH Assistant Professor of Pediatrics Center for Perinatal Research Nationwide Children's Hospital/The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43205  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Slaughter:   Increasing data has emerged over the last decade showing potential harm following acid suppression use in newborns, older children, and adults.  There are virtually no published data that show acid suppression via histamine-2-receptor antagonists (H2RAs) or proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) is effective for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) treatment or for other indications (stress ulcer prophylaxis, post-operative acid suppression) in healthy or sick newborns. Given the potentially limited effectiveness of these medications and increasing safety concerns following H2RA/PPI use in infants, we wanted to evaluate the frequency and duration of H2RA/PPI use among infants hospitalized within US children's hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) to determine if these drugs appeared to be overused and if use appears to have changed over time.  We also evaluated neonatal diagnoses associated with acid suppression to identify targets for future studies that may evaluate the usefulness of acid suppression in neonates following a given diagnosis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 29.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ashley Wendell Kranjac, PhD Department of Sociology and Kinder Institute for Urban Research Rice University Houston, Texas and Robert L. Wagmiller, Jr. Associate Professor Department of Sociology Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The Center for Disease Control recently reported a decline in child obesity amongst 2-to5-year old children between 2003/4 and 2011/12 (see, Ogden et al. 2014). We aimed to identify the sources of this decline because this change occurred in a relatively short period of time. What we found is that the decline in obesity did not occur due to the things that you might expect like changes in physical activity or dietary practices (although there were some differences in these factors across years). But, rather, what we found is that because there were differences in obesity rates for the youngest and oldest children in this age range in 2003/4, but not in 2011/12, that the decline in obesity exists. In other words, because the oldest children in 2003/4 had significantly higher obesity rates than the youngest children in this time period, but this effect is not observable in 2011/12, we see a decline in obesity. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Global Health, Pediatrics / 27.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof Naeemah Abrahams South African Medical Research Council Chief  Specialist Scientist:  Gender & Health Research Unit Cape Town | Western Cape MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Prof Abrahams: Violence is a common feature of the South African social landscape and the murder of children is the most severe form of violence against children.  A national child homicide study reflecting 2009 murdered was done. Information was collected from mortuaries and police detectives. We identified the demographic detail of the child, the perpetrator information (if available) and the motive of the killings. In this manuscript we look in greater detail at children under the age of 5 years as this group represent the 2nd largest group of children killed. We also have a focus on neonaticides. We estimated that 454 children under the age of 5 years were killed in South Africa in 2009. This means more than 1 young child killed per day. The study showed the first 6 days of life are the time point of highest risk for being killed among children under 5 years with more than half (53.2%) of the children killed within the 1st month of their lives and nearly two thirds of the children (74.4%)  killed as infants.  This is amongst the highest reported rates for neonaticide and infanticide. Parents, in particular mothers, were the most common perpetrator of the younger children – this is most likely due to them being responsible for the care of young children. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics, PNAS, Social Issues / 26.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Joan L. Luby, MD Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig Professor of Child Psychiatry Director, Early Emotional Development Program Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis, Missouri

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Dr. Luby: The study was designed to investigate brain development in early onset mental disorders. The main findings validate depression in preschoolers with brain change evident this young similar to that known in adults. We also found effects of maternal support on brain development in this process which is what the current paper focuses on . (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Heart Disease, Pediatrics / 25.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hans Van Brabandt, M.D. Brussel, Belgium MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Van Brabandt: We have been asked by the Belgian government to assess the benefits and harms of pre-participation screening of young athletes. A number of Belgian cardiologists and screening physicians are intensely promoting such screening through mass media and were asking governmental support. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Dr. Van Brabandt:  There is no solid evidence on the benefit of cardiovascular pre-participation screening, and certainty of harms it induces through numerous false-positives, making that such screening in young athletes cannot be defended. -          Italian investigators assert they have provided evidence for the benefit of screening. The single study on which they base their claim however is far from convincing. Unfortunately, more than 10 years after their first paper, they still did not make the majority of their data publicly available. (more…)
Author Interviews, Global Health, Pediatrics / 23.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Janet Currie Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Policy Affairs Chair, Department of Economics Director, Center for Health and Wellbeing Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Many recent studies point to increasing inequality in mortality in the United States over the past 20 years. These studies often use mortality rates in middle and old age. This is the first study to examine mortality trends for younger ages.  We find that for infants, children and young adults below age 20, however, there have been strong mortality improvements that were most pronounced in poorer counties, implying a strong decrease in mortality inequality. There is a great deal of evidence from past studies that healthier children grow up to be healthier adults.  These current young people will form the future adult U.S. population, so this research suggests that inequality in middle and old-age mortality may have peaked and is likely to decline as these cohorts become older. (more…)