Married People Have Lower Heart Risk, Mortality
An article from the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology suggests that Acute coronary syndromes carried a significantly higher mortality risk for men and women who lived alone or were unmarried than for married people. Comment: I wonder why it was necessary to publish an article on what appears to be a self evident outcome in light of the extensive work that associates coronary disease with stress. (Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG)
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - February 1, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Community Health epidemiology policy Prevention Surveillance Source Type: blogs
Cancer treatments
Two more studies are reported this week continue to show the inability of oncologists to consider the pain and adverse effects on quality of life from both a cancer and the treatment of that cancer. One study was on the value of dual radiotherapy for the poor risk esophageal cancer. The other was on combined therapies for treatment of prostatic cancer. In both these studies so-called significant improvements led to only a few weeks of extended life while no data was provided on the resulting quality of that life. It certainly makes money for the pharmaceutical companies whose products were used in these studies and...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - February 1, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: Chronic Disease epidemiology policy research Technology Source Type: blogs
What is the purpose of medical research?
In an excellent article in the Lancet today the editors ask about the purpose of medical research and what does it adds to health care? And sometimes, why was this research done at all? These questions are about the research findings that make it to the editors’ inbox. The editors note that in a 2009 Viewpoint, Iain Chalmers and Paul Glasziou estimated that 85% of research is wasteful or inefficient, with deficiencies in four main areas: is the research question relevant for clinicians or patients? Are design and methods appropriate? Is the full report accessible? Is it unbiased and clinically meaningful? The edi...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - February 1, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: epidemiology policy Prevention research Technology Source Type: blogs
Diet May Not Impact Certain Health Outcomes in Older Persons
Eating diets high in sugar and fat may not affect the health outcomes of older adults ages 75 and up, suggesting that placing people of such advanced age on overly restrictive diets to treat their excess weight or other conditions may have little benefit, according to researchers at Penn State and Geisinger Healthcare System. Comment: the authors need to review their comments about 75 being such an advanced age. The fastest growing segment population is those over 85. As one rapidly approaching this milestone I don’t feel particularly old, neither do most my peers. However it is comforting to learn that the diffi...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 27, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Chronic Disease Community Health epidemiology Prevention Surveillance Source Type: blogs
Fetal Exposure to PVC Plastic Chemical Linked to Obesity in Offspring
Exposing pregnant mice to low doses of the chemical tributyltin — which is used in marine hull paint and PVC plastic — can lead to obesity for multiple generations without subsequent exposure, a UC Irvine study has found. Comment: this one more environmental study echoes the environmentalist activist claims about almost anything that people eat that contains any man-made component. While this is interesting and the authors have coined one more new word “obesogen” this looks like one more politically activated study looking for a reason to exist. (Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG)
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 27, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: Chronic Disease Community Health Environment epidemiology research Source Type: blogs
Cleaning Jobs Linked to Asthma Risk
In this study, 18 occupations were clearly linked with asthma risk, four of which were cleaning jobs and a further three of which were likely to involve exposure to cleaning products. Besides cleaning products, flour, enzymes, metals, and textiles were among materials in the workplace identified in the study as being linked to asthma risk. Comment: this this is a useful study that suggests that are public information is needed for people who use these products. However the multiple studies by many interested in allergens shows that almost anything can cause a reaction for specific individuals and more research needs be...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 27, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: Chronic Disease Community Health Environment Prevention Surveillance Source Type: blogs
Smoking Deaths Now Equal in Women and Men
In one national survey, the rate of all-cause mortality was three times higher for smokers than for nonsmokers, with a hazard ratio of 2.8 (95% CI 2.4 to 3.1) for men and 3 (95% CI 2.7 to 3.3) for women, according to Prabhat Jha, MD, of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, and colleagues. In a second study, the relative risk of death from any cause among a contemporary cohort of smokers was 2.80 (95% CI 2.72 to 2.88) for men and 2.76 (95% CI 2.69 to 2.84) for women, reported Michael J. Thun, MD, of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, and colleagues. Comment: this outcome is not surprising to any of us wh...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 27, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Chronic Disease Community Health epidemiology Prevention Surveillance Source Type: blogs
Cutting down on sugar leads to small weight loss.
The Los Angeles Times (1/15) reports in its “Booster Shots” health blog that according to research published online in the British Medical Journal, people who “cut down on added sugars in their diets lost an average of about 1.7 pounds – a result researchers called small but significant.” Comment: this is another study that should never have been published as all it does is identify a statistical outcome that has no clinical value in the real world. (Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG)
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 19, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Chronic Disease Prevention research Source Type: blogs
lingering use of BMI to measure obesity
The Wall Street Journal (1/12) reported that some scientists disagree with last week’s report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the University of Ottawa that used Body Mass Index to measure their likelihood of dying. Researchers refute using BMI as the typical way to define obesity, claiming that it averages together too many factors instead of focusing on unhealthy abdominal fat. Researchers also point to how many are misclassified as overweight by the BMI index. Comment: while I agree with these comments the problem is one of having a case definition that ...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 19, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Chronic Disease Community Health epidemiology policy Prevention Translational Research Source Type: blogs
Screening in the aged.
In BMJ online this week we learn that among those over 70 years of age for every 1,000 women screened for breast cancer, almost 11 years would pass before one breast cancer death would be prevented. More than 10 years would pass before a single death from colorectal cancer would be prevented for every 1,000 persons screened, wrote Sei Lee, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues. Patients with a life expectancy of less than 10 years derive little benefit from screening for breast or colorectal cancer. Comment: this is one more study that demonstrates that no screening should be routine and app...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 10, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: Chronic Disease epidemiology policy Prevention Surveillance Technology Source Type: blogs
Gonorrhea Tx Fails at High Rate
In a report from Canada and on the CDC website, Cefixime treatment failure occurred in 6.77% of patients who returned for a test of cure of Neisseria gonorrhoeae infection in a retrospective cohort study. Note that this study was performed in a single sexual health center that treats high-risk individuals. Of 133 patients who returned for a test of cure following cefixime treatment, 6.77% had a treatment failure, defined as infection with a Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolate identical to the pretreatment isolate and a denial of re-exposure through sexual contact, according to Vanessa Allen, MD, MPH, of Public Health Ontario Lab...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 10, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: Community Health infectious diseases Prevention Surveillance Source Type: blogs
Synthetic Stool Stymies Stubborn C. Difficile
A number of sources today reports that fake feces may fight Clostridium difficile infection just as well as the real thing, researchers found. In a small proof-of-concept trial, two patients with refractory C. difficile infection got back to regular bowel movements within 2 or 3 days of receiving a substitute stool mixture, and remained symptom-free at 6 months, Elaine Petrof, MD, of Kingston General Hospital in Ontario, and colleagues reported online in Microbiome. The synthetic stool was comprised of 33 bacterial strains cultured from the feces of a healthy donor. Compared with a standard fecal transplant, having a clean...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 10, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: epidemiology infectious diseases Technology Translational Research Source Type: blogs
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
The report from the NAP this week, found that the USA “ranks at or near the bottom in nine key areas of health: low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections; HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and general disability. While this report as to others that find despite the amount paid into the health care programs United States we fail to get the results found in other countries where healthcare costs far less. There are bright spots in the report such as longevity and reduction in cancer incidence but they are ...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 10, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: Chronic Disease Community Health epidemiology International Health Source Type: blogs
US lags behind in dementia strategies.
the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report in December ( http://www.aging.senate.gov/reports/rpt2012.pdf ) examining how five nations — the United States, Australia, France, Japan and Britain — are responding to growing numbers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.” After noting how Australia, France, Japan and the UK are way ahead of the US in planning for a growing number of older people with dementia. Other countries with which the United States is closely aligned have embraced long-term care as an essential social responsibility while we have not. Pr...
Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 1, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Chronic Disease Community Health geriatrics policy research Source Type: blogs
