Curated News: JAMA

• share
• favorite_border

A change to Medicare policy surrounding heart transplant may lead to increased inequities in access to transplant for patients with heart failure, a new study finds. Results reveal that patients receiving Left Ventricular Assist Devices at transplant-capable centers had 79% higher odds to receive a bridge-to-transplant designation than patients treated at LVAD-only centers.

• share
• favorite_border

School garden-based interventions can improve metabolic parameters such as blood sugar and cholesterol in children, according to a new study from UTHealth Houston.

• share
• favorite_border

There are no simple solutions to America’s deadly overdose epidemic, which costs 100,000 lives each year and is erasing gains in life expectancy.

• share
• favorite_border

According to a new study published in JAMA Network Open, almost a third of patients with chronic pain reported using cannabis to manage it.

• share
• favorite_border

Research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center shows that putting a three-day limit on opioid prescriptions to treat surgical pain after hospital discharge reduces the number of patients who become chronic opioid users without compromising pain relief or recovery. It also reduces the amount of opioids circulating in the community — a grave concern, given that opioids are implicated in 130 overdose deaths in the U.S. every day.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study has found that including climate impact labels on a sample fast food menu influenced participants’ food choices in favor of more climate-friendly items. The study was led by a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients under the care of specialists who trained with the patients’ primary care physicians (PCPs) reported being treated with a more concerned manner, receiving clearer explanations, and experiencing greater engagement in shared decision-making, among other benefits, the study found.

• share
• favorite_border

A roundup of the latest medical discoveries and faculty news at Cedars-Sinai.

• share
• favorite_border

Health care is growing less affordable for U.S. adults—particularly women—with employer-sponsored health insurance, according to an analysis by researchers at the NYU School of Global Public Health published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

• share
• favorite_border

In a new study evaluating the Mediterranean diet and adverse pregnancy outcomes, investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai found that women who conceived while adhering to the anti-inflammatory diet had a significantly lower risk of developing preeclampsia during pregnancy.

• share
• favorite_border

A brief roundup of news and story ideas from the experts at UCLA Health.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients who are satisfied with their physicians are more likely to follow through with metabolic or bariatric surgery (MBS) regardless of racial or ethnic group, according to a study led by researchers at UTHealth Houston.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recent basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include a cell cycle checkpoint inhibitor with potential therapeutic effects in an ovarian cancer subtype, a telementoring program for French-speaking oncology providers in Africa, insights into the relationship between obesity and immunotherapy side effects, updates to the world’s largest cancer drug discovery knowledgebase, improvements to treatment response by blocking the EGFR pathway, and a novel noninvasive diagnostic test for immunotherapy-related kidney injury.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study looks at cancer deaths in California due to tobacco, sounding the alarm regarding the tragic loss of life caused by tobacco addiction

• share
• favorite_border

When patients undergo any type of surgery after having had COVID, their odds of significant postoperative problems diminish with elapsed time from COVID diagnosis.   Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center now report that this trend of decreasing risk persists longer than previously known, for as long as 13 months after surgery. Their report appeared Dec. 14 in JAMA Network Open.

• share
• favorite_border

For decades, doctors and scientists have known that exercise is important for older adults — it can lower risk for cardiac issues, strengthen bones, improve mood and have other benefits. Likewise, mindfulness training reduces stress, and stress can be bad for the brain, so many have thought that exercise and/or mindfulness training might improve brain function.

• share
• favorite_border

Frequent use of devices like smartphones and tablets to calm upset children ages 3-5 was associated with increased emotional dysregulation in kids, particularly in boys, according to a Michigan Medicine study in JAMA Pediatrics.

• share
• favorite_border

While people with cancer have options to participate in cancer clinical trials (CCTs), it can be challenging when they encounter difficulties enrolling and remaining in the trial. Trial withdrawal, although every participant’s right, can thwart study goals and hamper advancing novel treatments.

• share
• favorite_border

Investigators at Cedars-Sinai conduct more than 2,500 research projects annually, and many of these studies have resulted in new treatments or have opened the door to future innovations.

• share
• favorite_border

Nearly half of Americans with Medicare now get their health insurance coverage through a private company that takes part in the federal government’s Medicare Advantage program.

• share
• favorite_border

A new Northwestern Medicine study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that many of online platforms offering testosterone therapy are not providing care in concordance with the American Urological Association (AUA) and Endocrine Society (ES) guidelines for the safe and effective management of men on testosterone therapy.

• share
• favorite_border

Long COVID patients can experience many of the same lingering negative effects on their physical, mental, and social well-being as those experienced by people who become ill with other, non-COVID illnesses.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recent basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts.

• share
• favorite_border

Findings from a Johns Hopkins Medicine research study published today in JAMA Network Open provide strong evidence that people who are pregnant and have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) can safely take the antiviral drug Paxlovid to reduce the possibility of severe disease.

• share
• favorite_border

A brief roundup of news and story ideas from the experts at UCLA Health.

• share
• favorite_border

Analysis showed that in 2019 more than 1.3 million women received cervical cancer screening-associated services, such as a Pap test, colposcopy and other cervical procedures, after age 65. While these services cost more than $83 million, the researchers concluded they were of “unclear clinical appropriateness.”

• share
• favorite_border

Analysis shows steep increases in organ donations, transplantations during large motorcycle rallies. The increase in organ donations and transplantations appears to be driven by well-documented increases in crash-related deaths during large motorcycle rallies.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers found young people using benzodiazepines for common sleep conditions had an increased risk of overdose during the six months after starting treatment compared with other prescription sleep medications.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients who take statins to lower high cholesterol levels often complain of muscle pains, which can lead them to stop taking the highly effective medication and put them at greater risk of heart attack or stroke.

• share
• favorite_border

Youth suicide rate increased as county levels of mental health professional shortages increased, after adjusting for county demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, according to the first national study to assess this association. The association remained significant for youth suicides by firearms. Findings were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study that harnesses a new form of data on hospital patients' housing status reveals vast differences in diagnoses between patients with and without housing issues who are admitted to hospitals. This includes a sharp divide in care for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental conditions.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study led by researchers at the American Cancer Society and Clemson University shows residential racial and economic segregation was associated with cancer mortality at the county level in the United States.

• share
• favorite_border

Adolescents who underwent sleeve gastrectomy, a type of weight-loss surgery that involves removing part of the stomach, were less likely to go the emergency room in the five years after their operations than those who had their stomachs divided into pouches through gastric bypass surgery, according to new research.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recent basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include a promising targeted therapy combination for patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a link between the gut microbiome and therapy-related neutropenic fever, a novel therapeutic target for immunotherapy-related colitis, a telementoring model for training providers on cervical cancer prevention in limited-resource areas, a new understanding of the prognostic value of RUNX1 mutations in AML, and insights into the effects of opioid use on the pain sensitivity pathway.