Risk of diabetes and stroke may be influenced by what we experienced in the womb

The risk of suffering diabetes or a stroke in later years may be influenced by what we experience in the womb. Medical researchers at Jena's University Hospital are investigating the long-term effects of prenatal stress on children now 8-10 years old.



Source: Research on Aging - Stress in the Womb | Tomorrow Today - YouTube http://bit.ly/15DQTtm

Analysis of Rafael Nadal's Knee Injury - Computer Animation from NYTimes

Rafael Nadal missed seven months last year with a knee injury. Nadal, an 11-time Grand Slam champion, returned to the tour at a small clay-court event in Vina del Mar, Chile, in February after recovering from a partially torn patella tendon and inflammation in his left knee. That knee will face its toughest test when he plays in the French Open, his first Grand Slam event since his return.



The 26-year-old Spaniard is favored to win and become the only player with eight French Open titles, even though he said his knee is still “not 100 percent.” Although he can practice less than an hour a day, he’s made the final in each of the eight tournaments he’s played since he returned to the men’s tennis circuit in February.

References:

Even at Half Speed, Nadal Still the Man to Beat in Paris - Bloomberg http://bloom.bg/111VzBK

Top medicine articles for April-May 2013

Here are my suggestions for some of the top articles in medicine for April-May 2013:

Antibiotics for COPD exacerbations: Further Evidence of Benefit http://buff.ly/WOANHG

Diet does not work: substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death - BMJ http://buff.ly/WOAZH5

The Physician in US Cigarette Advertisements, 1930–1953 (illustrated review) http://1.usa.gov/VcuA7W via @Skepticscalpel

Nearsighted kids may get worse in winter http://trib.in/VcvmC1 -- Myopia progression seem to decrease in periods with longer days and to increase in periods with shorter days. Children should be encouraged to spend more time outside during daytime to prevent myopia (study) http://buff.ly/X1cFSm

The average physician spends nearly 11% of his or her career with an unresolved medical liability claim http://buff.ly/WZQZWJ

When Diet Meets Delicious - The Mediterranean Approach http://buff.ly/XCsvTJ -- Mediterranean diet prohibits nothing that was recognized as food by your great-grandmother.

Designing Tomorrow's Vaccines - NEJM free full text http://buff.ly/XCybNK

FDA Approves New Class of Type 2 Diabetes Drug: Invokana (canaglifozin) tablet http://buff.ly/16cNuNR

Incidence of coccidioidomycosis ("valley fever") increased 8-fold in the endemic area of U.S. between 1998-2011 http://buff.ly/YpvSyp

Erectile Dysfunction Severity as a Risk Marker for Cardiovascular Disease Hospitalisation and All-Cause Mortality http://bit.ly/16djmSx

More than 80% of prescriptions in the USA are now for generic (not brand name) drugs http://bit.ly/16djvWd

Smoke alarm - mental illness and tobacco - of 10 UK million smokers, up to 3 mln have a mental health disorder http://bit.ly/16djIZx

1 in 3 Americans has dementia at time of death http://buff.ly/11aMpXB

Studies conducted in high-income countries suggest that 2%–14% of scientists may have fabricated or falsified data http://buff.ly/YHHOYG

Discontinuation of Statins: most patients who are rechallenged can tolerate statins long-term http://buff.ly/16uEbe5

"Big Data" for Global Infectious Disease Surveillance - Free dynamic risk maps http://buff.ly/11j8Hq9

The articles were selected from my Twitter and RSS streams. Please feel free to send suggestions for articles to clinicalcases AT gmail.com and you will receive acknowledgement in the next edition of this publication.

How and when do we learn to talk: Why German and French babies cry differently

Prof. Angela D. Friederici, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig talks about Language Acquisition. She asserts that babies learn language right from birth, even cry with the intonations of their mother tongue.



Source: How and when do we learn to talk? | Tomorrow Today - Interview - YouTube http://bit.ly/15DQJSQ

Every single hour of television watched after the age of 25 reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by 22 minutes

By comparison, smoking a single cigarette reduces life expectancy by about 11 minutes.

An adult who spends an average of six hours a day watching TV over the course of a lifetime can expect to live 4.8 years fewer than a person who does not watch TV.

References:

Get Up. Get Out. Don't Sit. - NYTimes, 2012 http://nyti.ms/10oXBQd

Comments from Twitter and Google Plus:

Humera Naqvi, MD @nayab78: hmmm that means we ppl should be dying early taking the amount of tv watched but life expectancy has increased.

K Dillon, RDMS,CPC-A @comalliwrites: Confounders & confirmation bias not accounted for...

@ShadolooDoll: Misleading. It isn't TV itself, but the lack of activity. A person who is dedicated to exercise can still watch TV, right?

Timothy Cook: Great, since I stopped watching TV.  I can start smoking again!  ;-)

Davíð Þórisson: Phew - no mention of watching Youtube! :-)

Jimena Yosara Aguilar Jimenez: I'll never watch tv again

Dimiter Stanev: Does that mean that disabled people suffer from this too?

Image source: Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.

What is HDL? Videos for patient education by Cleveland Clinic

Watch and learn how high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol can protect the body from heart disease in this whiteboard session lead by Cleveland Clinic Cardiologist Michael Rocco, MD.



Here are more videos from the same series:

What is LDL? - YouTube http://bit.ly/18cuEay

What is a lipid profile? - YouTube http://bit.ly/18cuFLE

What is cholesterol? - YouTube http://bit.ly/18cuHmX

What are the types of cholesterol? - YouTube http://bit.ly/18cuKPA

Time to treat your cholesterol numbers - YouTube http://bit.ly/18cuLmD

Know your cholesterol numbers - YouTube http://bit.ly/18cuMa7

"Attention span halved in a decade, from 12 to 5 minutes, spelling trouble for doctors and patients"

From the WSJ:

Our average attention span halved in a decade, from 12 to five minutes. To combat this, a "museum intervention" is now mandatory at Yale's School of Medicine for all first-year medical students. Called Enhancing Observational Skills, the program asks students to look at and then describe paintings—not Pollocks and Picassos but Victorian pieces, with whole people in them. The aim? To improve diagnostic knack.


The Waterseller of Seville, 1618-1622, Oil on canvas. This is not considered an example of the "Victorian pieces" mentioned in the WSJ article. Image source: Wikipedia, public domain.

Each student is assigned a painting which they examine for 15 minutes, recording all they see. Then the group discusses its observations.

"We are trying to slow down the students. They have an urge to come up with a diagnosis immediately and get the right answer."

The study did not provide a huge improvement in the diagnostic acumen though. After the completion of the study project, the medical students were 10% more effective at diagnosis. Nonetheless, the program has now expanded to more than 20 U.S. medical schools. The evidence behind this intervention is not very convincing.

References:

Reviving the Art of Observation | Marvels - WSJ, 2012 http://goo.gl/iOhAV

Comments from Google Plus and Twitter:

Dr John Weiner @AllergyNet: Soon to become 140 characters? MT @DrVes: "Attention span halved in a decade, from 12 to 5 minutes” goo.gl/fb/818DN

andrew murphy, md @PAallergy: @DrVes took to long for me to read that story : )

Mike Moore: Interesting. What's the reference for "Attention span halved in a decade, from 12 to 5 minutes"

Ves Dimov, M.D.: The reference is the text: "Our average attention span halved in a decade, from 12 to five minutes, according to a study commissioned by Lloyds TSB Insurance. (And that was in 2008.)" I haven't checked the source beyond the referenced WSJ article in this case.

Mike Moore: Sorry, that was a bit of a rhetorical question. This is the best I could find, it doesn't appear to be an actual published study... http://www.insurance.lloydstsb.com/personal/general/mediacentre/homehazards_pr.asp

Mike Moore: Even better, here is an analysis of when the "data" was initially released in 2008. http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2008/11/spooky-case-of-disappearing-crap.html [The link to David Moxon, the "researcher" who was commissioned by Lloyds to do the study is now dead, replaced with a generic landing page. I guess he doesn't do "Psychological Research" anymore.]

CMDoran @TheFebrileMuse: Yes, phones may be a part of this? very distracting..

"The happiest people in the world" live in Denmark and the happiness is lowest in middle age

According to the "World Happiness Report", the happiest people in the world live in Denmark, Finland and Norway. The report is published by the United Nations (the first edition was in 2012).

According to one of the people interviewed, it's all an expectations game: "We don't expect much from life in Denmark, and we are happily surprised when something goods happens." (quote from memory). I doubt that it is that simple. Here is the Deutsche Welle video:



The top 10 happiest nations on the planet are:

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. Norway
4. Netherlands
5. Canada
6. Switzerland
7. Sweden
8. New Zealand
9. Australia
10. Ireland

Happier countries tend to be richer countries. Over time as living standards have risen, happiness has increased in some countries, but not in others (like for example, the United States). On average, the world has become a little happier in the last 30 years (by 0.14 times the standard deviation of happiness around the world).

Stable family life and enduring marriages are important for the happiness of parents and children. In advanced countries, women are happier than men, while the position in poorer countries is mixed.

Happiness is lowest in middle age.

References:

First World Happiness Report Launched at the United Nations - The Earth Institute - Columbia University http://bit.ly/ZdgyAr

Healthcare social media #HCSM - top articles

Here are my suggestions for some of the top articles related to healthcare social media (#HCSM) in the past 2 weeks:

Cardiologist: Physicians Beware on the Twittersphere http://buff.ly/YWDE3x -- William Dillon, MD: "I was left at a conversational disadvantage because of the loss of context that is inherent to 140-character interactions on Twitter. This is a complex issue, and surely not suitable for Twitter. Engaging on this medium on this topic was a mistake. I learned from it."

"Smartphone will evolve to become a 'soulmate' device that knows your body better than you know it yourself" http://buff.ly/Rz6PaK

70% of Americans sleep with their cell phone within arm’s reach. 61% check their phones every hour. http://buff.ly/WX3UoT

10 reputation management tips for doctors http://buff.ly/S04bea

The Rise of Patient Communities on Twitter http://buff.ly/X2oXqa

Chronic Disease and Social Networks http://buff.ly/REhcKp

Increased Use of Twitter at a Medical Conference: A Report and a Review of the Educational Opportunities http://buff.ly/ZdwhVi

Online portal leads patients back to doctors' offices - amednews http://buff.ly/VPXTt8

Tweets, Google searches help solve migraine mysteries - Harvard Health blog http://buff.ly/VNLNB4 - Migraine Tweets – What can online behavior tell us about disease? http://buff.ly/R625Z5 -- We did a similar study for allergies.

Using Social Media to Improve Continuing Medical Education: A Survey of Course Participants http://buff.ly/Uh0u37

Internet-based self-management improved asthma control after 3 months - however, all benefits were lost after 12 mo http://buff.ly/Uh25G0

Online urologist ratings usually positive: study http://buff.ly/UZBf2U -- Online Reviews Of 500 Urologists http://buff.ly/UmXcv7

The interaction between the medical profession and the media is becoming increasingly complex http://buff.ly/UZChfb

What were the top Nature papers according to social media in 2012? Nobody is quite sure, apparently http://buff.ly/UhJPMP

94% of high school students accessed social media on their phones during class http://buff.ly/V6Yqbx

How to Supercharge Google RSS Reader with Styles and Extensions http://buff.ly/HT8L8a

Share, Discuss and Learn, Socially - Disrupting Medical Education by Redefining “Social Media” http://buff.ly/UpUkvD

Lessons from 12 Years of Blogging http://buff.ly/Wrzry8

Most STD educational apps have failed to attract user attention and positive reviews http://buff.ly/11aAryf

The articles were selected from my Twitter and RSS streams. Please feel free to send suggestions for articles to clinicalcases at gmail.com and you will receive an acknowledgement in the next edition of this publication.