Articles

Read the latest articles relevant to your clinical practice, including exclusive insights from Healthed surveys and polls.

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Dr Linda Calabresi

Want your best chance for living a long, healthy life? Have a diet that is high in plant protein, say Japanese researchers. That’s the suggestion following their prospective study of over 70,000 adults, recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine. According to their findings, a higher intake of plant protein was associated with lower total mortality, specifically mortality related to cardiovascular disease. In fact, those people whose diet was proportionally in the highest bracket for plant protein were up to 41% less likely to die from a heart attack or stroke.

Dr Linda Calabresi

Recognise this scenario? You prescribe an inhaler for the patient. You educate the patient on why they need the inhaler. You draw diagrams. You demonstrate the technique on the placebo inhaler. You write the script. And then… you cross your fingers.

Dr Linda Calabresi

Lack of knowledge and lack of opportunity are two key reasons why Australian GPs aren’t counselling men about how to improve their fertility. According to a survey of over 300 practising GPs, the vast majority (90%) did not feel confident in their knowledge about modifiable risk factors that affect male fertility. And when the researchers got specific, it appeared there was greater awareness of the potential of STIs and smoking to cause fertility problems than a number of other factors such as obesity, undernutrition and poor diet, paternal age and diabetes.

Dr Michelle H Lim

More than one in three young adults aged 18 to 25 reported problematic levels of loneliness, according to a new report from Swinburne University and VicHealth. We surveyed 1,520 Victorians aged 12 to 25, and examined their experience of loneliness. We also asked about their symptoms of depression and social anxiety. Overall, one in four young people (aged 12 to 25) reported feeling lonely for three or more days within the last week. Among 18 to 25 year olds, one in three (35%) reported feeling lonely three or more times a week. We also found that higher levels of loneliness increases a young adult’s risk of developing depression by 12% and social anxiety by 10%. Adolescents aged 12 to 17 reported better outcomes, with one in seven (13%) feeling lonely three or more times a week. Participants in this age group were also less likely to report symptoms of depression and social anxiety than the 18 to 25 year olds.

Dr Linda Calabresi

The majority of babies born prematurely will make it to adulthood without any major health issues, according to new research. In an extensive Scandinavian cohort study, researchers found there was a high prevalence of survival without any major comorbidities among those born prematurely, even though preterm births are known to be associated with cardiometabolic, respiratory and neuropsychiatric disorders in adulthood. There was an exception however. Outcomes were worse for those born extremely preterm (22-27 weeks). The study is important, say its authors, as most previous research has concentrated on the negative consequences of the baby not making it to term.

A/Prof Louise Hill

A miscarriage is a devastating event. Those who experience them are suddenly and unexpectedly robbed of the promise of new life and the dream of an expanded family. The emotional toll can be even greater if conception was delayed, or if fertility treatments were required to achieve a pregnancy. Many health providers have considered miscarriage as “nature’s way”, not fully acknowledging its emotional and psychological effects on those who have lost a pregnancy. Fortunately, this view is changing, and there is increasing advocacy for research into the causes, prevention and management of miscarriages. But there remains a long way to go.

Dr Linda Calabresi

Complaints of excessive daytime sleepiness would have most doctors reaching for their referral pad to send the patient to the nearest sleep lab. However Australian research suggests another, more readily modifiable lifestyle factor might be to blame. According to a large-scale epidemiological study, researchers from Flinders University determined a high intake of saturated fats and carbohydrates increases the risk of excessive daytime sleepiness. And it’s not simply because a diet of hot chips and thickshakes will cause weight gain, and obesity is a well-known risk factor for sleepiness. In this study, they compared fats, carbohydrates and protein calorie for calorie – so it wasn’t how much you ate, or how energy-dense your food was – it was, in fact, the type of food you ate.

Brigham and Women's Hospital

It’s just natural that as people age, their hearing gets worse, right? Not according to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who have recently published their prospective study of eating habits and hearing threshold decline in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Gathering data on on pure-tone hearing thresholds from participants across 19 sites in the US over the course of three years, the researchers then compared these results with longitudinal data on participants’ dietary intake. Participants whose diets most closely resembled recommended healthy diets, such as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, the Alternate Mediterranean (AMED) diet, and the Alternate Healthy Index-2010 (AHEI-2010), were found to have substantially lower odds of decline in hearing sensitivity, at both mid- and high frequencies.

Dr Karl Baumgart

Urticarial lesions are usually intensely pruritic welts that can be generalised or localised. They normally last less than 24 hours in the one place, being migratory, and leave no residual marks on the skin. Angioedema lesions may be uncomfortable or sometimes painful and occur in the deeper dermis or mucosa and may take 72 hours to resolve. Acute urticaria may be allergic, mediated by inappropriate IgE responses to food allergens. It usually occurs rapidly after exposure to the causative allergen: within 30-60 minutes, up to six hours and rarely eight hours. The most common allergens are either ingested (food or oral drugs) or parenteral (bee or wasp stings or drugs, for example, penicillin). Aeroallergens are not usually the cause of allergic urticaria except when due to grains (in bakers) and latex. However, people who are allergic to grass pollen may develop localised urticaria on contact, for example, when sitting on the grass.

Dr Karin Hammarberg

If you’re going through IVF, you may be offered a test to look at your embryos’ chromosomes. Pre-implantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (chromosome abnormalities), known as PGT-A, is an “add on” used to help choose embryos with the right number of chromosomes. It’s promoted by IVF clinics as a way to increase the chance of success, especially for women over 35. But the evidence shows that in most cases, PGT-A doesn’t improve the chance of a baby. What is aneuploidy? Human cells usually contain 46 chromosomes. Aneuploidy is a term that describes a chromosome number that is different from 46 – either too many or too few chromosomes. In human embryos, most aneuploidies are lethal, resulting in miscarriage, or do not result in pregnancy at all. The chance of aneuploidy increases with the age of the woman; by the time a woman reaches age 40, approximately 80% of her embryos are aneuploid.

Dr Linda Calabresi

CancerAid is a free app designed by two Australian oncologists for people affected by cancer and their carers. The motivation behind this app’s development was to improve cancer care outcomes by engaging patients in their own care. Patients using the app can monitor treatments, find resources, manage side-effects and read others’ experiences, thereby developing an effective support network. The technology also allows patients to share information (if they want to) with family and friends as well as relevant health professionals The information on the CancerAid app is both evidence-based and constantly updated, so doctors can be very comfortable recommending it to their patients.

Dr Linda Calabresi

The latest updated version of the clinical practice guidelines for keratinocyte cancer are now available and worth checking out, especially if you do a lot of skin work. Keratinocyte cancer is the new way to talk about non-melanoma skin cancer and basically refers to basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas. The new guidelines, which were developed by an Australian ‘non-remunerated working group’, incorporate a number of recent developments in the non-surgical treatment of these cancers. They provide suitable options for treating more advanced and metastatic cancers, and give guidance on how to manage patients who are believed to be at greater risk of developing these cancers, eg those who are on immunosuppression therapy.