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

By reading selected clinical articles, you earn CPD in the Educational Activities (EA) category whenever you click the “Claim CPD” button and follow the prompts. 

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

It is very difficult to estimate the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder among Australian children. This is partly due to fact that the manifestation of the disorder can be very varied and often subtle, and partly due to the fact that very few women will give a history of drinking alcohol in pregnancy. But the experts say, if we consider that at least 20% of Australians drink at risky levels and up to half of all pregnancies are unplanned, you’ve got to suspect there’s quite a large cohort of affected children out there, many of whom may be yet to be diagnosed. So … you might want to check out this resource – a Toolkit for parents, caregivers and families of children with this condition – put out by the NOFASD (National Organisation for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders).

By Dr Linda Calabresi
Run for your life
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

Run for your life

As they say in the classics – run Forrest, run! New research shows people who run, regardless of how fast, how far or how often are likely to live longer than people who don’t. According to a systematic review and meta-analysis including 14 studies and over 230,000 participants, running as exercise was associated with a 27%, 30% and 23% reduced risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality, respectively.

By Dr Linda Calabresi
The problem with fertility apps
Jessica Grieger
  • Clinical Articles

The problem with fertility apps

In years gone by, women would rely on the calendar on the wall to work out when their next menstrual cycle might occur. They would look to physical signs to tell them when they might be ovulating, and therefore when they’d be most likely to fall pregnant. More recently, we’ve seen the proliferation of mobile phone applications helping women track their current cycle, predict their next cycle, and work out when the best time is to try for a baby. There are more than 400 fertility apps available, and over 100 million women worldwide are using them. The personalisation and convenience of apps makes them empowering and attractive. But they require some caution in their use.

By Jessica Grieger, Prof Robert Norman
Help for kids with mental illness
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

Help for kids with mental illness

Kids Helpline has just launched a new mobile app for teenagers and young people with mental health issues. Called ‘niggle by Kids Helpline’, the new app aims to help young people identify any mental health concern or ‘niggle’. It has been designed to be used in conjunction with Kids Helpline’s existing services or as a stand-alone option for those people who may not have been willing or able to access help through traditional methods. The app provides, for free, hundreds of built-in resource and guided strategies that are all evidence-based.

By Dr Linda Calabresi
The secret powers of soup
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

The secret powers of soup

In one of the more unusual studies seen in the medical journals of late, UK researchers have determined that some home cooked, family recipe broths actually have antimalarial properties. The study, published in the Archives of Diseases of Childhood, involved the testing of 56 samples of broths which had been made from recipes passed down as a tradition in families of diverse ethnic origin. These broths were believed to confer health benefits in times of illness, commonly helping to reduce fever. And before you start getting the mental image of these scientists deciphering these recipes and cooking up a storm, in fact these researchers asked school children at an ethnically-diverse UK primary school to simply bring in a sample of their family anti-fever soup. Of the 56 soup samples, five were found to significantly inhibit the growth of the asexual blood stage of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. In fact, the inhibition seen with two of the broths was comparable to that seen with one of the leading antimalarial agents, dihydroartemisinin

By Dr Linda Calabresi
Female,Pharmacist,Showing,Medicine,To,Male,Customer,In,Pharmacy.,Chemist
Greg Merlo
  • Clinical Articles

The evidence shows pharmacist prescribing is nothing to fear

Prominent GP and former member of parliament Kerryn Phelps has entered the turf war between doctors and pharmacists over who gets to prescribe. Pharmacy groups have long called for changes to allow pharmacists to prescribe specified medications, such as the oral contraceptive pill and antibiotics for urinary tract infections. But Phelps argues allowing pharmacists to prescribe will lead to perverse incentives – where pharmacists prescribe inappropriately – because they have a financial interest in the sale of medicines. Phelps has a point. Studies in countries where doctors have dispensing roles have found evidence of financial profits influencing prescribing behaviour. A Swiss study, for instance, found physician dispensing leads to a 34% increase in drug costs per patient, as doctors overprescribe and prescribe more expensive medications.

By Greg Merlo
Simple blood test a mortality predictor
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

Simple blood test a mortality predictor

Low lymphocyte levels can used as an indicator of an increased risk of mortality, US researchers say. Lymphopaenia, readily measured through the common full blood count, has been shown to be associated with an increased likelihood of death from conditions such as heart disease, cancer and respiratory infections, according to a retrospective study published in JAMA Network Open. This relationship was found to be consistent, independent of age, other serum immune markers and traditional clinical risk factors. However, when patients with lymphopaenia also had other abnormal immune markers, namely elevated red cell distribution width (RDW) and a raised C-reactive protein (CRP), they ‘had a strikingly high risk of mortality’, the study authors said.

By Dr Linda Calabresi
addiction relapse
University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine
  • Clinical Articles

Researchers find clue to preventing addiction relapse

It takes a supreme effort of will to overcome an addiction, but even more so to avoid relapse. The effect of relapse can hugely effect quality of life or even prove fatal. To help give recovering addicts a fighting chance, researchers at University of Washington have been studying whether changing the activity of neurons in the nucleus accumbens, the region of the brain that regulates addictive behaviour, can help to prevent relapse. They achieved this targeted change in brain activity using chemogenetic receptors in a study conducted on rats who had been exposed to heroin.

By University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine
Western Australia looks set to legalise voluntary assisted dying. Here’s what’s likely to happen from next week
Courtney Hempton
  • Clinical Articles

Western Australia looks set to legalise voluntary assisted dying. Here’s what’s likely to happen from next week

Western Australia is on the brink of becoming the second state in Australia to legalise voluntary assisted dying, with its upper house last night passing the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2019 (WA). A total of 55 amendments to the initial version of the bill were passed. The bill will return to the lower house next week to review the amendments. If these amendments are ratified as expected, WA will follow the historic introduction of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria, where the option has been available since June 2019.

By Courtney Hempton
shutterstock_1043482492
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

Major concerns over Australian study into transgender children

ome very well-respected psychiatrists have raised serious concerns about the ethics and methodology of a new prospective study into transgender children, taking place at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital Gender Service.

By Dr Linda Calabresi
shutterstock_1132632686
Dr Linda Calabresi
  • Clinical Articles

Macrolides a risk in early pregnancy

Avoid prescribing macrolides to pregnant women, say UK researchers after they found the antibiotics were associated with an increased risk of significant birth defects, particularly cardiac defects

By Dr Linda Calabresi
shutterstock_1104408533
Dr Stephen Bright
  • Clinical Articles

Older Australians drinking too much

Drinking patterns tend to change as we age. The older we get, the more likely we are to drink on a daily basis. But older adults often perceive that drinking is only a problem if a person appears drunk.

By Dr Stephen Bright, Dr Julie Dare

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