August 14th, 2018
Podcast 223: What are the implications of the BP guidelines?
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If adopted, last December’s ACC/AHA guidelines on what pressure levels signal hypertension would label almost two thirds of the U.S. population between ages 45 and 75 as having the condition. The number of people who would be candidates for treatment would almost double — from 8 million to about 15 million.
What are the implications of this for clinicians?
Harlan Krumholz, senior author of an analysis in The BMJ, talks about the problems and the opportunities for collaboration with patients.
April 10th, 2018
Podcast 221: Pertussis makes a comeback — kids have an outsize role
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What’s causing this resurgence, and what’s to be done? Pejman Rohani talks about his Science Translational Medicine study that used “gold standard” historical data to examine possible causes.
He and his colleagues conclude that, as with mumps, slowly waning vaccine protection is at play. However, they identify the “core transmission group” as schoolchildren, who have a greater frequency of contacts. Adults, they find, have “at most a minor role.”
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April 4th, 2018
Podcast 220: Mumps outbreaks — blame waning protection, not new viruses or bad vaccines
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Mumps outbreaks keep happening, even among vaccinated groups. Why?
Our guest, Joseph Lewnard, and his coauthor, Yonstan Grad, probed studies of mumps vaccine efficacy carried out over five decades. They show that the fault, dear clinician, is not in our vaccines or new viral strains, but in ourselves. Our bodies slowly lose their immune response after vaccination, and about 25 years after the last vaccine dose, it’s gone.
Listen in.
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March 28th, 2018
Podcast 219: Digital rectal exams shouldn’t be routine in primary care
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There simply isn’t enough evidence to sustain its continued use in asymptomatic men, argues our guest. Dr. Jason Profetto, senior author on an Annals of Family Medicine meta-analysis.
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March 14th, 2018
Podcast 218: Better integration of midwifery associated with better birth outcomes
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An analysis of the states’ integration of midwifery into their healthcare systems concludes that better integration led to better outcomes for mothers and babies.
We discuss this with Dr. Saraswathi Vedam, the study’s first author.
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