Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
The association between social media use and sleep disturbance among young adults.
Many factors contribute to sleep disturbance among young adults. Social media (SM) use is increasing rapidly, and little is known regarding its association with sleep disturbance. ⋯ The strong association between SM use and sleep disturbance has important clinical implications for the health and well-being of young adults. Future work should aim to assess directionality and to better understand the influence of contextual factors associated with SM use.
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
Review Meta AnalysisOrthostatic hypotension and the risk of incidental cardiovascular diseases: A meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
To quantitatively estimate the prospective associations between orthostatic hypotension (OH) and cardiovascular diseases, including coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. ⋯ Presence of OH was independently related to significantly increased risk for incidence of CHD and stroke. Further, studies regarding the mechanisms and potential treatments for OH may be important for understanding whether the associations between OH and cardiovascular diseases are causative.
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
Mode-specific physical activity and leukocyte telomere length among U.S. adults: Implications of running on cellular aging.
Previous research demonstrates that physical activity participation is associated with longer leukocyte telomere length, with shorter leukocyte telomere length being a hallmark characteristic of cellular aging. What remains under-investigated, however, is whether there is a mode-specific association of physical activity on leukocyte telomere length, which was this study's purpose. ⋯ Running-specific physical activity was the only evaluated physical activity associated with leukocyte telomere length, which may provide one potential mechanism (i.e., leukocyte telomere length) through which running-based physical activity may help to prevent cardiovascular disease and premature mortality.
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The recently published IMPROVE-IT trial has been hailed as proof that lowering cholesterol reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease (Cannon et al., 2015). Although this study did demonstrate a modest clinical benefit with incremental low-density lipoprotein cholesterol lowering, many physicians tend to ignore the numerous clinical studies which have failed to demonstrate a benefit of cholesterol lowering. This article challenges the cholesterol hypothesis by reviewing these negative studies and our reluctance to acknowledge them. ⋯ The cholesterol-lowering, statin-centric approach to cardiovascular disease prevention may in fact distract us from other beneficial therapies. Dr. Alexander Leaf, former chief of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, commented on this paradox and the Lyon Diet Heart Study nearly 15years ago by writing, "At a time when health professionals, the pharmaceutical industries, and the research funding and regulatory agencies are almost totally focused on lowering plasma cholesterol levels by drugs, it is heartening to see a well-conducted study finding that relatively simple dietary changes achieved greater reductions in risk of all-cause and coronary heart disease mortality in a secondary prevention trial than any of the cholesterol-lowering studies to date" (Leaf, 1999).
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Preventive medicine · Apr 2016
School bullying and susceptibility to smoking among never-tried cigarette smoking students.
Bullying involvement has been linked with substance use; however, less is known about its relationship with pre-initiation stages of adolescent cigarette smoking behavior. This study examined the association between bullying involvement and smoking susceptibility among never tried or experimented with cigarette smoking students. Susceptibility to cigarette smoking in adolescence is a strong predictor of subsequent smoking initiation. ⋯ Students involved in bullying were more susceptible to smoking, although patterns of association varied by grade level. In particular, the findings highlight that non-smoking middle school students involved in bullying were susceptible to future smoking.