Bmc Med
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In this interview, we talk to leading tuberculosis (TB) experts from University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about the current challenges in TB research. The video of this interview is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Die7MQBec&feature=youtu.be. The video can also be downloaded via Additional file 1.
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Improving the transparency and quality of reporting in biomedical research is considered ethically important; yet, this is often based on practical reasons such as the facilitation of peer review. Surprisingly, there has been little explicit discussion regarding the ethical obligations that underpin reporting guidelines. ⋯ Despite their undoubted benefit to reporting completeness, questions remain regarding the extent to which reporting guidelines can influence processes beyond publication, including researcher integrity or the uptake of scientific research findings into policy or practice. Thus, we consider investigation on the effects of reporting guidelines an important step in providing evidence of their benefits.
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Editorial
Policy implications of marked reversals of population life expectancy caused by substance use.
Life expectancy has been increasing steadily over the past century in most countries, with only a few exceptions such as during wartimes. ⋯ Marked reversal of life expectancy has been linked to substance use and related policies. Three such examples are discussed herein, namely the double reversal of life expectancy trends (first to positive, then to negative) associated with reducing alcohol supply in the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), followed by a rapid increase in availability; the impact of the rapid increase of prescription opioids on white non-Hispanics in the US; and the systemic impact of the violence accompanying the drug war in Mexico on the life expectancy of men. Alcohol policies were crucial to initiate the positive reversal in the USSR, and different substance use policies could have avoided the negative impacts on life expectancy of the described large groups or nations. Substance use policies can be responsible for abrupt negative changes in life expectancies. An orientation of such policies towards the goals of public health and societal well-being can help avoid such changes.
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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most important cause of premature death and disability globally. Much is known of the main aetiological risk factors, including elevated blood pressure, dyslipidaemia and smoking, with a raft of additional risks of increasing prevalence, such as obesity and diabetes. ⋯ Some of this gap relates to knowledge deficits amongst clinicians, but also to continued uncertainties over interpretation of the evidence base and areas where data are less available. This article collection in BMC Medicine seeks to offer reflections in each of these areas of uncertainty, spanning issues of better diagnosis, areas of controversy and glimpses of potentially potent future interventions in the prevention of CVD.
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Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the prototype of a large and heterogeneous group of pulmonary disorders, mainly chronic and progressive, usually known as interstitial lung disease (ILD). Over the last few decades, IPF has been increasingly recognized as a major unmet medical need in respiratory medicine and has become the focus of intense research activity. ⋯ For all these reasons, missing a diagnosis of IPF is not acceptable anymore and there is a need for spreading the knowledge about IPF across various specialties of medicine globally. In this context, this article collection in BMC Medicine contributes to the ultimate goal of early identification and better management of patients with ILD, and IPF in particular, worldwide.