Medical Thought Leaders

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News Medical's "Thought Leaders" series is a selection of articles written by national and international experts and trusted advisers in health and medicine. All the articles are written by experts who have been invited as recognised leaders in their fields to provide a "state of the art" contribution.

Health anxiety therapies: an interview with Professor Peter Tyrer, Imperial College, London

Health anxiety is a relatively new diagnosis and has not been adopted fully. The nearest approximation and formal classification systems is ‘illness anxiety’ as diagnosed in DSM-5, published in May 2013 (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association, p.315).

5 Nov 2013

Malaria elimination and insecticide resistance: an interview with Professor Hilary Ranson, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

The first malaria elimination programme was in the 1950s and 1960s. Malaria was eliminated from many countries in Asia and the Americas, largely by indoor spraying with insecticide. But the campaign had very little impact in Africa and eventually resources were moved away from malaria control.

30 Oct 2013

Motor neurone disease neck collars: an interview with Dr Christopher J McDermott, Clinical Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield

The majority of the current neck support collars for MND patients were designed for a different purpose. So, if you think about when people are involved in a road traffic accident, the paramedics arrive and put a collar on to immobilize the neck and protect the spine. A lot of the collars that we give to our patients with MND were actually designed for that purpose - to immobilize the necks of people involved in trauma… and patients don't want that.

18 Oct 2013

Severe allergies in young people: an interview with Lynne Regent, CEO of Anaphylaxis Campaign

Around one third of the UK population – approximately 19 million people – will develop an allergy at some time in their lives. A significant proportion of these – around a million people – suffer severe symptoms.

17 Oct 2013

A window to the brain: an interview with Professor Guillermo Aguilar, UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE)

It is literally a transparent window made of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), which we envision to become a suitable cranial implant that allows physicians for optical access to the tissue brain. It would serve the same mechanical function of current cranial implants made of other materials, such as titanium, except that it would enable optical access too, which could be very beneficial for post-operatory diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

8 Oct 2013

Osteoarthritis and exercise: an interview with Dr Nicola Walsh, Associate Professor at the University of the West of England

Exercise helps to keep the surrounding muscles strong to protect the joint, and also reduces stiffness that people frequently experience in the morning or after periods of inactivity. Joints are meant to move, so keeping them mobile will assist with joint health, maintain range of movement and enhance stability.

7 Oct 2013

Overactive bladder treatments: an interview with Professor Chris Chapple, Consultant Urological Surgeon at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Overactive bladder symptom complex is a symptom complex, the pivotal symptom of which is urgency, which is a compelling desire to pass urine, which is difficult to defer.

1 Oct 2013

Psoriasis and the nervous system: an interview with Dr Nicole Ward, Case Western Reserve University

The prevalence of skin disease exceeds that of obesity, hypertension or cancer. One in three individuals in the United States suffers with a skin disease, with ~2-3% of the American population suffering from psoriasis.

27 Sep 2013

Breastfeeding and personality: an interview with Dr Amy Brown

In the UK we've got quite a problem with breastfeeding. The government recommends that all women should breastfeed for six months, exclusively just breast milk, and then for up to a year and beyond. But quite a few women struggle in the UK. About 80% initiate breastfeeding but that drops off really quickly.

24 Sep 2013

Clean water and growth of children: an interview with Dr Alan Dangour

Growth in children is known to be directly affected by two critical factors: food intake and incidence of disease. It is known that access to good quality water, improved sanitation and enhanced hygiene (WASH) practices lead to decreased levels of infectious disease in children. We were interested to know whether this decline in disease would lead to improvements in child growth.

23 Sep 2013

Postpartum sexuality: an interview with Dr Sari van Anders, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Research on postpartum seems to have focused on birth mothers for good reason: women (and, of course, some transmen) are the ones who carry a pregnancy and give birth, and the postpartum is conceptualized as “following birth”.

19 Sep 2013

Gout: An Interview with Dr. Lawrence Edwards, Chairman and CEO of GUAES

Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis that affects adults. It's a disease caused by the presence of uric acid crystals in and around the joints. It's a disease that's becoming more and more common. It probably has doubled in its prevalence worldwide over the past twenty to thirty years.

18 Sep 2013

Smoking-cessation in HIV-positive individuals: an interview with Dr Ellen R. Gritz, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

In the general population, current smoking prevalence is 18%. Persons living with HIV/AIDS smoke at a rate 2 to 3 times higher, up to almost 70% in some studies.

16 Sep 2013

Hepatitis C services in the UK: an interview with Louise Campbell, senior liver nurse at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

Within the UK there are several centres whose nurse specialists work to a best practice model, delivering care and achieving outcomes which are extremely high in areas of patient retention, adherence to medication and completion of the treatment regimen. With this they achieve cure rates which are some of the highest in the World.

9 Sep 2013

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) research: an interview with Dr. Griffin Rodgers, NIDDK director

Chronic granulomatous disease, or CGD, is a diverse group of inherited diseases in which certain cells of the immune system have difficulty forming reactive oxygen compounds, most importantly superoxide radicals. These are used by these white blood cells to kill certain bacteria.

3 Sep 2013

Argininosuccinic aciduria (ASA) and gene therapy: an interview with Dr Julien Baruteau, UCL Institute for Women's Health, London

This rare genetic condition can theoretically affect patients at any age but symptoms are more often observed in childhood and even uncommonly during the first days of life.

2 Sep 2013

Childhood obesity: an interview with Dr. Kevin Hall, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA

Our research uses mathematical modelling to quantify calorie intake as children grow at a healthy rate as well as when they develop obesity. We showed that the development of childhood obesity required a much greater increase in calories than previously thought since prior estimates did not properly account for metabolic changes as children grow.

21 Aug 2013

Acne and diet: an interview with Dr Katerina Steventon, Research Fellow, HONEI, University of Hull

The typical Western diet tends to have a high glycemic index. High glycemic index foods are e.g. white bread, processed cereals, snacks, cakes and deserts, sweets and also instant foods like burgers and fried chicken.

20 Aug 2013

Publication of death rates: an interview with Dr Kate Walker, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The death rates of individual heart surgeons have been published in England and several US states for some years. A high profile investigation into high death rates at a certain cardiac centre motivated this in England. For other surgery types, death rates have been reported only at the hospital or trust level. NHS England’s “Everyone Counts” policy, introduced this Summer, means that outcomes of ten types of surgery will be reported at the individual surgeon level.

15 Aug 2013

Osteoarthritis research: an interview with Dr Deborah Mason, Cardiff University

Osteoarthritis is an extremely common condition affecting about 8 million people in the UK. The elderly are particularly susceptible, with up to 45% of people over 65 years, having the disease.

14 Aug 2013