Deep Dive On

This article from the New England Journal of Medicine examines the integration of wearable digital health technologies (DHTs) into clinical care , focusing on the challenges and opportunities presented by their increasing use. The authors highlight six key issues: data ownership , patient trust , literacy , and access , standards and interoperability , integration into clinical environments, patie...

This is a guide on how to conduct a systematic review, which is a type of research that aims to synthesise the best available evidence on a particular topic. We talk about the key stages involved in conducting a systematic review: identifying the research question, defining inclusion and exclusion criteria, searching for studies, selecting studies, extracting data, assessing quality, and synthesiz...

This research, published in  The Lancet , explores the benefits of adding a short course of chemotherapy before standard chemoradiotherapy for women with locally advanced cervical cancer . The  INTERLACE trial , an international, multicentre, randomised phase 3 trial, compared the standard treatment with a group that received induction chemotherapy followed by the standard chemoradiotherapy. The s...

The GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations) system is a widely used framework for systematically assessing and presenting the quality of evidence for clinical practice recommendations. It outlines a structured approach for evaluating the certainty of evidence based on study design, potential biases, and other factors. GRADE helps clinicians understand the stren...

This podcast episode discusses a groundbreaking study published in  Nature  that examined the effects of calorie restriction and intermittent fasting on the lifespan and health of genetically diverse mice. The study, unlike previous research using single mouse strains, used 960 mice with different genetic backgrounds to create a more realistic picture of how individuals respond to dietary interven...

This research investigates the  Body Roundness Index (BRI) , a new anthropometric measure, and its association with all-cause mortality. The study, conducted on a nationally representative cohort of US adults, reveals a  rising trend in BRI over almost 20 years , particularly among women, older individuals, and Mexican American individuals. Notably, the study discovers a  U-shaped relationship bet...

This article from the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA ) provides a comprehensive review of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox . The authors discuss the virus’s origins, transmission, clinical presentation, diagnostic approaches , management, and prevention strategies , highlighting the recent global outbreak of clade IIb Monkeypox virus (MPXV). The paper delves into the character...

This research article from the  New England Journal of Medicine  investigates the effectiveness of  time-restricted eating , where individuals only consume food within a specific eight-hour window, compared to  daily calorie restriction  alone. The study, involving 139 obese participants in China, followed them for 12 months, assessing their weight loss, body composition, and metabolic risk factor...

This study, published in  JAMA Internal Medicine , examines the effect of different arm positions on blood pressure readings . The study, which involved 133 participants, found that common arm positions such as resting the arm on the lap or leaving it unsupported at the side resulted in significantly higher blood pressure readings compared to the recommended arm position – supported on a desk with...

This research paper investigates whether facial images can be used to predict personality traits . Using a large dataset of real-life photographs and self-reported personality scores, the researchers trained a cascade of artificial neural networks to predict personality based on facial cues. The study found statistically significant correlations between predicted and observed personality scores, p...