Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Jan. 16, 2023

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Jan. 16, 2023–Jan. 20, 2023.

Healio (1/19, Schaffer) reports, “Suboptimal uses of statin therapy, aspirin prescription and lifestyle counseling persist for adults with atherosclerotic CVD” (ASCVD), “despite new guidelines emphasizing their effect on reduced mortality, researchers” concluded in findings published online in JAMA Network Open. In the “cross-sectional study assessing office-based patient visits for adults with ASCVD from 2006 to 2016, researchers found statin therapy and aspirin prescriptions have shown only modest increases in recent years; however, gender and racial differences persist.” Included in the study were data on “11,033 visits for adults with ASCVD, representing a weighted total of 275.3 million visits nationwide.”

Healio (1/18, Schaffer) reports, “In the general population, long-term weight change is strongly associated with the average daily number of medium and large meals but not with a specific time-restricted eating strategy,” investigators concluded in the findings of a 547-participant study published online ahead of print in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

HealthDay (1/18, Mozes) reports the study revealed that “on average, the more meals people ate throughout the day, or the more large meals they ate throughout the day, the more likely they were to gain weight over time.” In comparison, “eating more small meals during the day was associated with more weight loss.”

MedPage Today (1/17, Monaco) reports, “Weight may be linked to a modified response to vitamin D supplementation, according to a post-hoc analysis of the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL),” investigators posited. Even though “supplementation with vitamin D 2,000 IU/day was associated with an increase in serum total 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) levels compared with placebo at two-year follow-up, increases were significantly lower with higher body mass index” (BMI), the study involving “over 16,000 participants” revealed.

Healio (1/17, Monostra) reports, “The analysis of the original VITAL data found that vitamin D supplementation correlated with positive effects on several health outcomes, but only among people with a BMI under 25 kg/m2,” investigators concluded. The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

The Hill (1/16, Sforza) reports, “A new scientific review...found that a COVID-19 infection at any time during a pregnancy increases the risk of maternal mortality, severe maternal morbidities and adverse newborn outcomes.” Investigators “synthesized data from 12 different studies on the subject from 12 different countries.” Altogether, the research, published in the BMJ Global Health Journal, “included 13,136 pregnant women, including 1,942 who had confirmed or probable COVID-19 infection during their pregnancy.”

CNN (1/16, Goodman) reports, “Compared to pregnant individuals who weren’t infected, those who got COVID-19 were nearly 4 times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit.” Moreover, “they were 15 times more likely to be ventilated and were 7 times more likely to die.” Additionally, “they...had higher risks for pre-eclampsia, blood clots, and problems caused by high blood pressure.”

The Washington Post (1/16, Malhi) reports, “Infants born to those with a coronavirus infection during pregnancy also had a greater risk of developing severe outcomes.” Additionally, “they were twice as likely to need treatment in the intensive care unit after birth and had an increased risk of being born preterm.”

Healio (1/13, Bascom) reported, “A number of healthy eating patterns were linked to a lower mortality risk, supporting the idea that individuals can adapt multiple healthy eating patterns to their preferences,” researchers concluded in findings published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study team arrived at this conclusion after assessing “data from 75,230 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study and 44,085 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.”

AMA Morning Rounds news coverage is developed in affiliation with Bulletin Healthcare LLC. Subscribe to Morning Rounds Daily.