Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Jan. 22, 2024

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of  Jan. 22, 2024–Jan. 26, 2024.

CNN (1/25, Hetter) reports, “People who predominantly sit at work have a 16% higher risk of mortality from all causes, and a 34% higher risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease,” a study has found. According to researchers, “individuals who sit a lot at work would have to engage in an additional 15 to 30 minutes of physical activity per day” to counteract the increased risk. The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

HCP Live (1/24, Campbell) reports, “Despite being the leading cause of death in the U.S. for more than a century, more than half of the respondents to a 2023 survey conducted on behalf of the American Heart Association (AHA) failed to identify heart disease as the leading killer of U.S. adults, according to the AHA’s 2024 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report.” HCP Live adds, “Data from the report...highlight a lack of awareness surrounding the impact of cardiovascular disease, with additional statistics paint a picture where 51% failed to identify heart disease as the leading cause of death, but also spotlights how advances in care and education have caused death rates from cardiovascular disease to decline by 60% in the last 75 years.”

Healio (1/23, Rhoades) reports, “There is not enough evidence to assess the benefits and harms of screening asymptomatic young children for speech and language delay and disorders, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force ruled in a final recommendation.” Rather, “clinicians should use their judgment when determining if screening and treatment are needed.” The recommendations were published in JAMA.

CNN (1/22, Howard) reports, “Testing a person’s blood for a type of protein called phosphorylated tau, or p-tau, could be used to screen for Alzheimer’s disease with ‘high accuracy,’ even before symptoms begin to show, a new study suggests.” The research “involved testing blood for a key biomarker of Alzheimer’s called p-tau217, which increases at the same time as other damaging proteins—beta amyloid and tau—build up in the brains of people with the disease.” The “simple blood test was found to be up to 96% accurate in identifying elevated levels of beta amyloid and up to 97% accurate in identifying tau.” The findings were published in JAMA Neurology.

NBC News (1/20, Szabo) reported, “Thanks to early detection and treatment, rates of cervical cancer have plummeted by more than half over the past 50 years. Rates are falling fastest among women in their early 20s, the first generation to benefit from HPV vaccines, which were approved in 2006.” However, “not all women are benefitting from that progress.” For “women in their 30s and early 40s, incidence has been edging upward. Diagnosis of cervical cancer among women ages 30 to 44 rose almost 2% a year from 2012 to 2019.” The report was released by the American Cancer Society.

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