From: [email protected] on behalf of Lindo, Allisa Subject: Mount Sinai In The News - March 31, 2015 Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 11:10:05 AM Attachments: ATT00001.txt In the News March 31, 2015 WBBM Newsradio – March 30 New Device for Lowering Stroke Risk – Kris Van Cleave Eighty year old Margaret is minutes away from getting a new device that will lower her risk of stroke. She has atrial fibrillation which can throw the heart out of rhythm, putting her at greater risk for a stroke. Her doctor recommended she try a new FDA approved device called the WATCHMAN. Surgeons at The Mount Sinai Hospital implanted the parachute shaped device through a vein in the leg, closing off an area of the heart where blood clots form. The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Vivek Reddy, MD, thinks it’s better than medications, especially for the elderly. “Elderly patients, when they have risk for falling, of course they could hurt themselves particularly badly if they are on blood thinners,” says Reddy. - Dr. Vivek Reddy, Professor, Medicine, Cardiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Arrhythmia Services, Mount Sinai Health System Learn more: No Web Link Available Newsweek – March 30 Pesticides on Vegetables and Fruit Linked to Lower Sperm Counts – Douglas Main Fruit and vegetables are good for you, but the pesticide residues that can linger upon them carry a number of health risks. For the first time, scientists have shown that men who eat produce with a lot of chemical residues may be less fertile. “The paper makes a convincing case that dietary exposure to pesticides can adversely impact semen quality,” write researchers Hagai Levine and Shanna Swan, PhD, who weren’t involved in the study, in a commentary in Human Reproduction. “While this finding will need to be replicated in other settings and populations, it carries important public health implications,” add Levine and Swan, who are at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, respectively. -Shanna Swan, PhD, Professor, Preventative Medicine, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Learn more: http://www.newsweek.com/pesticides-vegetables-and-fruit-linked-lower-sperm-counts- 318164 HealthDay – March 30 Breast Cancer Is Not One Disease, Experts Say – Robert Preidt Breast cancer isn't the same for every woman, even at the cellular level, according to a new statement from four major medical groups focused on the disease. The report was issued Monday by the American Cancer Society, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. They say that classifying breast cancers according to tumor subtypes could help improve treatment of the disease. Charles Shapiro, MD, is director of Translational Breast Cancer Research at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai in New York City. He agreed that "the biology of these subtypes is of critical importance to selecting the most effective treatments for breast cancer.” “What was less clear was the apparent influence of race and ethnicity across these subtypes," he added. "That is of great importance to understand why these differences do exist and the biology that underlies them." - Dr. Charles Shapiro, Senior Faculty, Medicine, Thrombosis, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Co-Director, Dubin Breast Center at the Mount Sinai Hospital Learn more: http://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/breast-cancer-news-94/breast-cancer- is-not-one-disease-experts-say-697818.html Additional Coverage: U.S. News & World Report: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2015/03/30/breast-cancer-is- not-one-disease-experts-say BioPharm Insight – March 27 Gildead Harvoni Sees Mixed Reimbursement Practices for Patients Eligible for Eight Weeks of Treatment Gilead Sciences’ hepatitis C pill Harvoni (sofosbuvir/ sofosbuvir) has seen inconsistent reimbursement policies for patients eligible for eight weeks, rather than the standard 12 weeks, of treatment, experts said. There is a caveat for eight weeks of treatment for some patients on the drug’s label, and experts cited this language as the primary reason for differing reimbursement policies. From a financial perspective, the cost of retreating a few relapsed patients does not outweigh the savings from insisting on eight weeks for all qualifying patients, said the expert. However, from a patient perspective, it makes sense that clinicians would want to pursue the safer, 12-week route, the expert continued. Sometimes it is possible to make an appeal to the payer’s medical director, but this strategy is not always successful, said Douglas Dieterich, MD, professor, Medicine, Division of Liver Disease, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. - Dr. Douglas Dieterich, Professor, Medicine, Liver Diseases, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Learn more: No Web Link Available Fit Pregnancy – March 30 How Millennials Do Pregnancy Differently – Andrea Stanley There’s no shortage of stereotypical parenting styles that yo-yo from the super involved to the hands- off. Now there’s a new mom on the block—the millennial. Her pregnancy must-have? A smartphone. According to a study conducted by Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm, millennial moms are spending more time online than any other generation. “I think the Internet is a great tool for pregnant women to get information,” says Joanne Stone, MD, director of maternal fetal medicine at The Mount Sinai Hospital. “It’s helping them become more informed and more involved. They can get information about their doctors, pregnancy conditions and find good educational material. For example, if a patient is diagnosed with a problem, there are online support groups they can join.” There’s one giant rule Stone urges expecting mamas to remember: “Some sources are more trustworthy than others, so you should always run questions and problems by your doctor, as well,” she says. - Dr. Joanne Stone, Professor, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Maternal Fetal Medicine, The Mount Sinai Hospital Learn more: http://www.fitpregnancy.com/pregnancy/how-millennials-do-pregnancy-differently Buzzfeed – March 29 22 Things You Should Know About Your Behind – Carolyn Kylstra IBS, or irritable bowel syndrome, affects about twice as many women as it does men, according to the National Institutes of Health. In order for you to be diagnosed with IBS, doctors have to rule out a bunch of other things first, says Gina Sam, MD, MPH, director of the Mount Sinai Gastrointestinal Motility Center. For starters, your doctor should rule out celiac disease (an auto-immune disorder where eating gluten causes damage to your small intestine). Once that’s ruled out, “you have to have no blood in your stool, no alarming symptoms, like anemia, and your symptoms have to be going on for more than three months,” Sam says. Basically, the symptoms need to be ongoing, chronic, and not caused by other things. “Also, the pain has to go away after a bowel movement,” she says. - Dr. Gina Sam, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Gastroenterology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Mount Sinai Gastrointestinal Motility Center at the Mount Sinai Hospital Learn more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/no-butts-about-it Buzzfeed – March 25 9 Reasons You Can’t Poop – Carolyn Kylstra About a third of people who have constipation are dealing with “low-fiber constipation,” Gina Sam, MD, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Gastrointestinal Motility Center, tells BuzzFeed Life. Start eating four to five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and see if that gets things moving again. “You basically need water in order for your stool to move through the colon,” Sam says. When you don’t drink enough water, that can back you up. If you’re dealing with constipation, Sam says you should try to drink eight to ten glasses of water a day, and see if that helps a bit. - Dr. Gina Sam, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Gastroenterology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Mount Sinai Gastrointestinal Motility Center at the Mount Sinai Hospital Learn more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/constipation-station Daily Burn – March 30 Deep Freeze: Could Cryotherapy Replace Ice Baths for Athletes? – Amanda Woerner Would you believe that exposing your body temperatures of negative 182 to 292 degrees Fahrenheit is actually more enjoyable than getting hit with a blast of freezing wind on an icy day? To test the frigid fad, I stood in a freezing cold chamber for nearly three minutes. While I felt refreshed after my one-time cryo treatment, the benefits of a practicing cryotherapy long-term are still murky. Johnny Arnouk, MD, sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City, says there’s still a lot of research to be done. “There needs to be better data to better delineate the risks and benefits of [whole body cryotherapy],” he says. “Parameters for length of time exposed and conditions need to be better marked out as well.” - Dr. Johnny Arnouk, Sports Medicine Specialist, Orthopaedist, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Learn more: http://dailyburn.com/life/fitness/what-is-cryotherapy/ The Huffington Post via Reuters – March 30 Moms' Excess Pregnancy Weight Linked To Kids' Obesity – Madeline Kennedy Mothers who are overweight before pregnancy and those who gain too much while pregnant are more likely to have obese seven-year-olds, researchers say. Their study, conducted from 1998 to 2013, focused on African-American and Dominican mothers from low-income neighborhoods in New York City. Andrea Deierlein of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital noted in an email that there are “many risks associated with childhood obesity - obese children are more likely to be obese throughout adolescence and adulthood.” Deierlein, who was not involved in the study, noted that in adulthood, the risks associated with obesity include type 2 diabetes, hypertension and sleep disturbances.