Predictors of Metformin Failure: Repurposing Electronic Health Record Data to Identify High-Risk Patients.

Context: Metformin is the first-line drug for treating diabetes but has a high failure rate.

Objective: To identify demographic and clinical factors available in the electronic health record (EHR) that predict metformin failure.

Methods: A cohort of patients with at least 1 abnormal diabetes screening test that initiated metformin was identified at 3 sites (Arizona, Mississippi, and Minnesota).

Do Hospitals Providing Telehealth in Emergency Departments Have Lower Emergency Department Costs?

Since 2003, the University of Mississippi Medical Center has operated a robust telehealth emergency department (ED) network, TelEmergency, which enhances access to emergency medicine-trained physicians at participating rural hospitals. TelEmergency was developed as a cost-control measure for financially constrained rural hospitals to improve access to quality, emergency care. However, the literature remains unclear as to whether ED telehealth services can be provided at lower costs compared with traditional in-person ED services.

Continuity of Care for Patients with Obesity-Associated Chronic Conditions: Protocol for a Multisite Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Obesity affects nearly half of adults in the United States and is contributing substantially to a pandemic of obesity-associated chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis. The obesity-associated chronic condition pandemic is particularly severe in low-income, medically underserved, predominantly African-American areas in the southern United States. Little is known regarding the impact of geographic, income, and racial disparities in continuity of care on major health outcomes for patients with obesity-associated chronic conditions.

Maternal Antiasthma Simplified Herbal Medicine Intervention therapy prevents airway inflammation and modulates pulmonary innate immune responses in young offspring mice.

Background: Maternal asthma is a risk factor for asthma in offspring; however, transmission of the risk for allergic asthma without direct offspring sensitization has not been explored.

Objective: To determine whether offspring from mothers with ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized asthma would develop airway disease at first-ever exposure to OVA and whether preconception maternal treatment with the Antiasthma Simplified Herbal Medicine Intervention (ASHMI) or dexamethasone (DEX) could modify this risk in offspring.

Methods: Female BALB/c mice (F0) with OVA-induced asthma were generated using established protocols.

Chinese herbal extracts of Rubia cordifolia and Dianthus superbus suppress IgE production and prevent peanut-induced anaphylaxis.

Background: Peanut allergy is characterized by increased levels of peanut-specific IgE in the serum of most patients. Thus, the most logical therapy would be to inhibit the IgE production by committed B-cells. This study aims to investigate the unreported anti-IgE effects of Chinese herbal extracts of Rubia cordifolia (Qiancao) and Dianthus superbus (Qumai).

Maternal peanut consumption provides protection in offspring against peanut sensitization that is further enhanced when co-administered with bacterial mucosal adjuvant.

The aims of the present study were to assess whether protection against peanut (PN) sensitization can be conferred by maternal PN consumption alone and if so, whether protection was increased by mucosal adjuvant co-administration. Mice were fed with low dose of either PN or PN with cholera toxin (CT) preconceptionally, and during pregnancy and lactation. Offspring serum PN-specific immunoglobulins and cellular responses by splenocytes and mesenteric lymph node (MLN) cells were determined after an active PN sensitization protocol.