The week’s top stories in family medicine

Healio.com/Family Medicine presents the week’s top news stories, including infant anesthesia exposure risks, increases in prescription drug use and improvements in diet quality among adults in the U.S.

Number of medical students choosing to pursue family medicine remains low

In the United States, schools granting MD degrees are failing to produce enough students and graduates who choose a career in primary care, with more than half of family medicine residents in 2014 being from schools granting DO degrees or international schools. Read more.

Anesthesia exposure in infancy does not affect neurological development

Infants who had received general anesthesia during hernia surgery did not have an increased risk for impaired neurological development at 2 years of age, according to recently presented data. The infants received either awake-regional anesthesia (n=363) or sevoflurane-based general anesthesia (n=359). The researchers evaluated developmental outcomes in the children at age 2 years using Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development III scores. Read more.

In-home allergen test inspires parents to adopt dust mite reducing behaviors

Parents of children with asthma who used commercially available in-home allergen test kits, along with educational materials, had consistently reduced levels of dust mite allergens in their home. When initial test results indicated dust-mite allergens were high, 68% of parents who used the in-home kits reported being ‘surprised’ or ‘somewhat surprised’, according to researchers. Compared with parents who were not surprised by their initial results, ‘surprised’ parents reported that their test results motivated them to adopt dust mite reduction behaviors. Read more.

Significant increase in prescription drug use found among US adults

Prescription drug use, particularly use of antihypertensives, antihyperlipidemics, and antidepressants, has increased substantially since 1999 among adults. Results demonstrated that between 2011 and 2012, 59% of participants reported using any prescription medication within the previous 30 days, up from 51% between 1999 and 2000. Read more.

Improvement seen in US adult diet quality, still remains poor

Between 1999 and 2012, the overall quality of diets of U.S. adults diets have improved, which resulted in a decrease in comorbidities and premature death. The researchers estimated that nearly 1.1 million premature deaths were prevented between 1999 and 2012 due to improvements in diet quality. Moreover, 8.6% fewer cases of cardiovascular disease, 1.3% fewer cases of cancers and 12.6% fewer cases of type 2 diabetes were attributed to improvements in diet quality between 1999 and 2012. Read more.