Recent studies internal medicine physicians should be aware of

Key takeaways:

• Two presenters reviewed recent articles in Annals of Internal Medicine that they said are relevant to practice.
• The topics include yoga, sleep apnea treatment, a rise in C. auris cases and more.

BOSTON — Editors of Annals of Internal Medicine compiled a list of studies published over the past year that they said have important implications for internal medicine physicians.

Christina Wee, MD, MPH, FACP, senior deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine and vice president of the Annals Division at ACP, and Stephanie Chang, MD, deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, presented the studies during a session at the ACP Internal Medicine Meeting.

“We tried to focus on articles that we thought would be relevant to clinical practice,” Wee said. “We also took a look at articles that had high altmetric scores or a lot of views on our website — taking into account, of course, when they were actually published. And then we also looked at if the topic was a priority area for ACP. We did explicitly limit it to non-COVID research articles.”

Healio previously covered the studies that Wee and Chang highlighted during their talk. They include:

Yoga confers some benefits for frailty

For older adults, yoga improved lower extremity strength and gait speed, but it did not appear to offer more benefits for frailty markers than other forms of exercise, according to results of a systematic review. Read more.

C. auris cases, echinocandin resistance, increasing in US

Candida auris cases and transmission have dramatically increased in recent years, with 17 states identifying their first case from 2019 to 2021, data show.

Asymptomatic coronary atherosclerosis linked to eightfold higher risk for heart attack

Subclinical, obstructive coronary atherosclerosis was linked to a more than eightfold elevated risk for myocardial infarction in asymptomatic adults aged 40 years or older, according to researchers. Read more.

Sunosi 'likely superior' treatment for daytime sleepiness in patients with sleep apnea

Sunosi, Wakix and armodafinil-modafinil reduced excessive daytime sleepiness in patients with obstructive sleep apnea who are already receiving conventional therapy, with Sunosi being “likely superior,” researchers reported. Read more.

Time-restricted eating produces similar weight loss results as calorie restriction

Both time-restricted eating and calorie restriction were more effective in reducing weight at 1 year among a diverse participant population compared with no intervention, according to results of a small randomized controlled trial. Researchers further reported that calorie restriction was associated with greater weight loss than time-restricted eating; however, the difference was not statistically significant. Read more.

33% of patients with first AF event during noncardiac hospitalization had recurrent events

Patients hospitalized for a noncardiac reason with a first-time atrial fibrillation event in-hospital were more likely to have a recurrent event in the 12 months after discharge vs. matched controls with no prior atrial fibrillation, researchers reported. Read more.

Presenting weight loss in a positive way linked to greater treatment uptake

Weight loss presented as a positive opportunity by physicians was associated with greater uptake of treatment and weight loss, a recent study found. Read more.