Month: April 2021

Let’s read an article a month – April 2021

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The cropped screenshot of the first page of the article. It also includes the URL or link to the article.

Every month I try to read an open-access article. After reading the article, I share the title and associated link with my followers. This is to encourage clinicians to read articles, stay up to date, and continue to grow.

This month I found a great piece to share with you.  This one is about chronic bronchitis. The objective of this paper is to “assess the prevalence of chronic bronchitis in young adults in a Swedish population-based birth cohort and to identify early-life risk factors, including environmental exposures, for disease development” (p2). 

Assessment of chronic bronchitis and risk factors in young adults: results from BAMSE

By: Gang Wang, Jenny Hallberg, Petra Um Bergström, Christer Janson, Göran Pershagen, Olena Gruzieva, Marianne van Hage, Antonios Georgelis, Anna Bergström, Inger Kull, Anders Lindén, and Erik Melén. 

European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) 2021 57: 2002120 ; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.02120-2020

Link to the ERJ page: https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/57/3/2002120?etoc

Link to the pdf page: https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/erj/57/3/2002120.full.pdf

3 Reasons why I found this article interesting

  • Authors comment on the impact of cigarette and e-cigarettes and chronic bronchitis in young adults (direct and indirect). Also, authors included factors such as breastfeeding as a protective factor which is something I would not have immediately thought of.
  • It includes a 24-year follow up assessment. They have excluded asthmatic patients to make their observation more accurate.  Various assessment tools were included, including self-assessments, pre and post spirometry, and FeNO2. 
  • This study reminded me that this condition “may exist with our without airway obstruction” p7.

What’s your experience with chronic bronchitis in young adults? Have you noticed a pattern?

Happy learning and reading!

Farzad Refahi
April 16, 2021

https://respiratory.blog/lets-read-an-article-a-month-April-2021/

Taking back the power

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I sure have got lost in the feeds of different social media platforms… Have got anxious about having the phone notification light blinking and not being able to look at my phone… Have made impulsive Amazon purchases… Have procrastinated by watching back to back Standup Comedy shows on Netflix… and have unfortunately made empty and impulsive, reactionary or inappropriate comments out of feeling of void? or lack of attention? I believe that while social media platforms and apps serve a purpose, they can still be programmed to be addictive! I can say that my addiction to social media and phone is stronger than the one to coffee/caffeine.

I have recently unsubscribed from a lot of junk emails or modified my notification preferences. I have uninstalled unnecessary apps, turned off notifications for messaging apps, I listen to services that have few to no advertisement..etc
I don’t rely on seeing feeds and posts from friends to be reminded to check in with them, I try to proactively contact friends.

https://youtu.be/4NgtEfg3vJk



Some useful tip in this video. Not sure how much of it I can pull off but worth the consideration.

What are some ways that you have successfully modified your routine, dependence or reliance on your phone /social media?