Health Science Inquiry (Journal)
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When social media met nutrition: How influencers spread misinformation, and why we believe them
Get PDFNutritional Psychiatry: A Solution for Socioeconomic Disparities in Access to Mental Health Care?
Get PDFAs in all sectors of healthcare, socioeconomic status (SES) affects an individual’s ability to benefit from psychiatric care.Mood and anxiety disorders are the most common disorders for which psychiatric care is sought, and while there are options for effective treatments available, they are often accompanied by additional costs. Further to costs, issues with the heterogeneity of mental illness have led resarchers to explore other options for psychatric care. Nutritional psychiatry is an emerging field that uses dietary and nutritional approaches to target the gut-brain axis for the prevention and treatment of mental illness, including mood and axiety disorders. Nutritional psychiatry has been promoted as being an advantageous alternative to classic mental health treatments due to it’s broader accessibility, highlighting the lower costs associated with lifestyle changes than medication and psychotherapy. At a glance, this may appear accurate, but upon closer examination, may not be entirely true. Factors surrounding healthy eating, food deserts, the supplement industry, and adherence to lifestyle changes are all barriers present in nutritional psychiatry that are accompanied by added costs. These costs likely contribute to a disparity between low SES and high SES individuals benefitting from the treatment, in a similar way to classic treatments. This commentary reviews these factors to suggest that nutritional psychiatry may not be the accessible treatment option we purport it to be, and that as clinical researchers in the field, we must be aware of these disparities
The gut-brain axis and microbial therapeutics: The future of personalized medicine for psychiatric disorders
Get PDFGiven the vast personal and economic burdens of psychiatric disorders, specifically mood and anxiety disorders, finding appropriate treatments for all those affected is critical. Due to the various presentations of psychiatric indications, no one treatment method is efficacious in all patients. Thus, a more personalized, but feasible treatment method is necessary for properly treating and preventing these disorders from becoming refractory and more burdensome. In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation for research in the field of the “gut-brain axis” (GBA), specifically as a target for psychiatric disorders. Researchers have found the gut to be influenced not only by similar determinants to that of psychiatric indications, but also highly modifiable using GBA treatments such as probiotics and fecal microbiota transplant (FMT). This is compelling evidence for the use of the GBA as a target for disorders such as depression and anxiety and for development of personalized treatment methods
Challenges in remaining "UpToDate": A case study identifying errors in evidence-based point-of-care resources
Get PDFOur understanding of the prevalence of mental health disorders (MHDs) in society is in the midst of a paradigm shift: where MHDs were once considered rare within a population, studies through the last decade have converged to the conclusion that they are, in fact, near universal. Consequently, the demand for mental health treatment has resulted in the training of Primary-Care Physicians (PCPs) to identify, diagnose, and treat common MHDs. As generalists, PCPs require specialised point-of-care clinical resources to educate their patients and provide them with evidence-based treatment plans; UpToDate is one such resource. As a database of synthesized peer-reviewed medical information, written and approved by physician-experts from their review of contemporary peer-reviewed literature, this resource is considered a gold standard. Here, we examine an MHD-specific investigative case study on Generalized Anxiety Disorder where the synthesized UpToDate medical information was found to be in conflict with the original studies. In this era of unrelenting bombardment of digital data, the responsibility of assessing the truth of the information falls to the consumer. While a reliance on reputable information-sharing platforms facilitates both the access and assessment of truth, we discuss the risks of unintended errors, their propagation, and the potential impact at the point-of-care
From working with animals to humans
Get PDFQ&A with Nicholas Ogden, an expert on vector-borne diseases and the Director of the Public Health Risk Sciences Division
At the intersection of mental health and drug addiction
Get PDFQ&A with Jibran Khokhar, biomedical science researcher and assistant professor at the University of Guelp
Mitigating the effects of the climate crisis through health policy
Get PDFIn Canada, the climate crisis has had profound impacts on health, including increased health problems as well as decreased access to healthcare services. Without mitigation, the climate crisis is expected to exacerbate an abundance of negative health outcomes and health system disruptions in Canada, including: food, water, and shelter insecurity; increased health problems caused by severe weather; and forced displacement from geographically vulnerable areas. Governmental action could be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and improve healthcare in the country.
This report synthesizes current literature on how the climate crisis is affecting health in Canada. It also recommends 3 actions that can be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and improve the country’s health. Actions include: conducting climate change and health vulnerability assessments (CCHVAs), enhancing support for climate action research, and reducing CO2 emissions in the healthcare sector
Hand hygiene: A simple strategy for health care-associated infection prevention and control with implications for control of the current COVID-19 outbreak
Get PDFAbstract: The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Health Care-Associated Infection (HCAI) as an infection a patient acquired in health care settings. In Canada, more than 220,000 patients are infected by HCAIs annually, with 8,500 to 12,000 of these patients resulting in death, thus becoming the fourth leading cause of death for Canadians. Hand hygiene practice is the most critical measure to prevent HCAIs, however, research indicates that in hospitals worldwide, just 40% of health care workers abide by the advised hand hygiene guidelines. A new effective HCAI control and prevention program is needed to sustain benefits, building on prior interventions such as including hand hygiene education that stresses the necessity of this practice in the protocol, providing factual proof of the effectiveness of hand hygiene, the acknowledgment by senior staff of their responsibility as role models for all staff, innovative technological methods, and regular auditing/feedback. With the current outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that has infected millions around the world, a new HCAI control and prevention program can increase the compliance rate of handwashing with alcohol-based hand rub/sanitizer amongst healthcare professionals thus aiding in prevention and control of spread within the community
