Frank J. Domino, MD

The American Academy of Pediatrics designed the 2014 Recommendations for Pediatrics Preventive Health Care to guide well-child care, but there is controversy over some of the changes.

As newer anticoagulants become accepted into clinical practice, it is important to consider their unique properties, potential benefits, and how they act in the coagulation cascade.

A recent study has raised concerns about the use of prescribed anxiolytic and hypnotic drugs, especially given their addictive nature.

Current dietary guidelines promoting high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats are not clearly supported by the medical literature.

Using trained language assistants for 18 structured home visits improved phonological skills and letter knowledge in children with language delay, which has the potential to enhance literacy in this population.

With the US Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of 2 sublingual immunotherapies for allergic rhinitis with or without conjunctivitis, US physicians no longer have to pursue the off-label use of these treatments.

Nuts should be given their own small space on the "MyPlate" in light of their solid evidence-based recommendation for daily consumption.

Ultrasound can lessen the need for head scans in children and reduce the impact of radiation on the developing brains of those who are particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation.

It is worrisome that "high-impact" data read by most healthcare providers and then further interpreted and distributed by lay news organizations may have funder bias.

Despite the increasingly widespread use of testosterone therapies, there remains some speculation concerning their long-term effects on overall health.

Mammography screening has conflicting efficacy results in the medical literature, as some clinical studies have shown little or no effect, while others have demonstrated decreased mortality in women aged 40 and older, with the largest effect in those aged 50-59 years.

To produce the greatest impact from the implementation of the new American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), physicians should counsel patients on the benefits and risks of medication intervention to prevent CVD, but also explain the absolute necessity of regular exercise and abstention from tobacco use.

When encouraging and supporting patients to quit smoking, varenicline is unlikely to increase the risk of neuropsychiatric adverse events such as suicide, depression, and aggression, even in patients with pre-existing psychiatric illness.

Older age, chronic corticosteroid use, severe trauma, abrasion, or some combination of red flags predict an increased risk of spinal fracture, but a prior history of malignancy is the only useful predictor of spinal malignancy.

Family physicians should place as great an emphasis on walking as they do on monitoring medication and laboratory data, and strongly recommend increased ambulatory activity to their patients.

One patient-centered medical home pilot was associated with improvement in only one of 11 quality areas and was not associated with reductions in hospital utilization or costs of care over 3 years.

Family physicians should screen all patients for domestic violence, counsel those at risk on safe havens and the dangers of living in a home with a handgun, and encourage safe gun ownership practices.

A proverb assessment modeling study compares the theoretical influence of a statin a day versus an apple a day on the primary prevention of vascular disease.

While tamoxifen and raloxifene reduce the incidence of invasive breast cancer and fractures, they also increase the risk of deep venous thrombosis, cataracts, and uterine cancer.

Consuming 3 weekly servings of certain whole fruits lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes development, though fruit juice consumption can increase that risk.

A 2,000 mg dose of high-quality American ginseng is effective as a treatment for cancer-related fatigue, though it may be better at preventing the condition.

Among patients with peripheral artery disease and intermittent claudication, a daily dose of 10 mg ramipril can improve pain-free treadmill walking times, which are associated with a significant increase in physical functioning.

As the prevalence of overweight and obese patients continues to surge, an efficacious pharmacological treatment for obesity is desperately needed in everyday clinical practice.

A meta-analysis examines the association between the degree of egg consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke.

In light of mounting physician stress and worsening burnout, one study offers a roadmap to returning "joy" to clinical practice.

Calcium supplementation with or without a high-calcium diet increases the risk of heart disease, and thus should be discouraged.

While annually screening a carefully selected population of current and former smokers will result in decreased lung cancer and all-cause mortality, the intervention will not lead to a decrease in smoking.

Many years in the making, but not without controversy, the JNC 8 is a welcomed evidence-based guideline for the management of hypertension.

The risk calculator tool and recommendations included in the new American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) hyperlipidemia guidelines are open to significant debate.

Compared to a low-fat diet, adherence to a Mediterranean diet has significant benefit in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease among patients aged 55-80 years old at high baseline cardiovascular risk without cardiovascular disease.