Friday's 5 Quotes for Primary Care - 4-7-2023

Each of the quotes that follow is taken from a study reviewed on Patient Care® during the past week and was chosen for the research team’s passion about the clinical implications of their findings and for their potential impact on primary care practice.

“Our meta-analysis of 107 studies found (1) no significant protective associations of occasional or low-volume (moderate) drinking with all-cause mortality; and (2) an increased risk of all-cause mortality for drinkers who drank 25 g or more and a significantly increased risk when drinking 45 g or more per day. When consumption exceeded 25 g/day, risk of all-cause mortality was higher for women than for men."

The study is the first to examine a potential link between high dietary sodium intake and atherosclerosis in coronary as well as carotid arteries. “The association was linear, meaning that each rise in salt intake was linked with more atherosclerosis. The findings applied even at normal blood pressure levels, suggesting that salt could be damaging even before the development of hypertension.”

“Clinicians who prescribe medicines for low back pain must choose between medicines with different analgesic properties and safety profiles.” Thus far, “no comprehensive evaluation of individual medicines is available to inform clinical decision making for the best medicine for acute non-specific low back pain...Clinicians and patients are advised to take a cautious approach to the use of analgesic medicines.”

“Even though muscle pain and fatigue scores were higher in symptomatic statin users at baseline, the increase in muscle symptoms after exercise was similar among the groups. These results demonstrate that prolonged moderate-intensity exercise is safe for statin users and can be performed by statin users to maintain a physically active lifestyle and to derive its cardiovascular health benefits.”

“Specifically, we found that goal flexibility and goal tenacity seem to buffer the negative emotional impacts of pain interference on mental wellbeing, and flexibility even more so than tenacity. So, if you’re able to adjust, adapt, and find ways to still achieve what matters to you most in the face of life’s obstacles, that’s going to help protect your mental wellbeing.”