Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Impact of industry collaboration on randomised controlled trials in oncology

 2016 Dec 24;72:71-77. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2016.11.005. [Epub ahead of print]

Impact of industry collaboration on randomised controlled trials in oncology.

Author information

  • 1University of California San Francisco, 631 Diamond Street, San Francisco, CA 94114, USA. Electronic address: Anne.linker@ucsf.edu.
  • 2Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 485 Lexington Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10017, USA. Electronic address: yanga1@mskcc.org.
  • 3National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. Electronic address: Nitin.roper@nih.gov.
  • 4Library and Center for Knowledge Management, University of California San Francisco, 530 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. Electronic address: Evans.whitaker@ucsf.edu.
  • 5Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 485 Lexington Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10017, USA. Electronic address: korenstd@mskcc.org.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Industry funders can simply provide money or collaborate in trial design, analysis or reporting of clinical trials. Our aim was to assess the impact of industry collaboration on trial methodology and results of randomised controlled trials (RCT).

METHODS:

We searched PubMed for oncology RCTs published May 2013 to December 2015 in peer-reviewed journals with impact factor > 5 requiring reporting of funder role. Two authors extracted methodologic (primary end-point; blinding of the patient, clinician and outcomes assessor; and analysis) and outcome data. We used descriptive statistics and two-sided Fisher exact tests to compare characteristics of trials with collaboration, with industry funding only, and without industry funding.

RESULTS:

We included 224 trials. Compared to those without industry funding, trials with collaboration used more placebo control (RR 3·59, 95% CI [1·88-6·83], p < 0001), intention-to-treat analysis (RR 1·32, 95% CI [1·04-1·67], p = 02), and blinding of patients (RR 3·05, 95% CI [1·71-5·44], p < 0001), clinicians (RR 3·36, 95% CI [1·83-6·16], p≤·001) and outcomes assessors (RR 3·03, 95% CI [1·57-5·83], p = 0002). They did not differ in use of overall survival as a primary end-point (RR 1·27 95% CI [0·72-2·24]) and were similarly likely to report positive results (RR 1·11 95% CI [0·85-1·46], p = 0.45). Studies with funding only did not differ from those without funding.

CONCLUSIONS:

Oncology RCTs with industry collaboration were more likely to use some high-quality methods than those without industry funding, with similar rates of positive results. Our findings suggest that collaboration is not associated with trial outcomes and that mandatory disclosure of funder roles may mitigate bias.

Most middle aged adults living unhealthy lives, say experts

Most middle aged adults living unhealthy lives, say experts

"Officials said that nine in 10 men (87%) and eight in 10 women (79%) are not doing enough exercise , exceeding the recommended limits for alcohol or are either overweight or obese.
Figures taken from the Health Survey for England show that 77% of men and 63% of women in middle age are either overweight or obese - with the rate of obesity shooting up 16% in the last two decades.
The diabetes rate among this age group also doubled in this period in England, PHE said.
Meanwhile, many are also not being physically active and drinking too much."

The Demise Of The Part B Demo: Doom For Value-Based Payment?

The Demise Of The Part B Demo: Doom For Value-Based Payment?

December 27, 2016


"CMMI has piloted a number of demonstrations on bundled payments, hospital payments, and accountable care, and MACRA moves Medicare physician payment towards a value structure. But we aren’t there yet. So far, most demonstrations have not made significant changes to health care spending. Participants have had little downside risk while receiving additional bonuses for meeting certain quality and savings targets. While this approach is key to drawing in participants at the outset, it shows little will among providers to risk profits."

"...they’re both interested in the same thing: smooth operations at any cost. Often that cost is the mission of the university itself."

Low Definition in Higher Education


When college students are told what to think and what not to say, who suffers in the end?

By Lyell Asher

NOVEMBER 16, 2016


"This covert consumerist ethos helps explain what otherwise seems especially incongruous about higher education in America today: how to square the putatively “progressive”—but in fact retrograde—imposition of speech codes, safe spaces, bias response teams, and the like on college campuses, with the simultaneous emphasis on commerce and entrepreneurship, an emphasis especially favored by the business-oriented boards of trustees. The answer is that they’re both interested in the same thing: smooth operations at any cost. Often that cost is the mission of the university itself."


Or not: "When it comes to combating health problems like obesity or diabetes, most people think it’s the responsibility of doctors and nutritionists."

The Key To Healthier Living In North Texas Might Be Better Urban Planning

"When it comes to combating health problems like obesity or diabetes, most people think it’s the responsibility of doctors and nutritionists. But urban planners, architects and engineers say they play a role as well. The way a city or a building is planned can encourage people to walk more and be healthier in their everyday lives."

From Jun Fukuoka and colleagues: Interobserver Agreement of Usual Interstitial Pneumonia Diagnosis Correlated With Patient Outcome

Mikiko HashisakoMDTomonori TanakaMDYasuhiro TerasakiMD, PhDToshimasa UekusaMD, PhDRosane D. AchcarMD; Bassam I. AswadMDHanaa S. BameflehMBChBVera L. CapelozziMD, PhDJohn C. EnglishMD, FRCPCAlexandre T. FabroMD, PhDKensuke KataokaMD, PhDTomayoshi HayashiMD, PhDYasuhiro KondohMD, PhDHiroyuki TaniguchiMD, PhD; Junya FukuokaMD, PhD
From the Department of Pathology, Nagasaki University Hospital, Sakamoto, Nagasaki, Japan (Drs Hashisako, Tanaka, and Fukuoka); the Department of Analytic Human Pathology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan (Dr Terasaki); the Department of Pathology, Japan Labour Health and Welfare Organization, Kanto Rosai Hospital, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan (Dr Uekusa); the Division of Pathology, National Jewish Health, Denver, Colorado (Dr Achcar); the Department of Pathology, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence (Dr Aswad); the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, King Abdullah Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Dr Bamefleh); the Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (Drs Capelozzi and Fabro); the Department of Pathology, Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Dr English); the Department of Respiratory Medicine and Allergy, Tosei General Hospital, Seto, Aichi, Japan (Drs Kataoka, Kondoh, and Taniguchi); and the Department of Pathology, Nagasaki Prefecture Shimabara Hospital, Shimabara, Nagasaki, Japan (Dr Hayashi). Dr Hashisako is now with the Research Institute for Diseases of the Chest, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Reprints: Junya Fukuoka, MD, PhD, Department of Pathology, Nagasaki University Hospital, 1-7-1 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8501, Japan (email: ).
The authors have no relevant financial interest in the products or companies described in this article.
Context.— The histopathologic criteria for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis were revised in the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society/Japan Respiratory Society/Latin American Thoracic Association guidelines in 2011. However, the evidence of diagnosis based on the guidelines needs further investigation.
Objective.— To examine whether the revised histopathologic criteria for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis improved interobserver agreement among pathologists and the predicted prognosis in patients with interstitial pneumonia.
Design.— Twenty, consecutive, surgical lung-biopsy specimens from cases of interstitial pneumonia were examined for histologic patterns by 11 pathologists without knowledge of clinical and radiologic data. Diagnosis was based on American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society guidelines of 2002 and 2011. Pathologists were grouped by cluster analysis, and interobserver agreement and association to the patient prognosis were compared with the diagnoses for each cluster.
Results.— The generalized κ coefficient of diagnosis for all pathologists was 0.23. If the diagnoses were divided into 2 groups: usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP)/probable UIP (the UIP group) or possible/not UIP (the non-UIP group), according to the 2011 guidelines, the κ improved to 0.37. The pathologists were subdivided into 2 clusters in which 1 showed an association between UIP group diagnosis and patient prognosis (P < .05).
Conclusions.— Agreement about pathologic diagnosis of interstitial pneumonia is low; however, results after division into UIP and non-UIP groups provided favorable agreement. The cluster analysis revealed 1 of the 2 clusters providing high interobserver agreement and prediction of patient prognosis.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

"So, foolish or brave, we displayed the American flag on Christmas Day, 1943."

Abandoned on Bataan: One Man's Story of Survival
     
by Oliver "Red" Allen


Page 152:

"So, foolish or brave, we displayed the American flag on Christmas Day, 1943. We hung it up in the barracks and sang patriotic songs and carols and had a wonderfully good feeling."
......

"Of course, it wasn't long before the Japanese came and took it away. The white rat had squealed. No particular punishment was meted out. I guess they thought taking the flag was enough. It was."


Saturday, December 24, 2016

"Today, 7.8 percent of the military is clinically overweight. That's about one in every 13 troops."


New in 2017: The military will redefine who's too fat to serve

December 24, 2016



"Today, 7.8 percent of the military is clinically overweight. That's about one in every 13 troops.

That's way up from 2001, when it was just 1.6 percent of the total force, or one in 60 troops, according to Defense Department data. Obesity rates are highest among women, African Americans, Hispanics and older service members."


Socialized Medicine: "Number of urgent operations cancelled in England hits record high"

Number of urgent operations cancelled in England hits record high

Figures show 446 urgent operations cancelled in month of November 

“Now patients are paying the price for the government’s short-sightedness, with record levels of cancelled operations and hospitals being stretched to breaking point,” Mr Lamb said, according to the Guardian.

Being Overweight Changes Your DNA, Increasing Risk Of Diabetes For Offspring

Being Overweight Changes Your DNA, Increasing Risk Of Diabetes For Offspring


"Epigenetics is the study of how our behaviors and experiences can actually change our DNA, allowing us to pass on new traits to future generations. Recently, researchers revealed that obesity is able to cause epigenetic changes to our DNA which could have adverse health consequences for our future offspring."

Many health news stories lack independent sources

Many health news stories lack independent sources



"News stories about medical research rarely include objective comments from experts who weren't involved in the work, according to a recent analysis.

Of nearly 600 news articles about medical research published in early 2013, only about one in six included a comment from a person not affiliated with the research - and a quarter of the independent sources quoted in the articles appeared to have no relevant expertise about the topic, the study found.

Also, the commenters frequently had conflicts of interest."


"In the past, blood pressure was something that grandma or grandpa took medicine for. But today..."

Hypertension an increasing concern among overweight, sedentary children

In the past, blood pressure was something that grandma or grandpa took medicine for. But today, hypertension is increasingly becoming a concern in kids because of the prevalence of obesity among our youth.
One in three children in our nation is obese. Of those youngsters, 30 percent have elevated blood pressure. High blood pressure in children and adolescents poses an increased risk of hypertension as adults. Hypertension is a known risk factor for heart disease and death, and may also lead to kidney disease and stroke, which ultimately impacts quality of life and life expectancy.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/living/health-fitness/article122793399.html#storylink=cpy

Zombie allusions: They just keep on coming™: "...an example of the emerging class of 'ultrapotent' synthetic cannabinoids ..."

 2016 Dec 14. [Epub ahead of print]

"Zombie" Outbreak Caused by the Synthetic Cannabinoid AMB-FUBINACA in New York.

Author information

  • 1From the Clinical Toxicology and Environmental Biomonitoring Laboratory (A.J.A., R.G.) and School of Medicine (A.J.A.), University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, and the Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto (S.D.B.) - both in California; the Department of Emergency Medicine, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, New York (L.I.); the Office of Diversion Control, Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, Drug Enforcement Administration, Springfield, VA (J.T.); and the Chemical Defense Program, Office of Health Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC (M.S.).

Abstract

Background New psychoactive substances constitute a growing and dynamic class of abused drugs in the United States. On July 12, 2016, a synthetic cannabinoid caused mass intoxication of 33 persons in one New York City neighborhood, in an event described in the popular press as a "zombie" outbreak because of the appearance of the intoxicated persons. 
Methods We obtained and tested serum, whole blood, and urine samples from 8 patients among the 18 who were transported to local hospitals; we also tested a sample of the herbal "incense" product "AK-47 24 Karat Gold," which was implicated in the outbreak. Samples were analyzed by means of liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. 
Results The synthetic cannabinoid methyl 2-(1-(4-fluorobenzyl)-1H-indazole-3-carboxamido)-3-methylbutanoate (AMB-FUBINACA, also known as MMB-FUBINACA or FUB-AMB) was identified in AK-47 24 Karat Gold at a mean (±SD) concentration of 16.0±3.9 mg per gram. The de-esterified acid metabolite was found in the serum or whole blood of all eight patients, with concentrations ranging from 77 to 636 ng per milliliter. 
Conclusions The potency of the synthetic cannabinoid identified in these analyses is consistent with strong depressant effects that account for the "zombielike" behavior reported in this mass intoxication. AMB-FUBINACA is an example of the emerging class of "ultrapotent" synthetic cannabinoids and poses a public health concern. Collaboration among clinical laboratory staff, health professionals, and law enforcement agencies facilitated the timely identification of the compound and allowed health authorities to take appropriate action.

"...techniques designed to enhance one’s personal productivity seem to exacerbate the very anxieties they were meant to allay."

Why time management is ruining our lives

All of our efforts to be more productive backfire – and only make us feel even busier and more stressed
"And yet the truth is that more often than not, techniques designed to enhance one’s personal productivity seem to exacerbate the very anxieties they were meant to allay. The better you get at managing time, the less of it you feel that you have. Even when people did successfully implement Inbox Zero, it didn’t reliably bring calm. Some interpreted it to mean that every email deserved a reply, which only shackled them more firmly to their inboxes. (“That drives me crazy,” Mann says.) Others grew jumpy at the thought of any messages cluttering an inbox that was supposed to stay pristine, and so ended up checking more frequently. My own dismaying experience with Inbox Zero was that becoming hyper-efficient at processing email meant I ended up getting more email: after all, it’s often the case that replying to a message generates a reply to that reply, and so on. (By contrast, negligent emailers often discover that forgetting to reply brings certain advantages: people find alternative solutions to the problems they were nagging you to solve, or the looming crisis they were emailing about never occurs.)
The allure of the doctrine of time management is that, one day, everything might finally be under control. Yet work in the modern economy is notable for its limitlessness. And if the stream of incoming emails is endless, Inbox Zero can never bring liberation: you’re still Sisyphus, rolling his boulder up that hill for all eternity – you’re just rolling it slightly faster."

The Ethical Use of Mobile Health Technology in Clinical Psychiatry

 2017 Jan;205(1):4-8. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000000596.

The Ethical Use of Mobile Health Technology in Clinical Psychiatry.

Author information

  • 1*Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; and †Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.

Abstract

The rapid rise of mobile health technologies, such as smartphone apps and wearable sensors, presents psychiatry with new tools of potential value in caring for patients. Novel diagnostic and therapeutic applications of these technologies have been developed in private industry and utilized in mental health, although these methods do not yet constitute standard of care. In this article, we provide an ethical perspective on the practical use of this novel modality by psychiatrists. We propose that in the present context of limited scientific research and regulatory oversight, mobile technologies should serve to enhance the psychiatrist-patient relationship, rather than replace it, to minimize potential clinical and ethical harm to vulnerable patients. We analyze areas of possible ethical tension between clinical practice and the consumer-driven mobile industry, and develop a decision-tree model for implementing ethical safeguards in practice, focused on managing risk to the therapeutic relationship, informed consent, confidentiality, and mutual alignment of treatment goals and expectations.

Zombie allusions: They just keep on coming™: "...prepping for the NFL draft."

Beware the Zombie Bowl Games!

The college football playoff has rendered the bowl system near-irrelevant so it’s tough to chastise a player for opting out


"Bowls were endangered the moment the playoff was created, but this issue perked up this week because a couple of high-level college players came out and said they were going to pass on their zombie bowl engagements because they wanted to focus on prepping for the NFL draft."

"They may not like hearing it, but it's easier than hearing they have diabetes."

Another View: Denial as obesity's health risks bulge

The CDC found that 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. However, a Gallup poll showed only 36 percent of Americans believe they are overweight. They may not like hearing it, but it's easier than hearing they have diabetes.



"Yale University's Nicholas Christakis, a physician and sociologist, told The Washington Post that as the nation grows more obese, Americans seem to be resetting their beliefs - and understanding - of what a healthy weight is."

Monday, December 19, 2016

Towards a 21st-century roadmap for biomedical research and drug discovery: consensus report and recommendations

 2016 Oct 28. pii: S1359-6446(16)30390-7. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2016.10.011. [Epub ahead of print]

Towards a 21st-century roadmap for biomedical research and drug discovery: consensus report and recommendations.

Author information

  • 1Research & Toxicology Department, Humane Society International, London, UK. Electronic address: sciencesources@btinternet.com.
  • 2Respiratory Cell & Molecular Biology, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College, London, UK.
  • 3Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) Europe, Brussels, Belgium.
  • 4National Center for Computational Toxicology, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
  • 5Department of Internal Medicine-Rheumatology, Esslingen District Clinics GmbH, Kirchheim Clinic, Academic Teaching Hospital, University of Tübingen, Kirchheim unter Teck, Germany.
  • 6ProBioGen AG, Berlin, Germany.
  • 7Finnish Centre for Alternative Methods, School of Medicine, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
  • 8Dahlem Research School, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
  • 9Department of Bioinformatics, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Institutszentrum Birlinghoven, Sankt Augustin, Germany.
  • 10European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre, Directorate F-Health, Consumers and Reference Materials, F3 Chemical Safety and Alternative Methods Unit, Ispra (VA), Italy.
  • 11School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, UK.
  • 12Humane Society International, London, UK.
  • 13Department of Pediatrics & Cellular & Molecular Medicine, UCSD School of Medicine, Rady Children's Hospital, Sanford Consortium, La Jolla, CA, USA.
  • 14Biochemical Engineering Institute, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
  • 15European Commission, DG ENVIRONMENT, Directorate A-Green Economy, Unit A.3-Chemicals, Brussels, Belgium.
  • 16Research & Toxicology Department, Humane Society International, Toronto, Canada.
  • 17Philips Research (Philips Group Innovation), Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
  • 18Center for Human Genetics, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
  • 19Animal Research Issues, The Humane Society of the United States, Boston, MA, USA.
  • 20MRC/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma, Division of Asthma, Allergy & Lung Biology, King's College London, Guy's Hospital, London, UK.

Abstract

Decades of costly failures in translating drug candidates from preclinical disease models to human therapeutic use warrant reconsideration of the priority placed on animal models in biomedical research. Following an international workshop attended by experts from academia, government institutions, research funding bodies, and the corporate and nongovernmental organisation (NGO) sectors, in this consensus report, we analyse, as case studies, five disease areas with major unmet needs for new treatments. In view of the scientifically driven transition towards a human pathway-based paradigm in toxicology, a similar paradigm shift appears to be justified in biomedical research. There is a pressing need for an approach that strategically implements advanced, human biology-based models and tools to understand disease pathways at multiple biological scales. We present recommendations to help achieve this.

Punishment of Minor Female Genital Ritual Procedures: Is the Perfect the Enemy of the Good?

 2016 Dec 19. doi: 10.1111/dewb.12135. [Epub ahead of print]

Punishment of Minor Female Genital Ritual Procedures: Is the Perfect the Enemy of the Good?

Abstract

Female genital alteration (FGA) is any cutting, removal or destruction of any part of the external female genitalia. Various FGA practices are common throughout the world. While most frequent in Africa and Asia, transglobal migration has brought ritual FGA to Western nations. All forms of FGA are generally considered undesirable for medical and ethical reasons when performed on minors. One ritual FGA procedure is the vulvar nick (VN). This is a small laceration to the vulva that does not cause morphological changes. Besides being performed as a primary ritual procedure it has been proposed as a substitute for more extensive forms of FGA. Measures advocated or taken to reduce the burden of FGA can be punitive or non-punitive. Even if it is unethical to perform VN, we argue that it also is unethical to attempt to suppress it through punishment. First, punishment of VN is likely to cause more harm than good overall, even to those ostensibly being protected. Second, punishment is likely to exceed legitimate retributive ends. We do not argue in favor of performing VN. Rather, we argue that non-punitive strategies such as education and harm reduction should be employed.

"There has never been a higher percentage of overweight Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Denial and its costs: Recognizing when obesity is a real health risk


"There has never been a higher percentage of overweight Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there has rarely been a lower percentage of Americans who actually believe they are overweight.
The CDC found that 70.4 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. Those levels are determined by a person’s body mass index. A person who is 5 feet, 9 inches would be overweight at 170 pounds, which is a BMI of 25. Obesity is set at a BMI of 30, or 200 pounds for a person who is 5 feet, 9 inches."

Over 1/4 adults in Ohio "know of someone who has abused a pain drug..."

Drug Use The Most Urgent Health Problem In Ohio

"Twenty-six percent of adults said they know of someone who has abused a pain drug, down 2.7 percent from last year’s poll. Statewide, 22.5 percent of adults said they knew someone who has used heroin, up slightly from 22.3 percent in 2015."

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Twitter as a Tool for Health Research

 2017 Jan;107(1):143.

Twitter as a Tool for Health Research: A Systematic Review.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Researchers have used traditional databases to study public health for decades. Less is known about the use of social media data sources, such as Twitter, for this purpose.

OBJECTIVES:

To systematically review the use of Twitter in health research, define a taxonomy to describe Twitter use, and characterize the current state of Twitter in health research.

SEARCH METHODS:

We performed a literature search in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and CINAHL through September 2015.

SELECTION CRITERIA:

We searched for peer-reviewed original research studies that primarily used Twitter for health research.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:

Two authors independently screened studies and abstracted data related to the approach to analysis of Twitter data, methodology used to study Twitter, and current state of Twitter research by evaluating time of publication, research topic, discussion of ethical concerns, and study funding source.

MAIN RESULTS:

Of 1110 unique health-related articles mentioning Twitter, 137 met eligibility criteria. The primary approaches for using Twitter in health research that constitute a new taxonomy were content analysis (56%; n = 77), surveillance (26%; n = 36), engagement (14%; n = 19), recruitment (7%; n = 9), intervention (7%; n = 9), and network analysis (4%; n = 5). These studies collectively analyzed more than 5 billion tweets primarily by using the Twitter application program interface. Of 38 potential data features describing tweets and Twitter users, 23 were reported in fewer than 4% of the articles. The Twitter-based studies in this review focused on a small subset of data elements including content analysis, geotags, and language. Most studies were published recently (33% in 2015). Public health (23%; n = 31) and infectious disease (20%; n = 28) were the research fields most commonly represented in the included studies. Approximately one third of the studies mentioned ethical board approval in their articles. Primary funding sources included federal (63%), university (13%), and foundation (6%).

CONCLUSIONS:

We identified a new taxonomy to describe Twitter use in health research with 6 categories. Many data elements discernible from a user's Twitter profile, especially demographics, have been underreported in the literature and can provide new opportunities to characterize the users whose data are analyzed in these studies. Twitter-based health research is a growing field funded by a diversity of organizations. Public health implications. Future work should develop standardized reporting guidelines for health researchers who use Twitter and policies that address privacy and ethical concerns in social media research.

What else comes with a college degree? An extra 10 pounds, says new study

What else comes with a college degree? An extra 10 pounds, says new study


"While there was no direct connection among the students surveyed between lifestyle factors and weight or BMI gain, only 15 percent of the sample met the exercise target of 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week. And for most students, fruit and vegetable consumption was also below the recommended intake."

Read more at http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/health/what-else-comes-with-a-college-degree-an-extra-10-pounds-says-new-study/176450.html#GlQqS6tDGgBHJt23.99

Smartphone addiction may up obesity risk in teens

Smartphone addiction may up obesity risk in teens

Adolescents who spend five hours or more a day using their smartphones, tablets or computers are at a higher risk of becoming obese, a Harvard study has warned.
"Researchers found that almost 20% of US adolescents spent more than five hours a day on phones, tablets, and computers compared with only 8% who watched television more than five hours a day."

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

"Loneliness is twice as dangerous to the health of an older person as obesity, and is as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”

Befriending an older person could have seriously positive effects on their health



"Not only can loneliness lead to depression, but it is also a predictor for dementia, cardiovascular disease and decreased immune system responsivity. Loneliness is twice as dangerous to the health of an older person as obesity, and is as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”

Kyra Berg and Joanne Wright: The Pathology of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Progress in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Kyra BergMDJoanne L. WrightMD, FRCP(C)
From the Department of Pathology at St Paul's Hospital, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.



Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major cause of morbidity and is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. There has been significant progress in the pathologic description and pathophysiologic analysis of COPD in the 20th and 21st centuries. We review the history, progression, and significance of pathologic alterations in COPD, including emphysematous changes, airway alterations, and vascular alterations. We also indicate what pathologic features of COPD the practicing pathologist should be describing in standard surgical and autopsy specimens.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Sarcopenia "...afflicts nearly one in three people over the age of 60 — and more than half of those over age 80."

A muscular approach to senior health

Recognition of sarcopenia will aid in preventing the strength-sapping disease
"The CDC’s move may not sound like much more than an administrative one. But it’s an important step in the drive to raise awareness among patients, caregivers, doctors and researchers about this condition — and to create comprehensive standards for diagnosing and treating it.
This will help seniors live fully as they age — on their terms, in their homes, independently.
Even though sarcopenia is only newly “reportable,” research has shown it is already prevalent among seniors. It afflicts nearly one in three people over the age of 60 — and more than half of those over age 80."

Saturated fat may be healthy for you: Study

S

Saturated fat may be healthy for you: Study

aturated fat may be healthy for you: Study



"Our findings indicate that the overriding principle of a healthy diet is not the quantity of fat or carbohydrates, but the quality of the foods we eat," said PhD candidate Johnny Laupsa-Borge. Saturated fat has been thought to promote cardiovascular diseases by raising the "bad" LDL cholesterol in the blood.
However, even with a higher fat intake in the Norwegian diet intervention (FATFUNC) study compared to most comparable studies, the researchers found no significant increase in LDL cholesterol. Rather, the "good" cholesterol increased only on the very-high-fat diet. "These results indicate that most healthy people probably tolerate a high intake of saturated fat well, as long as the fat quality is good and total energy intake is not too high. It may even be healthy," said Nygard.