A boy born in San Marino, a tiny republic surrounded by Italy, will likely live to age 80, the world's longest male life expectancy, but newborn girls in Japan and 30 other countries have even better prospects. Females in Japan, who traditionally lead the world tables, have a life expectancy of 86 years, the same as last year's statistics. San Marino men, who tied with Japanese men last year at 79, added a year to get ahead.

Following San Marino on the male side were Australia, Iceland, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland at 79 years and then Canada, Israel, Italy, Monaco and Singapore at 78. France was tied for 12th place at 77 years with a group of countries including New Zealand and Britain. Germany was at 76 years. United States was among the countries that tied the U.S. for 33rd place at 75 years.

Countries with long-living women include Monaco, 85 years, and Andorra, Australia, France, Italy, San Marino, Spain and Switzerland at 84. Canada tied Iceland and Sweden at 83 years for women, and Germany was in a group at 82 years. Britain came in at 81 years. Costa Rica and Denmark tied the United States for 32nd place at 80 years.

» Database / Downloads [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

[ PDF ] View the ten global health highlights
[ PDF ] Review the indicator definitions and metadata

Scientists have discovered three unsuspected regions of human DNA that contain clear genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and another that is associated with elevated blood triglycerides.

Using this approach, the DGI team and their collaborators identified and confirmed three novel regions of the genome that influence the risk of type 2 diabetes, as well as a genomic region that is linked with blood triglyceride levels. Perhaps the most intriguing result involves a DNA region that lies far from any known annotated genes. Such genomic "outsiders" would have been incredibly difficult to find by traditional hypothesis-driven approaches.

» mit.edu / DGI [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

An Oxford University study shows that taking a 300mg tablet of aspirin a day for five years can reduce the risk of colon cancer by 74 per cent in the subsequent 10-15 years, or by 37 per cent overall.
The study published in The Lancet was conducted by a team led by Professor Peter Rothwell, from the Department of Clinical Neurology, in collaboration with the original investigators.

In an accompanying review of observational studies, the researchers also showed that taking medium to high doses of aspirin for 10 years or more reduced the risk of colon cancer by between 50 and 70 per cent. This effect was seen regardless of age, sex, race or country of origin. The benefit was also seen in individuals with a high risk of cancer. A family history of colon cancer normally increases that individual’s chance of acquiring the disease by two to four times.

» University of Oxford - Department of Primary Health Care

Scientists at a small startup called Walker Reading Technologies in Minnesota have determined that the human brain is not wired properly to read block text. They have found that our eyes view text as if they're peering through a straw. Not only does your brain see the text on the line you're reading, but it's also uploading superfluous information from the two lines above and the two lines below. This causes your brain to engage in a tug of war as it fights to filter and ignore the noise. The result is slower reading speeds and decreased comprehension. The company has developed a product that automatically re-formats text in a way that your brain can more easily comprehend.

» liveink.com

The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has received a $1 million grant from the California Telemedicine & eHealth Center (CTEC) to support the development and implementation of a Southern California Telemedicine Learning Center (TLC).

“This grant will build on the many ongoing efforts that are underway today, and enable us to expand training and outreach activities in telemedicine to a broad network of community partners,” said David Brenner, M.D., UC San Diego vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine. “Through the Telemedicine Learning Center, we will be able to bring innovations in telemedicine into medically underserved urban and rural communities, with the goal of improving health care for vulnerable patient populations.”

» San Diego School of Medicine

A common genetic variation on chromosome 9p21 is linked to a substantial increase in risk for heart attack, according to a new international research study. The findings are published in the online edition of Science, and will appear in an upcoming printed edition of the journal.

Researchers found individuals with the variation have a 1.64-fold greater risk of suffering a heart attack (myocardial infarction) and a 2.02-fold greater risk of suffering a heart attack early in life (before age 50 for men and before age 60 for women) than those without the variation. Approximately 21 percent of individuals of European descent carry two copies of the genetic variation (one from each parent), found on chromosome 9p21. The research project was led by the Icelandic genomics company deCODE Genetics, along with U.S. researchers at Emory University School of Medicine, Duke University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Tony Ferraro, President and CEO of 360Hubs and Dr. David Stone, a practicing psychologist, former Harvard Fellow in computer science and now a Visiting Scholar in GSAS joined us at the Berkman Center to speak about applications of social networking technology in the treatment of trauma survivors.

David began the presentation by discussing his experience with clinical services in technology, specifically Second Life. As a practicing psychologist, David has worked in Second Life within specialized communities, and took us on our a tour of Mormon community with a woman named Lois who has multiple sclerosis.

[ MOV ] play video » harvard.edu

A virulent strain of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs is surfacing around the globe, raising fears of a pandemic that could devastate efforts to contain TB and prove deadly to people with immune-deficiency diseases such as HIV-AIDS.

Known formally as extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, the strain has been detected in 37 countries. It arises when the bacterium that causes TB mutates because antibiotics used to combat it are carelessly administered by poorly trained doctors or patients don't take their full course of medication. Rather than being killed by the drugs, the microbe builds up resistance to them.

» washingtonpost.com

Calorie restriction while maintaining nutrient levels has long been known to dramatically increase life spans. Very different lab animals, from worms to mice, live up to 50% longer (or even more) on the restricted diets. However, so far, nobody has been able to figure out how this works.

Scientists at the Salk Institute have found a specific gene in worms (there's a very similar one in people) that is directly involved in the longevity effect. That opens up the interesting possibility that doctors may someday be able to activate that gene directly and we can live long and prosper.

» news.bbc.co.uk

» Nature
» Scientific American

Research led by specialists at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center has found that teenage boys who hold some traditional beliefs about what it means to be a “real man” can undermine their sexual health and good preventive care in general. Their report, in the April edition of Pediatrics, is the result of a nationwide study believed to be the first linking teens’ beliefs about manhood to their use of health care services.

A second finding of the study analyzing data from a survey of 1,600 boys ages 15 to 19 is that boys who can speak openly to their parents about sexual health are more likely to see a doctor for preventive care, while the lack of health insurance is a strong barrier to care.

“Many illnesses in young men, such as sexually transmitted infections, can be prevented through timely intervention by a doctor or a nurse,” says lead author Arik Marcell, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist. “However, stereotypes about masculinity suggest that for boys, seeking care is a sign of weakness, and our analysis shows that such beliefs can be considered a health risk factor in and of itself.”

» hopkinschildrens.org

Medicare trustees issued the first ever statutory warning over the long-term finances of the government-backed health programme for senior citizens on Monday.

The warning, required by law, came as new projections showed the share of Medicare costs paid out of general taxation would exceed 45 per cent by 2013. More realistic assumptions suggest this threshold could be breached as early as 2010.

“Today is a historic occasion and not a happy one,” Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary, said. He said he was frustrated at the lack of response to his efforts to generate a bipartisan initiative to tackle the problem of financing Medicare and the other main entitlement programmes, Medicaid and Social Security.

“There was a time when I was a bit more optimistic than I was today,” he said. “I am getting a little bit tired of playing solitaire.”

[ PDF ] 2007 Medicare Trustees Report

» HHS Press Release on the 2007 Medicare Trustees Report
» Financial Times

A randomized controlled trial, in which patients were randomly assigned to receive either the treatment or a placebo, dispelled long-held beliefs. Such trials are the cornerstone of "evidence-based medicine," which has galvanized doctors perhaps more than any other subject.

Critics condemn evidence-based medicine as "cookbook medicine" that devalues the doctor's experience and the patient's preference. Proponents argue that evidence from randomized controlled trials has stanched the flow of private and public dollars for useless or even harmful treatments. More important, they say, the information has saved countless lives.

Both sides agree on one point: Keeping up with the latest evidence is virtually impossible.
Via: USA Today " In medicine, evidence can be confusing "

Telemedicine is composed of the Greek word tele (tele) meaning 'far', and medicine. It is therefore the delivery of medicine at a distance. A more extensive definition is that it is the use of modern telecommunication and information technologies for the provision of clinical care to individuals located at a distance and to the transmission of information to provide that care.

via [ SimpleMD ]

In its early manifestations, African villagers used smoke signals to warn people to stay away from the village in case of serious disease. In the early 1900s, people living in remote areas in Australia used two-way radios, powered by a dynamo driven by a set of bicycle pedals, to communicate with the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia.

There are two basic forms of telemedicine in its current implementation: live, and store-and-forward. There is of course more to telemedicine, but this simplistic application is fast becoming ubiquitous.

Live telemedicine could be a telephone call, but more typically refers to a videoconference link. This requires the presence of both parties at the same time and a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection. At a minimum audio and video are involved, with remote tactile support sometimes also being present.

Store-and-forward telemedicine involves acquiring data, images and/or video and transmitting this material to a doctor or medical specialist at a convenient time for assessment offline. It does not require the presence of both parties at the same time, and the bandwidth of the connection need not be high. Latency is also not a problem.

A proper Telemedicine interaction would involve store and forward followed by a live interaction. For this, time tables are created e.g. Hospital shall be talking to BB Clinic at 11.00 Hrs to discuss patient ABC. Ideally these Telemedicine Consultation Sessions (TCS) should be done in the presence of the patient as well as the referring doctor on one side and the specialist on the other. For emergencies, initial links established by mobile telephones, requesting each other to come online immediately.

Telemedicine is most useful when patients are extremely isolated (such as overwintering in Antarctica, remote communities in Australia, Africa and Alaska) or where specialist services are in very high demand.

Medical specialties using telemedicine usually rely a great deal on images (still or moving) in the service delivery - assessment, diagnosis and management. Radiology services have been delivered by telemedicine for many years. Psychiatry, cardiology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, dermatology and pathology are more recent users. Home care is often delivered by telemedicine.

Telesurgery may also be considered as a subset of telemedicine.

SimpleMD (tm) dot com / Medical E-Health

• Day-to-Day Body Monitoring for e-Health
• Telemedicine
• Real-time Medical Consultations
• Bio-Feedback

SimpleMD (tm)