Tag: Health

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Gene patents could stand in the way of personalized medicine

Researchers worry that gene patents compromise their ability to tailor treatments to individuals based on their DNA.

One day in December 1995, scientists at Myriad Genetics, a a genetic diagnostics company in Salt Lake City, Utah, were competing in a race to discover the sequences of two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that reveal a woman’s risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.  Sean Tavtigian rushed to his job that day  at Myriad because he knew he could solve the final piece of the puzzle just in time to win Myriad the rights over both genes.

 

 

 

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Analysis, Science & Technology News

How the language we speak affects how healthy and rich we will be: Study

A new study suggests languages shape how we think about the future, and how we plan for it.

New research by Keith Chen of Yale Business School suggests that the language we speak can determine how healthy and rich we will be. The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the future and this might have dramatic long-term consequences.

 

 

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Wearable electronic sensors printed directly on the skin

Epidermal electronics

Researchers have devised a way to “print” devices directly onto the skin so people can wear them for an extended period of time while performing normal daily activities. Such systems could be used to track health and monitor healing near the skin’s surface, as in the case of surgical wounds.

 

 

 

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Salt can trigger autoimmune diseases: Study

Salt intake linked to autoimmune diseases.

In developed countries in recent decades the incidence of autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, has spiked. Researchers describe in three studies that were published in Nature that the molecular pathways that can lead to autoimmune disease and identify one possible culprit that has been right under our noses — and on our tables — the entire time: salt.

 

 

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Lifespan declining in women in some parts of U.S.: Study

Women aged 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years.

There is compelling evidence from a new study that the expectancy for some U.S. women is falling, a disturbing trend that experts can’t explain. The study found that women aged 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years in nearly half of the nation’s counties.  many of the women lived in rural areas and in the West and South. For men, life expectancy has held steady or improved in nearly all counties.

 

 

 

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Drone pilots get stress disorders as much as pilots of manned aircraft do

Drone pilots

Researchers with the Defense Department have found in a first of its kind study that pilots of drone aircraft experience mental health problems like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress at the same rate as pilots of manned aircraft who are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

 

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Business, Health & Fitness, Latest Trend

Medicare crackdown seems to be slowing down hospital readmission epidemic

 Medicare has begun punishing hospitals with hefty fines if they have too many readmissions.

There are more than 1 million Americans who wind up back in the hospital only weeks after they are released for reasons that could have been prevented — a revolving door that for years has seemed impossible to slow.

 

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Analysis, Animals, Big Problems, Business, Health & Fitness, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Four-fifths of all antibiotics are consumed by the meat industry

Livestock consumption of antibiotics reached a record nearly 29.9 billion pounds in 2011.

The Food and Drug Administration, last year,  proposed a set of voluntary “guidelines”designed to nudge the meat industry to curb its antibiotics habit.  Since then, the agency has been mulling whether and how to implement the new program. Meanwhile, the meat industry has been merrily gorging away on antibiotics—and churning out meat rife with antibiotic-resistant pathogens—if the latest data from the FDA itself is any indication.

 

 

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