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December 17, 2010: Danger, Will Robinson!!! or injury prevention with sensors and algorithms Health is determined by many factors including Behavior (Physical Activity, Eating habits, Tobacco or substance abuse, responsible sexual choices), Mental Health, Injury and Violence, Environmental Quality, Preventative measures such as immunization, and Access to Health Care. Injuries are most likely to be perceived as "accidents" and "acts of fate", but they depend on the same determinants as other health factors: individual behavior, social and physical environment. The likelihood of injuries - unintentional ones and those caused by acts of violence - can be computed from physical location, gene-environment interactions, prior medical history, and physical traits.
October 12, 2010: You are the Chosen One, at least by your bacteria Host genomics is not the main decision-making factor for bacteria immigrating into human body, but it is an important factor. Two papers recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences help to understand why you are chosen and how the choosers make their decisions.
August 21, 2010: Of blood and breath: metabolite-based diagnosis of ovarian cancer Physicians always knew that breath contains clues to diseases. Chemicals in breath often correlate with chemicals in saliva and blood - be it alcohol, anaesthetics or other metabolites. Recent paper is claiming 99% to 100% accuracy of detecting ovarian cancer by metabolites in blood.
August 15, 2010: Predicting catastrophic health events "I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours". These were famous words of the almighty computer HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey". Few of us believe too much in software forecasts - be it weather, earthquakes or computer hard disk failures. Yet, we all know that sometimes it works. And such systems are very valuable, assuming they continuously improve.
August 11, 2010: On cancers and petroleum spills Researchers have known for years that smell of cancer patients is chemically different from healthy individuals. One more study featured in British Journal of Cancer brings us a bit closer to an inexpensive, easy-to-use, portable device for home diagnostics.
July 28, 2010: Hormonal Manipulation of Olfactory Cues, or How to Lose a Guy in 10 days Body odors are important cues used for social and sexual discrimination. As was shown many times, animals can easily smell age-, health- and genetics-related differences. Recent study of our large-eyed relatives, ring-tailed lemurs, demonstrate that drugs can alter body scents and change behavior.
July 14, 2010: Sit less, Move more I am typing this standing in front of my computer. My tall chair is aside. About a year ago I discovered that life is better if I stand while working some of the time. Then I found out that other people discovered it too, and more keep discovering. We hear it often: eat less and exercise. But this may not be enough. As shown in a recent study, exercise does not counteract the ill effects of sedentary lives, we should keep moving throughout the day too.
January 13, 2010: Counting Health Care Costs The primary cost in healthcare is unnecessary complexity. Second major contributor to the increase in spending is chronic disease. It actually accounts for 75% of national health expenditures. One of the main reasons for increased disease prevalence is an increase in unhealthy lifestyles.
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