Co-creation in health

Un documentario «demain tous cretin» che sostiene che la recente diminuzione del quoziente intellettivo è, in parte, legata al bagno di chimica a cui siamo esposti e principalmente all'esposizione agli interferenti endocrini.
Gli interferenti endocrini sono sostanze chimiche presenti nei pesticidi usati in agricoltura , nei cosmetici che usiamo tutti i giorni , o nella plastica cha avvolge i nostri alimenti , questi prodotti hanno invaso la nostra vita quotidiana: siamo immersi in una zuppa chimica. 
Gli interferenti endocrini attaccano la ghiandola tiroidea, in particolare quella delle donne in gravidanza, causando danni al cervello e, negli ultimi decenni, un calo del Quoziente intellettivo

At the Martin Luther King Day Health Justice Conference at Upstate Medical University, the keynote speaker stated, “Politics is nothing more than medicine but on a societal level.” Her figurative use of the word “medicine” means that elected officials have the responsibility to diagnose and treat issues that affect their communities. As current and future health care providers, we have the duty to do what is best for each patient, and more broadly, to speak up for legislation that can improve the health of all our patients. Because governmental policies have the power to affect the medical outcomes of our patients, it makes sense for us to speak up in support of the New York Health Act (NYHA) and Medicare for All.

If you want to be as healthy as possible, there are no treadmills or weight machines required. Don’t just take my word for it—look to the longest-lived people in the world for proof.

In fact, Blue Zones researchers determined that routine natural movement is one of the most impactful ways to increase your life span, and a common habit among the world’s longest-lived populations.

Of course this might not seem realistic in our current knowledge economy, where we’re often tied to a desk and in front of a computer screen all day.

Moving naturally throughout the day might sound pleasant and romantic, but the reality is that 100 years ago only 10% of us had sedentary jobs, whereas today it’s 90%.

Recently I presented at a conference on the topic of patient engagement. I spoke to the audience, mainly comprised of digital technology start-ups, about the need to find ways to engage patients meaningfully in healthcare design.  Too many developers think they understand what patients need, but in reality, many appear to be motivated more by the cleverness of a technology than actual improvements in health outcomes.  A 2015 study from the New York University School of Medicine Department of Population Health reported that only 29% of smartphone owners using health apps say the apps have made a big impact on their health.

This Arts and Medicine essay discusses the relevance of poetry to clinical medicine in an edited transcript of a conversation between physician-poet Rafael Campo and National Book Award–winning poet Mark Doty.

E non è un complotto, è la natura.

Sono reduce insieme ai miei colleghi di 7 giorni di lavoro, 19 ore al giorno. E dopo aver letto e ascoltato qualsiasi cosa, voglio, per quello che faccio, prendermi e prendervi qualche minuto per dire la mia.

Con le prime vittime italiane del coronavirus e i casi di contagio anche nel nostro Paese è scoppiata la fobia. Cittadine isolate, scuole chiuse, eventi annullati, protocolli d’emergenza. Tutto questo in poco più di un mese e a fronte di un bilancio che, mentre scriviamo, è arrivato a 2461 morti nel mondo.

Solo in Italia l’inquinamento dell’aria è la causa di circa 80 mila decessi l’anno (Aea)

Public health: power, empowerment and professional practice by Glenn Laverack of University of Southern Denmark. A practical understaniding of how to help others to empowerment themselves in public health practice.

Richard Smith, che è stato editor di The British Medical Journal, ha affermato vigorosamente che 

healthcare, which is suffering an existential crisis, badly needs the help of philosophers

Lo stesso sentimento è condiviso da un numero sempre crescente di ricercatori di scienze della vita e da clinici: tutti questi chiedono più etica, più metodologia scientifica e più filosofia della scienza nei corsi di formazione di chi poi si troverà a lavorare in laboratori o nelle corsie di ospedali. Addirittura, Arturo Casadevall, microbiologo della Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, afferma che dovremmo mettere “the ‘Ph’ back into ‘PhD’”, ossia la filosofia (Ph) nei corsi di dottorato (Philosophiae Doctor).

It is thought about two in three smokers want to kick their deadly habit, and with good reason – the same proportion of them are believed to die prematurely because of smoking. Around the world, the habit kills more than 6 million people a year.

Yet quitting is notoriously difficult. Smoking tobacco is an addictive habit that the UK Royal College of Physicians has likened to heroin and cocaine addiction.

But this doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do. The evidence suggests that increases in tobacco taxation are the most effective means of reducing tobacco use. These taxes, recommended by the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, increase the price of tobacco products in shops, reducing their affordability – a situation which encourages smokers to quit, and deters others from starting in the first place.

In May 2018, the National Institutes of Health

(NIH) began enrollment for a vast medical research

cohort. Named “All of Us,” it’s meant to

include 1 million U.S. volunteers, who will be studied

over 10 years at a cost of $1.45 billion.

The project promises to “lay

the scientific foundation for a new

era of personalized, highly effective

health care,” a counterpoint

to previous “‘one-size-fits-all’ medicine.”

All of Us derives from a decade’s

worth of developments in

the research world. In 2011, the

National Academies of Sciences,

Engineering, and Medicine called

for a “new taxonomy of human

disease,” stating that “opportunities

to define diseases more precisely

and to inform health-care

decisions” were “being missed.”1

Five years later, President Barack

Obama launched the Precision

Medicine Initiative. The concept

was promoted by NIH Director

Francis Collins, who defined it

as “prevention and treatment strategies

that take individual variability

into account.”2 A bandwagon

effect followed, with marked shifts

in resources and attention toward

precision medicine.

Juul has come to dominate the e-cigarette market with its slick devices and nicotine-laden “vape juice,” and that’s not a good thing, federal health officials said Tuesday.

Juul sales have soared, and it’s now got the greatest market share of any company in the e-cigarette market, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. “By December 2017, Juul Laboratories’ sales comprised 29 percent of total e-cigarette sales,” a CDC team reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Pas si "rares", les maladies rares

Si le nombre de patients atteints par une maladie rare est par définition faible, il faut savoir que ces maladies se comptent par millier. Toujours selon Orphanet, on en compterait actuellement entre 6.000 et 7.000. En réalité, il pourrait y en avoir plus de 8.000 recensées à travers le monde. Car en moyenne, 5 nouvelles maladies rares sont décrites tous les mois dans la littérature médicale. Ainsi, rien qu'en France, le nombre total de personnes touchées par les maladies rares serait équivalent voire supérieur à celui des personnes souffrant d'un cancer ou atteintes d'un diabète de type 2, maladies les plus fréquentes.