A Chinese patient initially diagnosed with lung cancer traveled to Johns Hopkins for a second opinion. Noticing inconsistencies in the scans, experts at #JohnsHopkins brought her case to the gastrointestinal tumor board. Working as a team, these experts deduced her condition is actually metastatic colorectal cancer and recommended a new, more targeted treatment plan.
From a BMJ online article:
We derived a healthy lifestyle score based on information on five lifestyle factors—diet, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and body mass index (BMI).
Our findings suggest that promotion of a healthy lifestyle would help to reduce the healthcare burdens through lowering the risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, and extending disease-free life expectancy. Public policies for improving food and the physical environment conducive to adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle, as well as relevant policies and regulations (for example, smoking ban in public places or trans-fat restrictions), are critical to improving life expectancy, especially life expectancy free of major chronic diseases.
The average life expectancy in the world has increased substantially in the past few decades. The aging of the population has led to a high prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Although people live longer, older individuals often live with disabilities and chronic diseases. People with chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes have a shorter life expectancy than do their peers without these chronic conditions. Estimates of the loss in life years due to these chronic conditions range from 7.5 to 20 years, depending on the methods used and the characteristics of the study population.
Modifiable lifestyle factors including smoking, physical activity, alcohol intake, body weight, and diet quality affect both total life expectancy and incidence of chronic diseases. Studies have shown that smoking, inactivity, poor diet quality, and heavy alcohol consumption contribute up to 60% of premature deaths and 7.4-17.9 years’ loss in life expectancy. Nevertheless, little research has looked at how a combination of multiple lifestyle factors may relate to life expectancy free from the major diseases of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
From an Innovation In Aging online release:
Becoming an Age-Friendly Health System entails reliably acting on a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care and services, known as the “4Ms,” for all older adults. When implemented together, the 4Ms represent a broad shift to focus on the needs of older adults:
The Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, initiated in 2017, recognizes that an all-in, national response is needed to embrace the health and well-being of the growing older adult population. Like public health, health systems, including payers, hospitals, clinics, community-based organizations, nursing homes, and home health care, need to adopt a new way of thinking that replaces unwanted care and services with aligned interventions that respect older adults’ goals and preferences. Becoming an Age-Friendly Health System entails reliably acting on a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care and services, known as the “4Ms,” for all older adults.
Raja Dhir is the co-founder of microbiome company Seed. Based in LA, Seed is a collective of scientists and doctors, researching how bacteria can improve human health and that of our planet. Its first product, a daily synbiotic, focuses on the stomach.
Raja Dhir is a life sciences entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Seed, a venture-backed 
microbiome company pioneering the application of bacteria for both human and planetary health. He leads Seed’s R&D, academic collaborations, technology development, clinical trial design, supply chain, and intellectual property strategy.
Together with Dr. Jacques Ravel, he Co-Chairs Seed’s Scientific Advisory Board–an interdisciplinary group of scientists and doctors who lead research teams and teach at institutions including the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the Trial Innovation Unit of Mass. General Hospital (MGH). Raja has designed clinical trials with leading academic institutions including the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the Trial Innovation Unit of Mass. General Hospital (MGH).
Raja has unique expertise translating scientific research for product development with a track record that includes patented inventions to stabilize sensitive compounds to improve alpha-diversity of the gut microbiome (derived from micro-algae) and most recently, the co-invention of microbial technologies to protect honeybee populations (Apis mellifera) from neonicotinoid pesticides and pathogen colonization. His work also includes biofermentation and scale-up for both facultative and strict anaerobic organisms.
January 8, 2020 – Digital health is one of the hottest and fastest-growing tech categories, not just at CES but throughout the entire tech industry. Join us for a roundtable with media experts discussing health innovations at CES 2020, the growth potential for the health care market and more.
Guests Amy Roberts, Managing Editor, Reviewed Dana Wollman, Editor-In-Chief, Engadget Neil Batra, Principal—Life Sciences & Health Care Strategy, Deloitte
Among asymptomatic patients with very severe aortic stenosis, the incidence of the composite of operative mortality or death from cardiovascular causes during the follow-up period was significantly lower among those who underwent early aortic-valve replacement surgery than among those who received conservative care.
Geriatricians like Dr. Brandon Verdoorn see the wide range of effects of chronic pain on older patients. Minor, short-lived pain can be managed at home with ice, heat or over-the-counter medication.
If you have severe pain, persistent pain or pain that affects function, you should see your health care provider to determine the underlying cause and develop a pain management plan. That might mean physical therapy, exercise, massage or acupuncture.
Medication strategies often are used, too — typically starting with lower-risk approaches like acetaminophen and topical medications, and reserving higher-risk medications for more difficult cases.
In this episode of the podcast, Nature reporter Davide Castelvecchi joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2020. We’ll hear about multiple missions to Mars, a prototype electric car, efforts to prevent dengue, and more.
In this video, best-selling author Abraham Verghese, MD, discusses the origins of the study he coauthored identifying 5 practices that foster meaningful connections between physicians and patients.
Boomers Daily 