Big Data-based online health calculator can predict heart disease risk, heart age
Thursday, July 26, 2018 IST
Scientists have developed a novel online health calculator using big data, that can help people determine their risk of heart disease as well as their heart age. The calculator allows individuals to accurately predict their risk of hospitalisation or death from cardiovascular diseases within the next five years.
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For example, if their risk is 5%, it means that five in 100 people like them will experience a serious cardiovascular event in the next five years. The calculator also provides heart age, a measure of heart health. Unlike other risk prediction tools, the Cardiovascular Disease Population Risk Tool considers many factors, such as socio-demographic status, environmental influences like air pollution, health behaviours ranging from smoking status to alcohol intake to physical activity, health conditions and more.
"Doctors will check your blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but they don't necessarily ask about lifestyle factors that could put you at risk of a heart attack and stroke," said lead author Doug Manuel, senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital in Canada. Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of death globally, accounting for an estimated 17.7 million people's lives in 2015.
Cause of Prostate Cancer Progression to Advanced Stage Uncovered
The cause of prostate cancer progression to the incurable stage has likely been uncovered in a recent study. Researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland have discovered novel genes and mechanisms that can explain how a genomic variant in a single nucleotide polymorphism influences prostate cancer aggressiveness. Their findings also suggest ways to improve risk stratification and clinical treatment for advanced prostate cancer. Three billion base pairs in the human genome are nearly identical between any two individuals. Nevertheless, genome sequence variation such as single nucleotide polymorphism does occur in the population and may have profound effects on an individual's risk of developing various diseases, including prostate cancer. Academy Research Fellow Gong-Hong Wei said, "How human genomic variants cause disease and its progression is in general one of the most compelling puzzles and questions in medicine." Prostate cancer is the second-most common cancer and the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death in men, with more than 1.1 million new cases diagnosed and 3,00,000 deaths annually worldwide. The full findings are present in the journal Cell.
Perfectionism in Young Children Indicates OCD Risk
Children who tend to be perfectionists and show excessive self-control are two times more likely than their peers to develop obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by the time they reach their teens, a study says. "...striving for perfection often are considered by parents and society as good because they can eliminate mistakes, but excessive self-control and perfectionism raise a red flag," said Kirsten E Gilbert, from the Washington University in the US. "In adolescents and adults, these characteristics are associated with OCD and other disorders, such as anorexia and social anxiety. We've now been able to link this to OCD risk in children," said Gilbert. OCD often involves uncontrollable, recurring thoughts, or obsessions — such as a fear of germs or a need to have things in perfect order — and behaviours that a person feels the urge to repeat over and over — such as hand-washing or repeatedly checking whether doors are locked.
Second-hand Smoke behind Thousands of Stillbirths
Over 50% of pregnant women in developing countries are exposed to second-hand smoke, according to a study which found such exposure causes about 17,000 still births every year in Pakistan alone. Exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth, congenital malformations, low birth weight and respiratory illnesses. However, little is known about the extent of second-hand smoke exposure during pregnancy. Researchers from the University of York in the UK looked at the number of pregnancies alongside smoking exposure data in 30 developing countries from 2008 to 2013. The study published in the journal BMJ Tobacco Control said in Armenia, Indonesia, Jordan, Bangladesh and Nepal, more than 50% of pregnant women reported exposure to household second-hand smoke. In five countries, household second-hand smoke exposure was twice as common as active smoking.
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