Category Archives: Health

Telehealth Technology: Philips “Virtual Care Station” – “High Quality, Secure, Clinical-Grade”

Philips Virtual Care Station, inspired by the VA’s ATLAS program, is a community-based telehealth solution designed to expand access to high-quality care by connecting patients and providers remotely through a secure, clinical-grade environment.

Philips Virtual Care Station - Telemedicine Video July 21 2020

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Studies: 4- And 6-Hour Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) Diets, No Food Limits Result In Weight Loss

UIC Chicago Illinois
University of Illinois, Chicago (July 15, 2020)

“The findings of this study are promising and reinforce what we’ve seen in other studies — fasting diets are a viable option for people who want to lose weight, especially for people who do not want to count calories or find other diets to be fatiguing,” Varady said. 

…participants in both daily fasting groups reduced calorie intake by about 550 calories each day simply by adhering to the schedule and lost about 3% of their body weight. The researchers also found that insulin resistance and oxidative stress levels were reduced among participants in the study groups when compared with the control group.

4- And 6-Hour Time Restricted Eating TRE DietsTwo daily fasting diets, also known as time-restricted feeding diets, are effective for weight loss, according to a new study published by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The study reported results from a clinical trial that compared a 4-hour time-restricted feeding diet and a 6-hour time-restricted feeding diet to a control group.

“This is the first human clinical trial to compare the effects of two popular forms of time-restricted feeding on body weight and cardiometabolic risk factors,” said Krista Varady, professor of nutrition at the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences and corresponding author of the story.

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Food & Dining: “How A Michelin Star Restaurant Will Cope Post Covid-19”

After months in lockdown, restaurants are back. But they’re coming out of hibernation into a strange new world shaped by the coronavirus pandemic. In the first in a new series of films, food writer Tim Hayward and the FT’s Daniel Garrahan visit Lyle’s in east London to see how a Michelin star restaurant has pivoted from fine dining to pizza.

World News Podcast: Stocks And Covid-19 Cases Rise, Catalonia Lockdown

The Economist LogoThe Economist reviews the world’s top headlines including Blackrock’s earnings, new Covid-19 cases rise in America and other countries, airline industry updates and more.

Health Technology Video: “Smart Insulin Pumps” For Diabetes Management

Technology is finally innovating diabetes management. With the advancement in technologies like continuous glucose monitors, traditional insulin pumps are evolving into smarter devices that can automate insulin delivery.

Medtronic and Tandem Diabetes are the only two companies to offer hybrid closed loop systems. A community of diabetics are also hacking pumps to do the same thing. CNBC’s Erin Black just switched from the hacked system to Tandem’s Control-IQ and takes a look at how insulin pumps are getting smarter.

Morning News: Testing Buildings For Covid-19, Small Firms & Visas

Axios TodayBuildings are getting tested for coronavirus, too. Research teams in Oregon are conducting real-time coronavirus tests on ventilation systems in buildings that could be essential for returning to the office or school.

  • Plus, small businesses are facing an existential threat.
  • And, in a rare move, the Trump administration rescinds a recent guideline that would have sent hundreds of thousands of international students packing.

Guests: Axios’ Joann Muller, Dion Rabouin, and Mike Allen.

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Cognition & Brain Studies: Apathy, Not Depression, Associated With Dementia

‘Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry” (July 10, 2020):

jnnp-2020-July-91-7-677-F1.mediumWe tested the hypothesis that apathy, but not depression, is associated with dementia in patients with SVD. We found that higher baseline apathy, as well as increasing apathy over time, were associated with an increased dementia risk. In contrast, neither baseline depression or change in depression was associated with dementia. The relationship between apathy and dementia remained after controlling for other well-established risk factors including age, education and cognition. Finally, adding apathy to models predicting dementia improved model fit. These results suggest that apathy may be a prodromal symptom of dementia in patients with SVD.

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is the leading vascular cause of dementia and plays a major role in cognitive decline and mortality.1 2 SVD affects the small vessels of the brain, leading to damage in the subcortical grey and white matter.1 The resulting clinical presentation includes cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms.1

Apathy is a reduction in goal-directed behaviour, which is a common neuropsychiatric symptom in SVD.3 Importantly, apathy is dissociable from depression,3 4 another symptom in SVD for which low mood is a predominant manifestation.5 Although there is some symptomatic overlap between the two,6 research using diffusion imaging reported that apathy, but not depression, was associated with white matter network damage in SVD.3 Many of the white matter pathways underlying apathy overlap with those related to cognitive impairment, and accordingly apathy, rather than depression, has been associated with cognitive deficits in SVD.7 These results suggest that apathy and cognitive impairment are symptomatic of prodromal dementia in SVD.

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Top Science Podcasts: “What We Know About Antibodies & Covid-19”

With antibodies having implications for both our understanding of previous coronavirus infections and potential future immunity, Nicola Davis talks to Prof Eleanor Riley about how best to test for them and asks whether antibodies are the only thing we should be looking for.