ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – If you’re finding your teenager a handful and can’t imagine having three of them consider this: triplets are just as healthy as “singletons” and have fewer behavioural problems and are less likely to suffer mood swings. The University of Zurich Children’s Hospital studied 19 sets of triplets, mean age 14.5 years, to consider the long-term impact of low birth weight and slower initial development.
Triplets catch up, the study showed, and there are even some benefits, such as better behaviour.
The study was published last month in the Journal of Pediatrics.
One set of triplets in Texas still has 10 years to go before reaching adolescence, but their mother agrees with the study’s findings about health and behaviour, saying people are often surprised at how well behaved her five-year-olds are.
Swiss dismantle “large” contraband scam that could endanger bee population
Swiss Alpine bee
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Customs officials working closely with the federal agriculture office have uncovered a scam to bring in cheap and possibly unhealthy bees from abroad, in large numbers, by convincing farmers that these are Ticino born and bred bees.
The world’s bee populations are under pressure from disease and given that one-third of the world’s agricultural crops require bees for pollination, maintaining a healthy bee population is crucial.
Bern says that since the introduction of Asian bees 25 years ago farmers have had to treat their beehive populations or risk losing them completely.
Dozens of colonies of bees were killed by Swiss authorities when the contraband bees were discovered. Farmers with depleted populations had ordered the so-called Ticino bees but the timing of the breeding raised suspicions.
Patrick Aebischer, president of EPFL and Jacques Melly, president of the Valais cantonal council, sign an agreement of understanding 10 January to set up a branch of the polytechnic in Valais
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Canton Vaud’s federal polytechnic institute, EPFL and canton Valais signed an agreement of intention Tuesday 10 January in Sion to establish a branch of the school in canton Valais, most likely in Sion but working closely with a number of existing services throughout the canton.
A formal agreement and plans will be developed later in the year, but EPFL President Patrick Aebischer is quoted by Le Nouvelliste as saying the new campus should be up and running by 2015.
The new branch of EPFL will have have 11 research and training chairs, the canton and EPFL announced at a press conference Tuesday.
Valais will have a teaching campus that focuses on energy, health and chemistry, according to Le Nouvelliste, with seven chairs in energy and the rest in bio-technology and bio-engineering, while Le Temps reports that four chairs will be in energy and the others in biotechnology and medical engineering.
EPFL has not yet issued a press release confirming details but Valais, for its part, says the focus will be on energy, health (with a focus on rehabilitation) and nutrition and the new school should help attract international companies. Nutrition studies would centre around work to produce components for vitamins and medicines.
A masters degree in energy is being planned.
EPFL is based in Lausanne but has a small campus in Neuchatel for nanotechnology.
GENEVALUNCH – The most comprehensive study ever of the source of cancers in Britain according to its authors shows that smoking, drinking, poor eating habits and excess weight trigger 43 percent of cancers in the country and are responsible for half of all cancer-related deaths.
The study is published today in the British Journal of Cancer and is receiving considerable media attention in the UK.
The biggest lifestyle changes men should make, the report suggests, is to eat more fruits and vegetables and to smoke less. Women should keep their weight down.
The authors, in their introduction to the special supplement to the regular journal say the results show “a limited number of important factors that can, at least to some extent, be affected by personal or political choices. The most important among these is continuation of the significant reduction in tobacco exposure. Next in importance are reductions in obesity and in heavy alcohol consumption, and certain other dietary changes. Each of these four main strategies for cancer control would also substantially reduce the burden of other non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiovascular, diabetic, renal and hepatic disease.”
The UK had 134,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in 2010. Tobacco alone is responsible for about 20 percent of all cancers and 25 percent of cancer-related deaths.
“Over the past 40 years in the UK, the probability of death before the age of 70 years has been halved, and over the next few decades it could be halved again by continued improvements in the treatment of disease and by paying appropriate attention to the few major avoidable causes of disease.
Online tax filing: quick, easy and popular in Switzerland
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A small sampling of the Swiss population, 1,000 people interviewed by phone, has shown the Swiss to be happy with government online services, particularly at the commune level, says Bern.
The results of the study commissioned by the federal government, published 18 October, show that 85 percent of Swiss now have Internet access, with smartphones and private connections growing. Older people are using the Internet more.
The growing use of the Internet is no longer translating into a great use of government online services, however, and there is still a tendency to telephone to contact local authorities rather than to try to reach them by e-mail.
The most popular services are online tax filing and various aspects of voting. Some 44 percent of those interviewed said they would like to see the federal and cantonal governments build a health information service, since two-thirds of people go online to look for medical information, but the rate of credibility for information found is very low.
AUSTRIA – Colorectal cancer, the fourth leading cancer killer worldwide, advances faster in men, therefore, men should get their first colonoscopy to screen for the disease at age 45, five years earlier than the current recommendation, said a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The study carried out in Austria between 2007 and 2010 found “a significantly higher rate of these lesions among men compared with women in all age groups, suggesting that male sex constitutes an independent risk factor for colorectal carcinoma.”
It concludes that screening guidelines may need to be adjusted for sex and age. Currently, the age for referring patients to screening colonoscopy is independent of sex and usually recommended to be 50 years.
Link to: San Francisco Chronicle, JAMA
Emys, a robot developed as part of the Lirec (Living with robots and interactive companions) project funded by the EC (photo, ©2011 LIREC)
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – The European Commission 20 July agreed to commit €7 billion to research and development, in what it says is its “biggest ever European Commission funding package”, designed to create some 174,000 jobs in the short term and another 450,000 in the long term and to stimulate nearly €80 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) growth within the next 15 years.
Research, Innovation and Science Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn says the package will be used for stimulating European innovation through research funding.
The funding will take the form of grants to 16,000 recipients in European universities and research organizations and to industry specialists, with “a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises”.
“A common problem is bridging the gap between research and the market, and this funding can help demonstrate the commercial potential of a new technology, for example, or that a new idea can work on a sufficiently large scale to be industrially viable,” the EC notes on Cordis, its news site.
“Challenges like climate change, energy and food security, health and an aging population can be better managed if public sector intervention is used effectively to stimulate the private sector and remove bottlenecks stopping the best and brightest ideas from reaching the market, due to problems such as a lack of finance or fragmentation in research.”
How the money will be spent
The EC details how the funds will be distributed. Key points include:
VEVEY, SWITZERLAND – Nestlé’s move into nutritional solutions for health problems is being given a boost this week with Nestlé Health Science taking a minority stake in a New Zealand company that specializes in developing kiwi-based products to treat gastrointestinal conditions.
Vital Foods, a 20-year-old firm, has two products for treating constipation that are well established in New Zealand, Phloe and KiwiCrush.
“Both products are based on a natural kiwifruit extract, and have been clinically shown to be effective against constipation,” the Swiss multinational notes in a statement about the deal. “Constipation is a common functional disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, affecting around 1 in 6 people in the general adult population in Oceania, Europe and the US.”
The terms of the agreement are not being disclosed. The Swiss company will have a seat on the board, giving it a voice in the company’s product development and commercialization strategies. Inventages, which manages Nestlé Venture Funds, has been an investor in Vital Foods for several years.
Nestlé Health Science also announced Thursday that it has completed the purchase of Prometheus, a company that specializes in gastroenterology and oncology diagnostics and specialty pharmaceutical products, notably for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
The San Diego, California firm was scheduled for an IPO in the US when it agreed to a buyout by Nestlé in May 2011. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Dow Jones News cited a Vontobel analyst as saying that the Vevey company most likely paid over $1 billion.
Swiss scenery would be improved without power lines, argues HTST, which is considering a popular initiative
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Several groups have fought power lines in Switzerland over the years, arguing against them for esthetic reasons, particularly in tourist areas. Now, as a group in canton Valais is about to present a feasibility study showing that the lines can be effectively buried underground, a popular initiative to require their removal is underway, reports RSR.
A new organization, HTST, is discussing the option of a popular initiative with various partners, according to RSR, which could get underway by the end of 2011 and 2012, to put the issue to a national vote. The group argues that power lines waste energy, are a danger to the population’s health, and ruin the countryside.
Measles, photo: US Center for Disease Control
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland has seen 497 cases of measles declared since the start of 2011, compared to 211 for the same period a year earlier, the weekly newsletter from Swiss public health authorities shows.
Geneva (110 cases) and Vaud (93) are feeling the impact of a major epidemic in France, while Basel, with 57 cases, is affected mainly by a group that is reluctant to vaccinate its children.
Doctors are legally obliged to report suspected measles cases rapidly to public health authorities and anyone with the contagious disease will be quarantined. The federal public health department reminds anyone who has not had a second vaccination to be sure to have one in order to be protected against the disease, which can cause severe health problems and occasionally death. A 12-year-old girl died in Geneva in a major epidemic in 2009.
Background, GenevaLunch articles on measles in Switzerland
Carel Ijsselmuiden, Cohred
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two major players in the field of international health research have now joined forces.
The Global Forum for Health Research and Cohred, the Council on Health Research for Development, merged officially at the end of April, less than six months after announcing the merger.
“We hope that Forum 2012 will set the tone for new thinking, beyond ‘aid’ – concentrating on research and innovation as core drivers of health and development, and as a practical way for low and middle income countries to take charge of their own development agendas while working closely with high income country partners,” says Carel IJsselmuiden, director of Cohred and now executive director of the new organization.
Each group brings expertise and tools in an area that is complementary to the work of the other:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two Geneva-based humanitarian aid groups, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Red Cross (ICRC) are to receive $8 million in new funding from the US government for operations in Cote d’Ivoire, the US Mission in Geneva announced Friday 6 May. The money brings to $43m the total the US State Department has earmarked for humanitarian aid in the region.
The UNHCR will receive $6.5 million and the ICRC $2m. The funds are intended for health care and essential household items, construction and maintenance of camps, increasing access to clean water, and restoring family links severed as a result of displacement, the US State Department says.
More than 170,000 people have fled the fighting in Cote d’Ivoire, most of them to neighboring Liberia and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced.
The US announced 5 May it is donating $6.5m to the IOM in Geneva to help fund the evacuations from Misrata, Libya.
Zurich's Bahnhof "guardian angel", by Niki de Saint Phalle, might need to help pad travellers pocketbooks in 2012
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Hospital as well as some train fares in Switzerland are expected to rise significantly in 2012, based on preliminary remarks by a Swiss health organization and the CFF rail company Tuesday 3 May.
Santésuisse 3 May announced that it expects to see hospital costs rise by 1.6 percent overall in Switzerland, but with some significant differences around the country: Genevans can expect to pay 4.5 percent more and residents of canton Vaud 1.5 percent more, while Ticino is the rare canton that can expect to see hospitalization cost considerably less, down 7.6 percent.
Cantons will share costs
The change is due to an agreement just reached by the cantons and that goes into effect in January 2012. Hospitals have until now charged based on the cost of services delivered, but they will in future charge a fixed amount for a service, based on calculations of overall services provided throughout the country, with the cost shared and spread by the cantons. The new agreement will share hospitalization charges more equitably across the country.
Track 7, first class, year-round subscription and commune tickets to go up
A year and a half after the world’s first ovarian transplant between twins, Victoria was born. She is healthy and not affected by Turner Syndrome (TS), the condition her mother and aunt have, doctors reported Saturday 16 April.
Victoria’s mother, Karine Thiriot, 39, has TS, a chromosome disorder where the second sex chromosome is either partially or completely missing.
“TS occurs in approximately 1 of every 2,000 female births and in as many as 10% of all miscarriages,” reports the Turner Syndrome Society of the United States. “Most (90%) TS individuals will experience early ovarian failure.”
Fifteen years of failed in vitro fertilization ended when Thiriot accepted an ovarian transplant from her twin sister, who, although affected by the same syndrome, was fertile.
The transplant surgery was performed by Belgian Jacques Donnez in August 2009. It was the first ovarian transplant in Europe, and the first one globally between twins.
Links to other sites: AFP, Turner Syndrome Society of the US
Bern vigil, ©2011 photo Herbi Ditl on flickr.com/photos/herbivore
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Vigils were organized, mainly by Greenpeace, in several Swiss cities Monday evening 14 March, to encourage people to reflect on Switzerland’s nuclear energy policy in the wake of the Japanese earthquake that has caused damage to nuclear power plants there.
The vigils were also designed to provide a means for the public to express compassion and concern for Japan’s nuclear menace, with spreading radiation a concern.
Three hundred people came at the start of the vigil in Bern.
Background: Reuters Fact Box on radiation
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – (video) The Blue Brain project at EPFL has refuted the centuries-old belief that the human brain may start life as a blank slate, enriched and developed through experience alone, findings which are potentially of great significance for treatment of neurological disorders. The findings appear to be “common across animals”, says the research team.
EPFL’s researchers have demonstrated that “small clusters of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex interconnect according to a set of immutable and relatively simple rules”, the university says in a press release. In other words, the clusters are basic building blocks that contain within them “a kind of fundamental, innate knowledge”.
Experience builds on these clusters, each of which contains about 50 neurons.
The findings were published ahead of the print edition 7 March in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The authors, under the lead of Blue Brain project head Henry Markram, write in their abstract:
“Neuronal circuitry is often considered a clean slate that can be dynamically and arbitrarily molded by experience. However, when we investigated synaptic connectivity in groups of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex, we found that both connectivity and synaptic weights were surprisingly predictable. . .
“We speculate that these elementary neuronal groups are prescribed Lego-like building blocks of perception and that acquired memory relies more on combining these elementary assemblies into higher-order constructs.”
The EPFL argues that “the discovery redistributes the balance between innate and acquired”, a considerable advance in our understanding of how the brain works:
Read more…
Pigeon virus sweeps the region; some have trouble landing
Pigeons in Lausanne are safe from the virus, for now (photo, ©2011, overthemoonon flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/overthemoon)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A deadly virus is killing what may be hundreds of pigeons and turtledoves around Geneva, particularly in the commune of Carouge.
Health authorities advised people in an alert published 31 January not to touch any dead birds to avoid spreading the disease to other ones.
The virus is not dangerous to humans or other animals, and the scale of the problem is not a health nuisance, nor have the birds been poisoned, authorities were quick to reassure.
The pigeon population may be reduced in the short term but it will rebuild as the virus dies out naturally.
Health authorities say the virus, which is often lethal, affects only pigeons and turtledoves, but they recommend that people avoid touching sick or dead birds.
Please don’t feed the birds!
Geneva has a law against feeding birds, but the city is insisting that for the sake of the pigeons, people must restrain from feeding them now, as the virus spreads most easily when the birds flock together. Feeding encourages them to concentrate in small areas.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss residents could be forgiven for wondering if Novartis is in relatively good or bad shape Thursday morning, depending on which news sources they follow. The company’s annual report, published Thursday 27 January, shows net sales of $50.6 billion, up from $44.3b a year earlier. Net income was close to $10b, up from $8.5b.
But international business media focus on the gloomier side.
Republished with permission from IP Watch
By Catherine Saez
World Health Organization (WHO) members 19 January raised strong concerns that a working group they mandated last May to address problems with WHO policy on counterfeit and substandard medicines has yet to be formed – with four months remaining before it must report back to members.
One delegation called for a halt to WHO activities on anti-counterfeiting until the outcome of the working group is accepted by member states.
WHO Director General Margaret Chan told members of the WHO Executive Board today that a first meeting of a dedicated working group would be held in late February. The Board is meeting from 17-25 January.
Countries said falsified medicines were a threat for global public health but according to some delegates, the solution cannot be dominated by intellectual property rights enforcement concerns.
The UN health agency’s HIV/Aids strategy also was discussed Tuesday with a request from countries to emphasize prevention.
Swiss gov't will pay smaller share of cost of incontinence
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Opticians in Switzerland are unusually busy this week, reports 24 Heures, but it’s not thanks to Christmas shoppers: this is the last chance to get reimbursed CHF180 towards your new eyeglasses or contact lenses by your health insurance company.
Starting 1 Janaury 2011, a series of health care cost-cutting measures for the basic obligatory health insurance will go into effect.
These include: hospital patients will contribute CHF15 instead of the current CHF10 a day for basic hospitalization, glycemia measuring devices for diabetes patients will be covered up to CHF43 a year instead of CHF135, and the coverage for incontinence pads and pants will be reduced by about one-third for the least and most severe cases and about 10 percent for average cases.
Adults currently can ask to be reimbursed once every five years up to CHF180 for glasses and contact lenses, and children annually, but this will end for all age groups in January.
Insurers will no longer have to reimburse part of cost of glasses, contact lenses
The reductions in coverage will save the federal government CHF40 million a year in obligatory insurance payments, says Bern, about 10 percent of its expenditures in this area. The government covers some obligatory health insurance costs for people receiving disability insurance, social assistance or unemployment benefits. The change will, however, also affect consumers who pay their own health insurance premiums and costs, effectively passing the bill from the insurer to the consumer. Insurance premiums, which have been rising for several years, will go up again for most Swiss in 2011.
The government is, however, increasing coverage in two areas: girls and young women currently have human
papillomavirus vaccinations coverd if they are carried out as part of a cantonal vaccination programme, up to age 20. This will be extended up to age 26, until the end of 2012. Obligatory health insurance will also cover some stomach reduction surgeries in cases of morbid obesity with BMI (body mass index) over 35 (previously 40), if the person has followed a weight-loss programme for two years without losing weight.
Swiss health insurance FAQ, English, published by the federal government June 2010
Table: Swiss Federal Office of Health, 2008 statistical review, mandatory insurance system – total health care costs of some OECD countries, as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product)
Baladi bread made with fortified wheat in Egypt, one of Gain's nutrition projects (photo, ©2010, GAIN)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Gain (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) is the latest actor in Geneva to be granted a special status and privileges by the Swiss government that will enhance its standing as an international organization. Gain, founded in 2002, and the Swiss government 16 December signed an agreement under the Swiss Federal Act on Privileges, Immunities, Facilities and Financial Aid. The organization, based in Geneva, describes itself as “a Swiss foundation that mobilizes public-private partnerships and provides financial and technical support to deliver nutritious foods to those people most at risk of malnutrition”.
“We are very pleased by the support being provided through this agreement to Gain and our efforts to combat malnutrition,” Marc Van Ameringen, CEO, said at the signing ceremony. He noted that in 2010 Gain-supported nutrition programs are reaching close to 400 million individuals in more than 25 countries.
Bern says in a statement about the new agreement that it anchors Gain in Geneva for the long run, thus reinforcing the city’s role as an international public health centre. The World Health Organization and the Global Alliance, are two of the larger international health organizations.
Gain’s work is taking on growing importance, the Swiss government says, helping improve the health of the world’s most disadvantaged. It is having a direct impact on efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in reducing maternal mortality and improving the health of mothers.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One million Swiss, one in eight people in the country, will have a new health insurance company in 2011, says consumer group Comparis, which mandated a study. Insurance premiums will rise 8.6 percent in 2011 after going up more than 11 percent in 2010. Rates will rise less in French-speaking Switzerland, where fewer people changed insurers. The deadline for changing was the end of November.
Lausanne, Zurich bottom of list in annual public administration school review
Swiss cantons financial index, source, IDHEAP, 2010. Legend: combined index, financial health, financial management
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva and Neuchatel fare well in the annual review of 20 Swiss cities by Idheap, the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration in Lausanne. Zurich and Lausanne do less well, figuring at the bottom of the list.
The school, which publishes a number of studies and regular reports on Swiss public finances, presented the 2009 comparative report to journalists 24 November, although the report came out in late October. It measures the financial health of the Swiss confederation, the cantons and a selection of cities. It bases its ranking on two main factors: the extent to which expenses are covered by revenues and the quality of financial management.
Lausanne and Geneva, contrast in financial management
Geneva-Servette Hockey Club players, here training, are more fit than the average person in Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland takes the country’s health pulse once every five years, and the 2010 results, published 2 November, show too many Swiss remain overweight, at 34 percent of the population, with 8 percent considered obese. Only two in five persons has an adequate level of exercise. That said, the Swiss generally consider themselves to be in good health, 87 percent. The weight and exercise figures might be higher than health authorities would like, but the reassuring news is that the Swiss national waistline has stopped expanding.
The number of overweight people in Switzerland grew steadily from 1990 to 2002, up from 30 percent of the population, but since 2002 it has remained stable at 37 percent.
Other key findings of the survey, based on questionnaires given to 18,760 individuals residing in Switzerland:
Left to right: William Chin, new EPFL/Harvard programme chair, Didier Burkhalter, Harvard, Ernesto Bertarelli, Bertarelli Foundation, Patrick Aebischer, EPFL
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The EPFL in Lausanne has been building a strong research base in bioengineering, including work in neuroengineering, but a grant announced Friday 29 October by the Bertarelli Foundation moves it a firm step closer to being a major international research centre in the area of engineered solutions to help people with neurological impairments.
The field covers a range of healthcare problems for people who have had neurological damage, from birth or from strokes, degenerative diseases and accidents.
The $9 million grant from the Bertarelli Foundation for a joint programme with Harvard in the US brings the two universities together to take neuroprosthetic devices developped at the EPFL to the testing stage at Harvard.
The Bertarelli Foundation in 2009 had already provided some of the initial funding to establish the EPFL’s Neuprosthetics Center, a joint project between the School of Life Sciences and the School of Engineering, where it is housed.
José del R Millán of the centre describes neuroprosthetics as “a rapidly growing discipline that brings together neuroscience and biomedical engineering and seeks to interface the neural system directly to prostheses”.
The centre works with university hospitals in Geneva and Lausanne and with biomedical companies in the Lake Geneva region, but a logical extension of its creation last year is a partnerships to coordinate development work with clinical trials.
© WHO 2010
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - India’s mortality rate due to malaria may be 13 times higher than reported, according to a study published in The Lancet 21 October, casting doubts on the validity of malaria deaths figures world-wide. The study estimates that 205,000 people may in fact be dying of malaria every year in India, due to incorrect diagnoses, especially in poor rural areas and at a distance from health centres.
The World Health Organization (WHO) statistics count 15,000 people who die of malaria in India each year. The Geneva-based WHO disputes the numbers, according to the BBC, saying they are far too high and that some criteria for inclusion, such as high fever, are not necessarily accurate.
Zurich Airport recently lost its battle with Germany to allow flights from Switzerland over southern German airspace, near the airport: noise pollution was a key issue
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The noise from aircraft appears to increase the risk of heart attacks, a major longitudinal study by the University of Bern shows. The study is part of the Swiss National Cohort longitudinal (over several years) reports on the Swiss population.
It is published in the current issue of the journal Epidemiology. The research looked at 4.6 million Swiss over age 30, from 2000 to 2005, and shows that with an exposure to 60 decibels as compared to 45 decibels on a regular basis over a 15-year period, the risk of a heart attack is 30 percent higher.
“Mortality increased with increasing level and duration of aircraft noise,” writes lead author Anke Huss. “Aircraft noise was associated with mortality from myocardial infarction, with a dose-response relationship for level and duration of exposure. The association does not appear to be explained by exposure to particulate matter air pollution, education, or socioeconomic status of the municipality.”
The study is significant in showing the health hazards of living in a flight path, but also for showing that noise alone is a risk factor. Previous studies of road and airport noise pollution have not shown as clearly the impact of noise without other types of pollution included.
The Swiss National Cohort has been funded since 2006 by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Its recent work, according to a report published in the International Journal of Public Health in June 2010, includes these findings: “Men aged 30 with university degrees can expect to live 7.1 years longer than men with compulsory schooling only (Spoerri et al. 2006). Another study found an increased risk of Alzheimer disease in people who had lived within 50 m of a 220–380 kV power line for at least 15 years (Huss et al. 2009). Mortality from coronary heart disease was found to decline by 22% for each 1,000 m increase in the altitude of the place of residence (Faeh et al. 2009).
Links to other sites: Swiss National Cohort, Reuters Health, International Journal of Public Health
But 1,000 women die a day: numbers must fall further, say UN agencies
Maternal health care, Sierre Leone (photo: UN / H Bigur)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Maternal deaths are falling worldwide, down by 34 percent since 1990, shows a new multi- agency report published 15 September. Some 358,000 women died during or from complications related to childbirth in 2008, down from 546,000 18 years earlier.
The fall is commendable, notes the World Health Organization (WHO), which is one of the author agencies, but the rate of decline is less than half of that needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal of a 75 percent reduction in maternal deaths between 1990 and 2015.
The report was published jointly by WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank.
Pregnant women still die from four major causes, according to the report: severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortions. About 1,000 women died due to these complications every day in 2008. Of these, 570 lived in sub-Saharan Africa, 300 in South Asia and five in high-income countries.
(videos) Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A robotic wheelchair that combines brain-machine interface with help from computerized cameras, and a tiny laser beamer that can be incorporated into mobile phones, MP3 players and portable computers are two of the latest results of research at EPFL that have the hi-tech world talking.
EPFL is probably best known locally for its academic programmes, as one of two federal polytechnic institutes in Switzerland. The university is an active part of the Lake Geneva region entrepreneurial scene, however, with several successful spinoffs and numerous joint ventures where a significant part of the research is carried out at EPFL.
Wheelchair takes brain-machine interface a step further
EPFL’s neuroprosthetic centre laboratory headed by José de R Millán has developed a robotic wheelchair that uses a system called “shared control” to help severely paralyzed people use brain-machine interface to move their wheelchair, avoiding objects. The prototype is still rudimentary and has not been tested with paralyzed people, the laboratory cautions, but it could eventually significantly improve the life of wheelchair-bound people who have extensive paralysis.
Brain-machine interface is already being used in medicine: computers, prosthetics and other devices, work with technologies that capture signals from the nerves, muscles and the brain. The EPFL robotic wheelchair uses electroencephalography, or EEG to help the patient maneuver his or her wheelchair through thoughts.
WHO says over 50% population obese in 10 Pacific islands, causing host of health problems
Adolescents learn good eating habits at a youth centre in Port Vila, Vanuatu (photo: Unicef /Giacomo Pirozzi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Three Pacific Island regions, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia are home to 10 islands whose populations are suffering from growing health problems, with obesity at the root of the problem. Imported foods are the main culprit, says the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
WHO surveys show that in at least 10 Pacific island countries, more than 50 percent of the population is overweight.
Obesity prevalence ranges from more than 30% in Fiji to a “staggering 80 percent among women in American Samoa”, a territory of the USA, says the organization.
Overweight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) equal to or more than 25, and obesity as a BMI equal to or more than 30.
“Promotion of traditional foods has fallen by the wayside. They are unable to compete with the glamour and flashiness of imported foods,” says Dr Temo K Waqanivalu, the WHO’s technical officer for nutrition and physical activity for the South Pacific.
Fewer imports and more fresh, local food, including fish and vegetables, are needed in people’s diets, he says.
Imported food in the past came mainly from Australia and New Zealand, but much of it now comes from China, Malaysia and the Philippines. These foods are often energy-dense and nutritionally poor, such as highly refined cereals and fatty meat, according to the Pacific Food Summit.
Lack of food safety regulations is a problem, with old, damaged and contaminated products arriving in the market as well as products with low mineral content that are high in sugar and fat.
