The real cost to unpaid caregivers

by Jennifer Ervin and Dr Tania King, University of Melbourne

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Imagine two billion people working eight hours per day for no pay whatsoever. The fact is, you don't have to imagine it because this is the reality of the global informal unpaid caregiving load.

05 dec 2022--Estimated to equal around 9% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), unpaid care contributes substantial benefits to economic and health care systems, but remains largely unrecognized.

Unpaid care work is variously defined but for the purposes of our latest research, informal caregiving is taken to be the provision of unpaid personal services to meet the physical, mental and emotional needs that allow a dependent person to function at an acceptable level of capability, comfort and safety.

As the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted, informal unpaid care is highly gendered. Women make up an estimated 80% of informal caregivers globally which includes physical care of a person—like their hygiene, medication and food—but also includes their emotional support and important decision-making.

In Australia, roughly one in 10 people (or 10% of the population) are informal caregivers—but this does not include childcare.

On top of this, more than a third of these caregivers are in their prime working years, aged between 35 and 54.

By providing much of the world's care needs, these informal caregivers suffer personal economic and paid workforce penalties. But importantly, providing this informal care can also negatively impact the physical and mental health of caregivers.

Our review, recently published in eClinicalMedicine, worked to gather all of the evidence looking at the link between unpaid caregiving and the mental health of working-age adults in high-income OECD countries.

While previous reviews have suggested a negative association between caregiving and mental health, stronger longitudinal evidence was needed to substantiate the theory. Moreover, despite the highly gendered nature of informal care, earlier reviews lacked a gender lens.

Our review aims to address these key gaps.

We searched six databases and screened more than 4,500 records to identify 13 eligible studies with 133,426 participants from countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Israel, Japan and a number of European countries.

All the included studies had be from high-income OECD countries so our sample group was made up of like-for-like people, and studies had to be longitudinal in design and compare caregiving with non-caregiving.

Overwhelmingly, our team found that unpaid caregiving is detrimental to the mental health of working-age adults. Where studies could be ordered by gender, caregiving was consistently negatively associated with mental health for women.

While few studies examined men, this negative effect was also reported for them.

All of the studies we included used validated, self-reported, survey-based measures of mental health. These measures are well-recognized mental health measures for depressive symptoms and psychological distress which are used to assess common mental disorders.

Of the thirteen studies, only two studies reported no association between informal caregiving and mental health—and none found it was beneficial to mental health. The remaining eleven studies all reported a negative association between informal unpaid care and mental health in at least one category or gender subgroup.

Overall, our review found that among working-age adults, informal unpaid care was detrimental to their mental health.

Numerous theories attempt to explain why informal care provision may adversely affect caregivers' mental health. These include the multiple stressors many caregivers experience, the strain of juggling multiple roles that can lead to overload and the impact of time scarcity on the mental well-being of caregivers.

In addition, both the financial and time costs that come with the demands of caregiving can add to the negative impacts on mental health. Then there's also the fact that many caregivers prioritize the health of the person being cared for, which can mean they don't practice self-care or other positive health behaviors.

And finally, caregiving is emotionally laden. It's intrinsically interconnected with the relationship between the caregiver and the person they're looking after—a caregiver's mental health can be additionally affected by the sheer worry and stress of someone they love and care about being unwell—known as the family effect.

The health of caregivers is a vitally important issue, and we need to better understand how best to help current and future caregivers.

Our work identified several avenues for future research. These include a need for better baseline data and stratification by gender, the inclusion of men and an understanding of the importance of the family effect when examining the mental health of caregivers.

We also identified a lack of studies examining caregiving for "healthy" people—like children and healthy adults or elders, which remains a notable gap.

Ultimately, our findings highlight the pressing need to help alleviate the mental health risks of caregiving in working-age adults. This is especially important given informal care needs are only increasing worldwide, both with the aging global population, as well as the ongoing demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, while we need to understand the role of male caregivers better, the most pressing and urgent matter for policy change is reducing the disproportionate caregiving load on working-age women, with the aim of lightening the mental health load they currently carry.

More information: Jennifer Ervin et al, Longitudinal association between informal unpaid caregiving and mental health amongst working age adults in high-income OECD countries: A systematic review, eClinicalMedicine (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101711

Provided by University of Melbourne 

 

Wireless earphones work as inexpensive hearing aids

by Cell Press

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Some commercial earbuds can perform as well as hearing aids. This finding, presented November 15 in the journal iScience, could help a large proportion of people with hearing loss access more affordable sound amplification devices.

05 dec 2022--Hearing loss has broad health impacts, but professional hearing aids are expensive and require multiple visits to otolaryngologists and audiologists for tuning. These factors lead to major barriers for many to access professional hearing aids. One estimate suggests nearly 75% of people with hearing loss in the United States do not use hearing aids.

"There's also a social stigma associated with hearing aids," says Yen-fu Cheng, the study's corresponding author and an otolaryngologist at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. "Many patients are reluctant to wear them because they don't want to appear old. So, we started exploring if there're are more accessible alternatives."

Apple came out with a feature called "Live Listen" in 2016 that allows people to use its wireless earphones, AirPods, and iPhone for sound amplification. The feature makes AirPods functionally similar to a personal sound amplification product, which is designed for people with normal hearing for certain occasions like birdwatching.

Cheng and his team wanted to investigate whether AirPods, which are widely available devices, can serve as alternative hearing aids. The team compared Airpods 2 and AirPods Pro—the model with a noise canceling feature—with a type of premium hearing aids and a basic pair of hearing aids. The premium hearing aids cost $10,000, and the basic type cost $1,500. Both models of AirPods are significantly cheaper than hearing aids, with AirPods 2 costing $129 and AirPods Pro costing $249. Notably, AirPods Pro met four out of five technology standards for hearing aids.

The team tested the four devices with 21 participants with mild to moderate hearing loss. The researchers read a short sentence, such as "the electricity bills went up recently," to participants, who were asked to repeat their words verbatim wearing the devices. They found AirPods Pro performed similarly well compared with basic hearing aids in a quiet environment and slightly inferior to premium hearing aids. AirPods 2, while having the lowest performance among the four, helped participants hear more clearly compared with wearing no hearing aids.

In a noisy environment, AirPods Pro showed comparable performance to premium hearing aids when the noises came from the lateral direction of the participant. But when the noises came from the front of the participants, both AirPods models failed to help participants hear better.

"Two reasons may account for the difference between the two scenarios," says Ying-Hui Lai, the study's co-author and a bioengineer at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taipei. "It may relate to the trajectories soundwaves travel with, as well as the advanced signal processing algorithm by premium hearing aids. This finding will hopefully inspire engineers to design hearing aids and personal sound amplification products that are more sensitive in certain directions." He adds that AirPods Pro appears to perform better than AirPods 2, likely because of its noise-canceling feature.

"Globally, the wireless earphone market is growing rapidly. Some companies are interested in exploring the possibility of designing earbuds with sound amplification features. Our study proves that the idea is plausible," Lai says.

As a clinician, Cheng says persuading patients to use hearing aids is often challenging. "These wireless earbuds are of course not perfect, but they would be a good starting point for many patients who don't have access to professional hearing aids. They will see an increase in quality of life even with these earbuds." Cheng says.

More information: Yen-Fu Cheng, Smartphone-bundled Earphones as Personal Sound Amplification Products in Adults with Sensorineural Hearing Loss, iScience (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105436. www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext … 2589-0042(22)01708-4

Provided by Cell Press 

 

Down syndrome, like Alzheimer's, is a double-prion disorder

by University of California, San Francisco

PET scan of a human brain with Alzheimer's disease. Credit: public domain

The brains of people with Down syndrome develop the same neurodegenerative tangles and plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease and frequently demonstrate signs of the neurodegenerative disorder in their forties or fifties. A new study from researchers at UC San Francisco shows that these tangles and plaques are driven by the same amyloid beta (Aß) and tau prions that they showed are behind Alzheimer's disease in 2019.

05 dec 2022--Prions begin as normal proteins that become misshapen and self-propagate. They spread through tissue like an infection by forcing normal proteins to adopt the same misfolded shape. In both Alzheimer's and Down syndrome, as Aß and tau prions accumulate in the brain, they cause neurological dysfunction that often manifests as dementia.

Tau tangles and Aß plaques are evident in most people with Down syndrome by age 40, according to the National Institute on Aging, with at least 50% of this population developing Alzheimer's as they age.

The new study, published Nov. 7, 2022, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights how a better understanding of Down syndrome can lead to new insights about Alzheimer's, as well.

"Here you have two diseases—Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease—that have entirely different causes, and yet we see the same disease biology. It's really surprising," said Stanley Prusiner, MD, the study's senior author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his discovery of prions.

Down syndrome is the most common neurodegenerative disease among younger people in the United States, while Alzheimer's is the most common among adults.

Down syndrome occurs because of an extra copy of chromosome 21. Among the many genes on that chromosome is one called APP, which codes for one of the major components of amyloid beta. With an extra copy of the gene, people with Down syndrome produce excess APP, which may explain why they develop amyloid plaques early in life.

Young Brains Give a Clearer Picture

It's been known for some time that Aß plaques and tau tangles are present in both Down syndrome and Alzheimer's. Having shown earlier that these neurodegenerative features are provoked by prions in Alzheimer's, the researchers wanted to know whether the same aberrant proteins were present in the brains of people with Down syndrome.

While there have been extensive studies of these plaques and tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, it can be challenging to discern which changes in the brain are from old age and which are from prion activity, said Prusiner, director of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, part of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences.

"Because we see the same plaques-and-tangles pathology at a much younger age in people with Down syndrome, studying their brains allows us to get a better picture of the early process of disease formation, before the brain has become complicated by all the changes that go on during aging," he said. "And ideally, you want therapies that address these early stages."

Employing a variation on the novel assay they used in the Alzheimer's study, the team looked at donated tissue samples from deceased people with Down syndrome, which they obtained from biobanks around the world. Of the 28 samples from donors aged 19 to 65 years old, the researchers were able to isolate measurable amounts of both Aß and tau prions in almost all of them.

New Insights Could Lead to Prevention

The results confirm not only that prions are involved in the neurodegeneration seen in Down syndrome, but that Aß drives the formation of tau tangles as well as amyloid plaques, a relationship that has been suspected but not proven.

"The field has long tried to understand what the intersection is between these two pathologies," said lead author Carlo Condello, Ph.D., also a member of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases. "The Down syndrome case corroborates the idea; now you have this extra chromosome that's driving the Aß, and there's no tau gene on the chromosome. So, it's truly by increasing the expression of Aß that you kick off production of the tau."

That insight and others gleaned from studying the brains of people with Down syndrome will lead to a much better picture of how prions begin to form in the first place, said Condello.

Whether the Down syndrome brain tissue will prove to be the ultimate model for developing treatments for Alzheimer's remains to be seen, the researchers said. While the two disorders share many similarities in their prion pathobiology, there are some differences that may be limiting.

Still, the researchers said, studying the plaques and tangles in Down syndrome is a promising route to identifying the specific prions that arise at the very earliest stages of the disease process. That insight could open new vistas on not only treating but perhaps even fending off Alzheimer's disease.

"If we can understand how this neurodegeneration begins, we are one big step closer to being able to intervene at a meaningful point and actually prevent these large brain lesions from forming," Condello said.

More information: Carlo Condello et al, Aβ and tau prions feature in the neuropathogenesis of Down syndrome, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2212954119

Provided by University of California, San Francisco 

 

Novel ways to measure glucose levels without drawing blood

by JooHyeon Heo, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

EM-based subcutaneous implant glucose sensor. (a) Illustration of EM-based implantable sensor for BGL tracking; (1) blood capillary (2) electromagnetic sensor (3) dermis (4) subcutaneous fat (5) muscle tissue. (b) Proposed implant sensor. (c) Sensor size (15 mm × 4 mm ∅) compared with a coin. (d) Sensor frequency trend and corresponding variations in BGL. Credit: UNIST

A recent study affiliated with UNIST has reported a new route for measuring blood sugar levels (BGLs) without drawing blood. This is a revolutionary, non-invasive technique for testing blood glucose levels, using electromagnetic (EM)-wave-based glucose sensor inserted under the skin. Their findings have attracted much attention, as the method eliminates the need for patients with diabetes to repeatedly prick their fingers with a glucose meter.

05 dec 2022--This breakthrough has been led by Professor Franklin Bien and his research team in the Department of Electrical Engineering at UNIST.

In this study, the research team proposed an electromagnetic-based sensor that can be subcutaneously implanted and is capable of tracking minute changes in dielectric permittivity owing to changes in BGLs. The proposed sensor, which is about one-fifth the size of a cotton swab, can measure changes in glucose concentrations in interstitial fluid (ISF), the liquid that fills spaces between cells.

"[Our] present work is an effort for the realization of an implantable electromagnetic-based sensor, which can be an alternate to an enzyme-based or optical-based glucose sensor," noted the research team. "The proposed implantable sensor has not only overcome the disadvantages of the existing continuous glucose monitoring systems (CGMS), such as short lifespan, but has also enhanced the blood glucose prediction accuracy."

Credit: Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Diabetes can be diagnosed if fasting blood glucose levels are 126 mg/dL or higher. A normal fasting glucose test result is lower than 100 mg/dL. One of the main aims of diabetes treatment is to keep blood glucose levels within a specified target range. More than 400 million people worldwide are living with diabetes and they still suffer while pricking their fingers multiple times a day to check their blood glucose levels.

Various methods alternate to the finger-pricking method have been extensively studied for blood glucose detection, such as enzyme-based or optical-based glucose sensor. Yet, they still have issues in terms of long lifetime, portability, and accuracy.

In this study, the research team introduced semi-permanent and continuous blood sugar management with low maintenance costs and without the pain caused by blood collection, enabling patients to enjoy quality life through proper treatment and management of diabetes. This is expected to increase the use of CGMS, which currently accounts for only 5% of active treatments.

The research team also performed both the intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) with the sensor implanted in swine and beagles in a controlled environment. The results of initial proof-of-concept in vivo experiment showed promising correlation between BGL and sensor frequency response, according to the research team.

"Our proposed sensor and system are indeed in the early stage of development," noted the research team. "Despite that, the proof-of-concept in vivo results show promising correlation between BGL and sensor frequency response. Indeed, the sensor shows the ability to track BGL trend."

"For actual sensor implantation we must consider bio compatible packaging and foreign body reactions (FBR) for long term applications. In addition, improved sensor interface system is under development," added the research team.

Their findings have been published in Scientific Reports.

More information: Seongmun Kim et al, Subcutaneously implantable electromagnetic biosensor system for continuous glucose monitoring, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22128-w

Provided by Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology 

 

Volunteering and caring for grandchildren protects from loneliness for over 50s, study shows

by Taylor & Francis

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Caregiving for a spouse or partner is seemingly associated with higher loneliness for those over 50 years of age, a new systemic review of published research on the issue shows.

05 dec 2022--Taking in data from 28 studies, comprising 191,652 participants from 21 countries, the findings, however, also show that volunteering or looking after grandchildren may help reduce loneliness.

Publishing their findings in Aging and Mental Health, a team of international experts led by scientists at King's College London, state the results highlight a need to develop targeted interventions to combat loneliness for older adults who are caring for their partner or spouse.

"Loneliness can leave people feeling isolated and disconnected from others—and can have a wide range of negative effects on their physical and mental health," says lead author, Samia Akhter-Khan, who is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience within King's College London.

"There is a pressing need to identify people who may be more vulnerable to feeling lonely—and to develop targeted solutions to prevent and reduce loneliness in these population groups."

"Our findings suggest that providing care to a partner with complex health conditions, particularly dementia or Alzheimer's disease, is related to higher levels of loneliness—whereas caring for children or volunteering can help reduce loneliness in older adults."

Loneliness has many different causes, which will vary from person to person. Knowing which people are most at risk will lead to targeted approaches toward helping people who are feeling lonely.

Older adults contribute vast amounts of care and other unpaid activities, yet it remains unclear how these meaningful contributions to society relate to loneliness. Caregiving and volunteering may also fulfill a key expectation in older age, the expectation to contribute meaningfully, that has yet not been fully considered in loneliness research and interventions, according to the author's Social Relationship Expectations Framework recently published in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

This new systematic review, out today, included 28 studies from countries including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, China and many others. The authors examined the relationship between specific types of unpaid activities—including caring for a spouse, looking after grandchildren or volunteering—and loneliness in people over 50 years of age. They found that:

• Caring for grandchildren (or other unrelated children) was linked with lower loneliness in six out of seven studies.
• Providing care to a partner or spouse was consistently associated with higher loneliness.
• Five out of six studies reported a relationship between volunteering and lower levels of loneliness.

"This is the first review of its kind to investigate systematically the relationship between older people's caregiving and volunteering activities and loneliness," adds co-author Dr. Matthew Prina, Head of the Social Epidemiology Research Group at King's College London.

"Further research will now be necessary to investigate the needs of older caregivers—as well as to examine the barriers, opportunities, and fulfillment of engaging in meaningful activities. This could help shed light on the optimal 'dose' of volunteering and caring for grandchildren and identify ways to maximize their potential beneficial effects on combating loneliness in the over 50s. Respecting older adults for their contributions and valuing their unpaid activities will likely play an important role in mitigating loneliness."

The paper highlights that all of the studies included in this review were conducted in higher income countries and before the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an increase in the number of people experiencing loneliness.

Future research should take steps to promote evidence from lower- and middle-income countries, such as the authors' recent Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics study on Indonesia, and account for specific external factors—such as global pandemics, lockdowns, conflict settings and climate change—when investigating the association between people's unpaid activities and loneliness.

More information: Samia C. Akhter-Khan et al, Caregiving, volunteering, and loneliness in middle-aged and older adults: A systematic review, Aging and Mental Health (2022). DOI: 10.1080/13607863.2022.2144130

Samia C. Akhter-Khan et al, Understanding and Addressing Older Adults' Loneliness: The Social Relationship Expectations Framework, Perspectives on Psychological Science (2022). DOI: 10.1177/17456916221127218

Samia C. Akhter-Khan et al, Unpaid productive activities and loneliness in later life: Results from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (2000–2014), Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.archger.2022.104851

Provided by Taylor & Francis 

 

Krill oil protects dopaminergic neurons from age-related degeneration

by Impact Journals LLC

Krill oil improves healthspan. Credit: 2022 SenGupta et al.

A new research paper titled "Krill oil protects dopaminergic neurons from age-related degeneration through temporal transcriptome rewiring and suppression of several hallmarks of aging" has been published in Aging.

05 dec 2022--There is accumulating evidence that interfering with the basic aging mechanisms can enhance healthy longevity. The interventional/therapeutic strategies targeting multiple aging hallmarks could be more effective than targeting one hallmark. While health-promoting qualities of marine oils have been extensively studied, the underlying molecular mechanisms are not fully understood.

Lipid extracts from Antarctic krill are rich in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids choline, and astaxanthin. In this new study, researchers Tanima SenGupta, Yohan Lefol, Lisa Lirussi, Veronica Suaste, Torben Luders, Swapnil Gupta, Yahyah Aman, Kulbhushan Sharma, Evandro Fei Fang, and Hilde Nilsen from the University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital and Akershus University Hospital used C. elegans and human cells to investigate whether krill oil promotes healthy aging.

"In a C. elegans model of Parkinson's disease, we show that krill oil protects dopaminergic neurons from aging-related degeneration, decreases alpha-synuclein aggregation, and improves dopamine-dependent behavior and cognition," the researchers state.

Krill oil rewires distinct gene expression programs that contribute to attenuating several aging hallmarks, including oxidative stress, proteotoxic stress, senescence, genomic instability, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Mechanistically, krill oil increases neuronal resilience through temporal transcriptome rewiring to promote anti-oxidative stress and anti-inflammation via healthspan regulating transcription factors such as SNK-1. Moreover, krill oil promotes dopaminergic neuron survival through regulation of synaptic transmission and neuronal functions via PBO-2 and RIM-1.

"Collectively, krill oil rewires global gene expression programs and promotes healthy aging via abrogating multiple aging hallmarks, suggesting directions for further pre-clinical and clinical explorations," the researchers conclude.

More information: Tanima SenGupta et al, Krill oil protects dopaminergic neurons from age-related degeneration through temporal transcriptome rewiring and suppression of several hallmarks of aging, Aging (2022). DOI: 10.18632/aging.204375

Provided by Impact Journals LLC

 

Increasing protein intake by 25 g a day could help women reduce hip fracture risk by up to 14%

by University of Leeds

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Increasing intake of protein and drinking regular cups of tea or coffee is one way women could reduce their risk of suffering a hip fracture, according to new research.

05 dec 2022--Food scientists at the University of Leeds in the UK have found that for women, a 25 g a day increase in protein was associated with, on average, a 14% reduction in their risk of hip fracture. In a surprise twist, they also discovered that every additional cup of tea or coffee they drank was linked with a 4% reduction in risk.

Writing in the journal Clinical Nutrition, the researchers noted that the protective benefits were greater for women who were underweight, with a 25 g/day increase in protein reducing their risk by 45%.

The protein could come in any form: meat, dairy or eggs; and for people on a plant-based diet, from beans, nuts or legumes. Three to four eggs would provide around 25 g of protein as would a steak or piece of salmon. 100 g of tofu would provide about 17 g of protein.

Just over 3% of the women in the study group experienced a hip fracture.

Observational study

The investigation—"Foods, nutrients and hip fracture risk: A prospective study of middle-aged women"—is based on a large observational analysis of more than 26,000 women.

As an observational study, the researchers were able to identify associations between factors in diet and health. They could not single out direct cause and effect.

James Webster, a doctoral researcher in the School of Food Science and Nutrition at Leeds who led the study, said, "Across the world, the costs to individuals and societies caused by hip fracture are enormous."

"Hip fracture can often lead to other chronic illnesses, loss of independence, and premature death. In the UK, the annual cost to the NHS is between £2 to £3 billion."

"Diet is a factor that people can modify to protect themselves by maintaining healthy bones and muscles. This study is one of the first to investigate relationships between food and nutrient intakes and risk of hip fracture, with hip fractures accurately identified through hospital records."

"The results highlight which aspects of diet may be useful tools in reducing hip fracture risk in women, with evidence of links between higher protein, tea and coffee intakes and a reduced risk."

Proteins are the basic building blocks of life and are needed to keep cells, tissues and muscles working properly as well as contributing to bone health.

The recommended protein intake in the UK is 0.8 g per kilogram of bodyweight per day, a limit some nutritional experts believe is too low. As the study revealed, people who had a higher protein consumption had a reduction in the risk of hip fracture. However, intakes of protein which are very high—where intake is greater than 2 to 3 g of protein/kg body weight/day—can have negative health effects. The study was not able to explore these very high protein intake levels.

Professor Janet Cade, who leads the Nutritional Epidemiology Group at Leeds and supervised the research, said, "In the UK most people eat an adequate amount of protein, however, certain groups, such as vegetarians or vegans need to check that their protein intakes are high enough for good health."

Why underweight women may see greater risk reductions

Women who are underweight may be more likely to have reduced bone mineral density and muscle mass. Increasing intakes of several foods and nutrients, especially protein, may help reduce hip fracture risk more in underweight women than in healthy or overweight women by helping to establish or restore bone and muscle health. However, the researchers note that this finding needs further research to confirm this.

Tea and coffee both contain biologically active compounds called polyphenols and phytoestrogens which may help to maintain bone health.

Professor Cade added, "This is an interesting finding given that tea and coffee are the UK's favorite drinks. We still need to know more about how these drinks could affect bone health but it might be through promoting the amount of calcium present in our bones."

UK Women's Cohort Study

The data used in the study came from the UK Women's Cohort Study, which recruited participants between 1995 and 1998. At the time they entered the study, the women ranged between 35 and 69 years of age.

At recruitment, they were asked to fill out questionnaires about their diet and lifestyle. This information was then linked with hospital records over the following two decades, which revealed how many had suffered a hip fracture or had a hip replaced.

Of the 26,318 women involved in the study, 822 cases of hip fracture were identified, that is 3.1%.

More information: James Webster et al, Foods, nutrients and hip fracture risk: A prospective study of middle-aged women, Clinical Nutrition (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.clnu.2022.11.008

Provided by University of Leeds 

 

Checking blood pressure in a heartbeat, using artificial intelligence and a camera

by University of South Australia

The new technology that demonstrates how a camera and artificial intelligence can be used to extract cardiac signals from a person's forehead. Credit: University of South Australia

Monitoring blood pressure using a digital camera could soon be the norm, thanks to an innovative technique demonstrated by Australian and Iraqi researchers.

05 dec 2022--Using the same remote-health technology they pioneered to monitor vital health signs from a distance, engineers from the University of South Australia and Baghdad's Middle Technical University have designed a non-contact system to accurately measure systolic and diastolic pressure.

It could replace the existing uncomfortable and cumbersome method of strapping an inflatable cuff to a patient's arm or wrist, the researchers claim.

In a new paper published in Inventions, the researchers describe the technique, which involves filming a person from a short distance for 10 seconds and extracting cardiac signals from two regions in the forehead, using artificial intelligence algorithms.

The systolic and diastolic readings were around 90% accurate, compared to the existing instrument (a digital sphygmomanometer) used to measure blood pressure, that is itself subject to errors.

Experiments were performed on 25 people with different skin tones and under changing light conditions, overcoming the limitations reported in previous studies.

"Monitoring blood pressure is essential to detect and manage cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of global mortality, responsible for almost 18 million deaths in 2019," UniSA remote sensing engineer Professor Javaan Chahl says.

"Furthermore, in the past 30 years, the number of adults with hypertension has risen from 650 million to 1.28 billion worldwide.

"The health sector needs a system that can accurately measure blood pressure and assess cardiovascular risks when physical contact with patients is unsafe or difficult, such as during the recent COVID outbreak.

"If we can perfect this technique, it will help manage one of the most serious health challenges facing the world today," Prof Chahl says.

The cutting-edge technology has come a long way since 2017, when the UniSA and Iraqi research team demonstrated image-processing algorithms that could extract a human's heart rate from drone video.

In the past five years the researchers have developed algorithms to measure other vital signs, including breathing rates from 50 meters away, oxygen saturation, temperature, and jaundice in newborns.

Their non-contact technology was also deployed in the United States during the pandemic to monitor for signs of COVID-19 from a distance.

"Contactless blood pressure estimation system using a computer vision system" is published in Inventions.

More information: Ali Al-Naji et al, Contactless Blood Pressure Estimation System Using a Computer Vision System, Inventions (2022). DOI: 10.3390/inventions7030084

Provided by University of South Australia