Who Pays On A Date Depends On Your Looks. A new study found that men find it easier to imagine paying for dinner if their companions happen to be pretty (duh). Here is where it gets interesting, though: the more attractive a man is, the more women expect him to pay.

FDA Issues US Sprout Warning. The Food and Drug Administration is warning against eating Evergreen Produce brand alfalfa sprouts and spicy sprouts. The sprouts are possibly linked to 20 reported cases of Salmonella Enteritidis in several states. The outbreak is not linked to the European one.

Membership in High-Deductible Health Plans on the Upswing.  Enrollment in high-deductible health plans grew from 10 to 11.4 million members in the year ending January 2011, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans. Experts worry that enrollees don’t understand limitations in their coverage.

Location-Based Services to Hit $10.3 Billion by 2015. That’s according to a report by Pyramid Research, which paints a picture of massive growth in both location-based services and location-based advertising.

Exhibit Shows Government Role in US Diet over the Years. A 1945 government food guide included a butter group and told readers that “in addition to the basic 7 [food groups], eat any other foods you want.” That old poster is part of the National Archives’ exhibition “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?”

Surge in EHR Purchases Predicted. Half of more than 1,300 physician group practices said they expect to buy an electronic health records system during 2011, according to a survey by CapSite.

FDA Finds Silicone Breast Implants Safe, But Prone To Fail With Age. Although they are safe when used as intended and do not cause autoimmune disease, breast cancer or reproductive problems, as some previous reports had suggested, women frequently have problems with them, the FDA said. Oftentimes these problems require  removal or replacement of the implants.

Coffee May Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease, Study Finds. Scientists at University of South Florida are reporting that a mystery ingredient in coffee protected mice that had been bred specifically to develop symptoms consistent with the memory-robbing disease.

Vendor To Oversee VA’s Open-Source EHR Efforts. The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded a $5 million contract to the Informatics Applications Group to act as a custodial agent for an open-source software development community aimed at modernizing VistA.

Potato Chips a Top Culprit in Gradual Weight Gain. Roughly half of the average 3.35 pounds a healthy, nonobese American gains over 4 years can be attributed to eating potato chips, researhers at  Brigham and Women’s Hospital said.

We have all seen people exhibit flagrantly unhealthy behavior. Some of us–though we’d never admit it–derive a certain, smug satisfaction by observing them. At least I don’t do that!

Somewhere in the course of our daily lives though, most of us do exhibit behavior that suggests at least some disregard for our health. We don’t change our diet, though we know we should. We don’t floss, take medications as prescribed, or get the screening tests we’re supposed to. 

Multiple intertwining causes underlie all unhealthy behavior, of course. I had always figured that one pervasive cause was the lack of a simple, observable connection between health-related behaviors and health outcomes. There is a long delay for example, between establishing unhealthy dietary preferences  and the sequellae of that behavior ( a heart attack, diabetes or whatever). The longer the delay between cause and effect, the more likely someone will be to exhibit unhealthy behavior.

On the other hand, if there’s a short interval between cause and effect—it only takes minutes for susceptible people to develop a severe allergic reaction after eating peanuts, for example—well, that’s where I’d expect high adherence to the required healthy behavior.

If I’m right, then we have a problem. For many chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, some cancers) the interval between cause and effect can be decades.

How might this reasoning apply to a person that has already been diagnosed with a chronic disease? Assuming providers have explained things to him or he has learned these things on his own, that’s a person that knows his behavior caused his predicament. And if he knows that, he should also know he has a fresh chance to rectify matters, at least to a degree. If he modifies his unhealthy behavior, then he can control the progression of, and indeed sometimes reverse the progression of his disease. (more…)

Facebook Adds Facial Recognition. Without telling its users, Facebook has launched a facial recognition feature designed to make it easier for users to tag photos. As it has in the past, the social networking giant set ‘opt-in’ as the default privacy setting for the new feature.

Sleep Pattern Affects Major League Hitters. A major league baseball player who prefers rising with the larks may hit better in day games than night games and vice versa, a researcher suggested.

Pesticide Residues Taint Apples. The apple industry faces a potential public-relations headache in the wake of USDA testing that revealed pesticide residues in 98% of America’s second-most-popular fresh fruit.

NQF Adds New Serious Reportable Events. The National Quality Forum has expanded its list of serious reportable events to 29. The 4 new ones are patient death or serious injury resulting from failure to communicate test results, and death or serious injury of a newborn baby associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy.

Physicians Leaving Practices for Health System Employment. By 2013, less than a third of physicians will be in private practice, electing instead for employment with larger health systems, according to a new report by Accenture.

In recent posts on Web-based and mobile behavioral intervention programs, we reviewed evidence suggesting that social support, in one form or another, can improve participants’ adherence and engagement with the program. That didn’t always mean however, that participants achieved better outcomes as a result. In one study for example, an online community increased engagement with and utilization of a Web-based activity program, but it did not increase participants’ actual activity levels.

Another study, slightly older than the ones reviewed above, did show that a Web-based program improved outcomes. In this case, the intervention was an online videogame known as Re-Mission. Since I haven’t touched previously on outcome studies for automated lifestyle intervention tools or videogames as an example of such programs, I’ll do that here.

Re-Mission is intended improve medication compliance in teens and young adults with a history of cancer. In the game, players control a nanobot within a 3-dimensional body of a young person that has cancer. Play involves destroying cancer cells and managing chemotherapy-related adverse effects like vomiting and bacterial infections by using antiemetics and antibiotics. The game purports to help users understand their disease and its treatment and improve their sense of self-efficacy: they can take control of their disease.

In their randomized trial of Re-Mission, Pamela Kato and colleagues chose compliance with prescribed medications as the behavioral outcome. The Stanford scientists randomized 375 teens to play either Re-Mission or Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, an entertainment game with a structure and controller interface similar to that in Re-Mission. They asked participants in both groups to play the assigned game for 1 hour each week during the 3-month study.

Kato’s group measured pre- and post-intervention adherence to the antibiotic trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole using an electronic pill-monitoring device. They measured adherence to 6-mercaptopurine, chemotherapy drug used to treat many childhood cancers, using serum assays. (more…)

One in Three Employers May Drop Health Benefits by 2014. A McKinsey Quarterly report suggests that nearly a third of employers are likely to stop offering health insurance to employees by the time major federal healthcare reform provisions kick in.

Comparing Online Pill Identifiers. iMedicalApps has posted a review of the Pill Identifier Lite app, an offering from Drugs.com that has become the top-selling paid medical app on iTunes. The review also covers similar products by Epocrates and Lexi-Comp

Virtual Workout Partners Spur Better Results. New research from Michigan State reveals that working out with a virtual partner improves motivation during exercise.

Seniors’ Medical Pot Collective Stirs Up Some Smoke. More senior citizens turning to marijuana — legal or not — to ease the aches and pains of aging.

Legislative Changes Let Practices Get Paid for Helping Patients Quit Smoking. Practices can expect to receive $10 to $30 from most insurers for quit smoking sessions provided by trained office personnel.

Provider-centric, face-to-face health intervention programs that help people quit smoking, lose weight and increase activity levels have been shown to work, but they are expensive, don’t scale, and inconvenient. By contrast, Internet-based programs with similar goals can be disseminated widely and inexpensively, and can be accessed by consumers at a convenient time and place.

Although many of the latter programs have been shown in clinical trial settings to be efficacious, attempts to commercialize them have been plagued by attrition. People stop using the programs because they lose motivation, can’t find the time, or become frustrated by clunky interfaces and data entry requirements.

In one study for example, only 26% of participants in a randomized trial of a free physical activity website dropped out of the study before it was completed, whereas 67% of registered open access users dropped out during the same course of time. The open access users also spent less time on the site.

The lower attrition rate in the trial was likely driven by the emotional, cognitive and logistic support provided by trial personnel. It follows that the commercial success of online health intervention programs hinges on their ability to support users in the same way as trained personnel do in clinical trial settings.

Online communities have been proposed for this purpose. These tools permit users to communicate via the posting and reading of messages on a group message board. Social learning theory suggests they can reduce attrition by favorably impacting motivation to change, helping users learn vicariously and gain inspiration, and providing content that encourages users to return to the site.

Recently, a study by Caroline Richardson and colleagues at the University of Michigan showed in fact that an online community associated with an Internet-mediated walking program did reduce attrition.

Richardson’s group randomized 324 sedentary adults into 2 groups. Both groups were granted access to a Web-based walking program that required them to wear pedometers for 16 weeks and upload step-count data to a server. All participants could also view graphs of their progress and receive individually-tailored motivational messages. Participants who were randomized to the “online community” group had, in addition, access to online community features embedded in their intervention webpage, enabling them to post and view messages left by other participants. Those in the “no online community” group were not granted access to these features. (more…)

In recent years, developers have released thousands of Web-based and mobile intervention programs that purport to help people quit smoking, improve their nutrition and activity levels, and institute other salutary changes in health-related behavior.

These programs have drawn attention because of their potential to improve health for millions, at low cost. In addition, the platforms on which some are built permit developers to add new tools like games, online communities and analytical capacity that can, many believe, enhance their impact.

Clinical trials have shown that many of these programs do work.

For example, a randomized trial by Australian scientists showed that public registrants to a cognitive behavior therapy website had reductions in symptoms of anxiety and depression. Another randomized trial by Swiss scientists revealed that an Internet-based smoking cessation program helped people quit their habit.

Nevertheless, with a few notable exceptions, venture capital firms have been reluctant to invest in startups proposing to commercialize programs like these. It’s likely they’ll stay on the sidelines until startups prove their programs attract large, active user bases and users maintain targeted health benefits outside the controlled environment of a clinical trial. It wouldn’t hurt if startups also had a plan to monetize their applications, as well.

The challenge can be boiled down to the problem of attrition. People stop accessing these programs because they lose motivation, can’t find the time, or become frustrated by clunky interfaces and data entry requirements. Sometimes, they simply move on to another application.

Recently, a study by Miriam Wanner and colleagues from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine validated investor concerns about the attrition problem. But to some, it offered hope that newer platform features like games and onlne communities may be able to address it satisfactorily.

The scientists set-out to understand the determinants of utilization of Active-online, a free physical activity website in Switzerland. They found that the key predictor of sustained use was the circumstance in which people began using the site in the first place. Specifically, the attrition rate was 67% among registered open access users and only 26% among those who participated in a randomized trial of the site. Similarly, open access users spent less time on tailored modules (7.5 vs. 9.2 minutes) than trial participants. (more…)

Privacy Issues Raised as Prisons Roll-Out EHRs. As prisons take steps to implement electronic health records, debate is stirring over whether mining inmates’ medical data would violate their privacy.

‘DC to VC’ Summit Seeks To Fund New Health IT Ideas. Morgenthaler Ventures has announced a nationwide contest to find the best startup ideas in health IT. The competition is open to entrepreneurs seeking seed or Series A funding.

Lower Risk of Death Linked to Optimism in Heart Patients. If newly diagnosed heart disease patients who must undergo treatment are optimistic and expect they’ll resume normal activities, they do better according to Duke researchers.

Artsy, Museum-Going Men Are Happier. Men who enjoy taking in the ballet or browsing art museums are more likely to be happy with their lives and satisfied with their health than men who don’t, a study has found.

Transgender Detainees Cut-Off from Hormone Drugs. An advocacy group is claiming that jail is depriving immigration detainees of  ’adequate health care’. The group, supported by the AMA and others, says that hormone replacement therapy is indicated for cases of gender identity disorder.

Final PHI Protection Rule Won’t Mandate Encryption. An HHS official has confirmed that the final revisions to the HIPAA privacy rules will not include a mandate for encryption of protected health information.

Firefox Updates Mobile Browser For Android With ‘Do Not Track’ Privacy Feature. When the feature is enabled in Mozilla’s browser, it will tell ad networks and websites that you want to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes like behavioral advertising.

Johns Hopkins HIV Guide App Synthesizes HIV Info For iPad & iPhone. The guide attempts to serve as a one-stop resource for everything related to HIV. It is available on Apple iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows.

Tricorder X Prize To Allow Patients To Diagnose Themselves. Qualcomm and the X Prize are offering money for a device that can spot diseases better than a doctor.

US Rates of Autism, ADHD Continue to Rise. One in six US children now has a developmental disability such as autism, learning disorders or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to new research from the CDC.