Life Expectancy News and Research

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Life expectancy is the expected (in the statistical sense) number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by e''x'', which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged ''x'', according to a particular mortality experience.

US underestimated its progress in war on cancer, say Dartmouth researchers

Since the enactment of the National Cancer Act in 1971, the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in cancer research and treatment. And yet, the cancer mortality rate-the historic benchmark of progress-has only declined modestly while the mortality rates of other leading causes of death have declined substantially. This difference has led many to question whether we've made progress in the 'War on Cancer'. The answer is definitively yes according to Norris Cotton Cancer Center research published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

16 Jan 2014

Study highlights the importance of screening women over 50 for cervical cancer

New research from Queen Mary University of London reveals women over the age of 50 who don't attend cervical screening are four times more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer in later life.

15 Jan 2014

Longer reads: Hospice drains Medicare; false Obamacare 'horror stories;' growing up without vaccines

Hospice patients are expected to die: The treatment focuses on providing comfort to the terminally ill, not finding a cure. To enroll a patient, two doctors certify a life expectancy of six months or less. But over the past decade, the number of "hospice survivors" in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren't actually dying, a Washington Post investigation has found. Healthier patients are more profitable because they require fewer visits and stay enrolled longer (Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating, 12/26).

9 Jan 2014

Biogen Idec, Sangamo BioSciences partner to develop therapeutics for hemoglobinopathies

Biogen Idec and Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. announced today an exclusive worldwide collaboration and license agreement focused on the development of therapeutics for hemoglobinopathies, inherited conditions that result from the abnormal structure or underproduction of hemoglobin.

9 Jan 2014

Dementia detracts from PD patients’ life expectancy

Patients with Parkinson’s disease have an increased risk for mortality, especially if they have dementia, a meta-analysis confirms.

8 Jan 2014

AIT initiates Phase II clinical trial of NOxCureCF for patients with cystic fibrosis

Advanced Inhalation Therapies, an Israeli drug development company, announced today that it has begun enrollment in Israel for a multicenter, open label, Phase II clinical trial of NOxCureCF, a respiratory treatment for patients with cystic fibrosis.

8 Jan 2014

Study links racism-related factors and biological aging among African American men

A new study reveals that racism may impact aging at the cellular level. Researchers found signs of accelerated aging in African American men, ages reporting high levels of racial discrimination and who had internalized anti-Black attitudes.

8 Jan 2014

African American men have increased risk of prostate cancer

African American men have an increased risk of prostate cancer and are two times more likely than Caucasian American men to die from the disease. Despite recent questions about the overall usefulness of prostate-specific antigen testing to detect prostate cancer, should PSA screening be used to detect early-stage disease to help save lives in this at-risk population? The controversy is explored in a Review article in Journal of Men's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

7 Jan 2014

EC grants approval for ABRAXANE in combination with gemcitabine for metastatic pancreatic cancer

Celgene International Sàrl, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Celgene Corporation, today announced that the European Commission has granted approval for ABRAXANE (paclitaxel formulated as albumin bound nanoparticles, or nab-paclitaxel) in combination with gemcitabine for first-line treatment of adult patients with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

7 Jan 2014

People with severe mental illness may have higher risk for substance use

People with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have a higher risk for substance use, especially cigarette smoking, and protective factors usually associated with lower rates of substance use do not exist in severe mental illness, according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.

5 Jan 2014

Controlling tobacco marketing may reduce number of smokers by one-third

Tripling taxes on cigarettes around the world would reduce the number of smokers by one-third and prevent 200 million premature deaths from lung cancer and other diseases this century, according to a review published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

2 Jan 2014

New tools for neglected diseases: an interview with Dr. BT Slingsby, CEO, GHIT Fund

Nearly 3.3 billion people, a little less than half of our world’s population, are at risk of malaria, TB and what we call “neglected tropical diseases”—diseases caused by worms, parasites, viruses and bacteria like Chagas disease, river blindness, elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, etc.

24 Dec 2013

Type 2 diabetes in women less than 45 triples risk of early menopause

Type 2 diabetes - the most common type of diabetes - triples the risk of an early menopause in women younger than 45 years of age, according to new research published in the peer-reviewed journal Climacteric.

23 Dec 2013

Health policy insiders reveal processes behind Bloomberg Administration's public health successes

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg's term comes to a close, the latest research conducted by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public indicates that he leaves a legacy of ambitious public health policies from pioneering restrictions on trans fats and smoking to investments in green spaces and bicycle lanes that have improved the health and increased the life expectancy of New Yorkers. The paper takes a behind-the-scenes look at the Bloomberg Administration to evaluate the evidence and build public support for improving health in the city-which also can serve as a blueprint for health policy in cities across the country.

20 Dec 2013

Scientists back ovarian cancer preventative surgery to improve survival

A study by Manchester scientists backs preventative surgery to improve survival for women who are at greater risk of getting ovarian cancer and suggests it appears helpful for women at risk of getting breast cancer because of genetic faults.

18 Dec 2013

Unexpected toxicity of pazopanib/pemetrexed in NSCLC halts study

A phase II study comparing first-line combination pazopanib/pemetrexed chemotherapy with the standard cisplatin/pemetrexed treatment in non-small-cell lung cancer was terminated early owing to an increased frequency of adverse events in the experimental arm.

17 Dec 2013

Alnylam initiates Phase II study with ALN-TTRsc for treatment of ATTR

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that it has initiated a pilot Phase II study with ALN-TTRsc, a subcutaneously delivered RNAi therapeutic targeting the transthyretin gene in development for the treatment of TTR-mediated amyloidosis.

17 Dec 2013

New commentary documents harmful effects of sequestration on Indian Health Service

As federal legislators work toward a budget agreement, a new commentary documents the harmful effects of sequestration on the Indian Health Service. Sequestration forced a 5 percent reduction in funds for the Indian Health Service, perpetuating longstanding health care disparities and raising questions about the federal government's legal and moral obligation to Indians, states the commentary, which appears in the Hastings Center Report.

17 Dec 2013

U.S. health care system ranks 22nd in health care spending

A new study by researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and McGill University in Montreal reveals that the United States health care system ranks 22nd out of 27 high-income nations when analyzed for its efficiency of turning dollars spent into extending lives.

13 Dec 2013

New study provides a set of tools for measuring age in all dimensions

Age is not just the number of years one has lived, argue IIASA population researchers. A new study from the group provides a set of tools for measuring age in all its dimensions.

13 Dec 2013

Life Expectancy News and Research

Further Reading

US underestimated its progress in war on cancer, say Dartmouth researchers

Study highlights the importance of screening women over 50 for cervical cancer

Longer reads: Hospice drains Medicare; false Obamacare 'horror stories;' growing up without vaccines

Biogen Idec, Sangamo BioSciences partner to develop therapeutics for hemoglobinopathies

Dementia detracts from PD patients’ life expectancy

AIT initiates Phase II clinical trial of NOxCureCF for patients with cystic fibrosis

Study links racism-related factors and biological aging among African American men

African American men have increased risk of prostate cancer

EC grants approval for ABRAXANE in combination with gemcitabine for metastatic pancreatic cancer

People with severe mental illness may have higher risk for substance use

Controlling tobacco marketing may reduce number of smokers by one-third

New tools for neglected diseases: an interview with Dr. BT Slingsby, CEO, GHIT Fund

Type 2 diabetes in women less than 45 triples risk of early menopause

Health policy insiders reveal processes behind Bloomberg Administration's public health successes

Scientists back ovarian cancer preventative surgery to improve survival

Unexpected toxicity of pazopanib/pemetrexed in NSCLC halts study

Alnylam initiates Phase II study with ALN-TTRsc for treatment of ATTR

New commentary documents harmful effects of sequestration on Indian Health Service

U.S. health care system ranks 22nd in health care spending

New study provides a set of tools for measuring age in all dimensions

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Expanding access to NMR with the Fourier 80 Duo

Advancing Intracellular Delivery with LumiPore®

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