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.

Who should get influenza vaccine?

An American flu pandemic would present difficult and tragic choices: As many as 90 million people might become sick, and widespread shortages of vaccine would likely leave more than 90 percent of the population unprotected in the pandemic's first year.

16 May 2006

Cancer treatment interferes with bone development

According to researchers in the U.S. the cancer drug Gleevec (imatinib), which has dramatically improved survival prospects for some cancer patients, can interfere with bone development.

11 May 2006

Help for elderly people to spark new research ideas

New technologies and services can help elderly and disabled people live longer at home. The Ambient Assisted Living programme will focus on this vision but can only begin after agreement on how to combine national and European initiatives. Political accord is the key, notes a project preparing the groundwork.

10 May 2006

An evolutionary life-history framework for understanding sex differences in human mortality rates

Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers.

10 May 2006

Cancer cure worth $50 trillion

A new study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy, calculates the prospective gains that could be obtained from further progress against major diseases.

3 May 2006

Progressive histological damage in liver allografts following pediatric liver transplantation

A new study on the long-term outcome of children undergoing liver transplants found that chronic hepatitis (CH) was common and that it was not detectible using standard blood tests.

3 May 2006

New drug to treat rare Pompe disease gets FDA approval

The Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. has given approval for the first drug to treat a rare, debilitating muscle disease that can kill infants within a year.

1 May 2006

UK's reduced health inequality targets more likely to benefit the rich

UK targets to reduce health inequalities could end up improving the health of the richest fastest, warn researchers in this week's BMJ.

28 Apr 2006

Direct link between childhood obesity and junk food advertising

A team of researchers from the Harvard School of Public health (HSPH) and the Children's Hospital in Boston have found that children who spend more time watching TV were more likely to eat more of the calorie-dense, low nutrient foods advertised on television.

24 Apr 2006

Hypnotherapy relieves chest pain not linked to heart disease

According to a small study in the UK, hypnotherapy was helpful in relieving the angina-like chest pain experienced by some people which is not caused by heart disease.

23 Apr 2006

Finding a cure for cancer would be worth about $50 trillion

Even a modest one percent reduction in mortality from cancer would be worth nearly $500 billion in social value, according to a new study by economists Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

13 Apr 2006

Guidelines for medication withdrawal

Although thousands of scientific papers evaluate and compare new and established drugs each year, providing evidence to help doctors prescribe safe and effective doses, almost no studies focus on when or how to stop these medications, even late in life.

11 Apr 2006

Women can expect to outlive men

2006 is likely to be the first year in human history when - across almost all the world - women can expect to outlive men, say researchers in the British Medical Journal.

11 Apr 2006

Study questions health benefits of moderate drinking

Previous analyses did not account for effects of age and illness that may make abstainer groups appear to have higher death rates than drinkers.

4 Apr 2006

Radiofrequency ablation is as effective as surgery for small liver tumors

Three-year data shows that radiofrequency ablation is as effective as surgical resection for overall survival and tumor recurrence, for the treatment of single small hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with liver cirrhosis, according to a study presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 31st Annual Scientific Meeting.

4 Apr 2006

New biomarkers could help detect ovarian cancer much earlier

The search for a specific protein that could help diagnose ovarian cancer in its early stages has for years eluded researchers who are seeking a reliable and accurate test for the disease.

4 Apr 2006

Smokos banned in Scotland

A widespread ban on smoking came into action in Scotland on Sunday with relatively few problems.

27 Mar 2006

Study investigates how age relates to survival outcome in patients with early stage breast cancer

A 30 year old woman diagnosed with breast cancer has the same chance of survival as a 60 year old woman with breast cancer according to the latest findings presented at the European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-5).

23 Mar 2006

Association between levels of fine particulate matter pollution and mortality risk

Investigators who extended the Harvard Six Cities fine particulate air pollution study by eight years found that reduced levels of tiny particle pollution during this period lowered mortality risk for participants.

15 Mar 2006

Guidelines for International Breast Health and Cancer Control

Specific recommendations for improving breast-health care and cancer treatment in countries with limited resources have been published by the Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI), an international coalition of doctors, scientists, policy makers and advocates led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

25 Jan 2006