Our thoughts

So far in our articles we have been pretty positive about all aspects of e-health, digital health, e-medicine, wearable devices, etc, and what these will bring. And of course Gary is a pretty enthusiastic Fitbit wearer. But there are a few potential ‘trip hazards’ with underwriting significance. Are wearables really going to be a rich source – or even a reasonably useful source – of data for risk evaluation purposes? For a start, these devices are not very accurate. Can something on your wrist really make a decent job of totalling your step count and recording your pulse? They are…

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has just published a study the findings of which suggest that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid does not reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)1. Using data from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment (MCE) which was a double-blind randomised trial conducted in the late 1960s/early 1970s, researchers found that linoleic-rich vegetable oil effectively reduced cholesterol levels but without any corresponding reduction in CHD or all-cause mortality. In fact, participants who had a greater reduction in blood cholesterol had a higher, rather than lower, risk of death: there was a 22%…