Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the estimate of the span of a life. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth (LEB), which can be defined in two ways. Cohort LEB is the mean length of life of a birth cohort and can be computed only for cohorts born so long ago that all their members have died. Period LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed, from birth through death, to the mortality rates observed at a given year. National LEB figures reported by national agencies and international organizations for human populations are estimates of period LEB.
Statins, also known as HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, are a class of lipid-lowering medications that reduce illness and mortality in those who are at high risk of cardiovascular disease. They are the most commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Risk assessment determines possible mishaps, their likelihood and consequences, and the tolerances for such events. The results of this process may be expressed in a quantitative or qualitative fashion. Risk assessment is an inherent part of a broader risk management strategy to help reduce any potential risk-related consequences.
Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is a form of economic analysis that compares the relative costs and outcomes (effects) of different courses of action. Cost-effectiveness analysis is distinct from cost–benefit analysis, which assigns a monetary value to the measure of effect. Cost-effectiveness analysis is often used in the field of health services, where it may be inappropriate to monetize health effect. Typically the CEA is expressed in terms of a ratio where the denominator is a gain in health from a measure and the numerator is the cost associated with the health gain. The most commonly used outcome measure is quality-adjusted life years (QALY).
In survival analysis, the hazard ratio (HR) is the ratio of the hazard rates corresponding to the conditions characterised by two distinct levels of a treatment variable of interest. For example, in a clinical study of a drug, the treated population may die at twice the rate per unit time of the control population. The hazard ratio would be 2, indicating a higher hazard of death from the treatment.
Rosiglitazone is an antidiabetic drug in the thiazolidinedione class. It works as an insulin sensitizer, by binding to the PPAR in fat cells and making the cells more responsive to insulin. It is marketed by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as a stand-alone drug or for use in combination with metformin or with glimepiride. First released in 1999, annual sales peaked at approximately $2.5-billion in 2006; however, following a meta-analysis in 2007 that linked the drug's use to an increased risk of heart attack, sales plummeted to just $9.5-million in 2012. The drug's patent expired in 2012.
Sir David John Spiegelhalter is a British statistician and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. From 2007 to 2018 he was Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Spiegelhalter is an ISI highly cited researcher.
Alcohol has a number of effects on health. Short-term effects of alcohol consumption include intoxication and dehydration. Long-term effects of alcohol include changes in the metabolism of the liver and brain, several types of cancer and alcohol use disorder. Alcohol intoxication affects the brain, causing slurred speech, clumsiness, and delayed reflexes. Alcohol consumption can cause hypoglycemia in diabetics on certain medications, such as insulin or sulfonylurea, by blocking gluconeogenesis. There is an increased risk of developing an alcohol use disorder for teenagers while their brain is still developing. Adolescents who drink have a higher probability of injury including death.
Men's health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, as experienced by men, and not merely the absence of disease. Differences in men's health compared to women's can be attributed to biological factors, behavioural factors, and social factors.
Proportional hazards models are a class of survival models in statistics. Survival models relate the time that passes, before some event occurs, to one or more covariates that may be associated with that quantity of time. In a proportional hazards model, the unique effect of a unit increase in a covariate is multiplicative with respect to the hazard rate. For example, taking a drug may halve one's hazard rate for a stroke occurring, or, changing the material from which a manufactured component is constructed may double its hazard rate for failure. Other types of survival models such as accelerated failure time models do not exhibit proportional hazards. The accelerated failure time model describes a situation where the biological or mechanical life history of an event is accelerated.
Dabigatran, sold under the brand name Pradaxa among others, is an anticoagulant used to treat and prevent blood clots and to prevent stroke in people with atrial fibrillation. Specifically it is used to prevent blood clots following hip or knee replacement and in those with a history of prior clots. It is used as an alternative to warfarin and does not require monitoring by blood tests. In a meta analysis of 7 different studies, there was no benefit of dabigatran over warfarin in preventing ischemic stroke; however, dabigatran were associated with a lower hazard for intracranial bleeding compared with warfarin, but also had a higher risk of gastrointestinal bleeding relative to warfarin. It is taken by mouth.
A micromort is a unit of risk defined as a one-in-a-million chance of death. Micromorts can be used to measure the riskiness of various day-to-day activities. A microprobability is a one-in-a million chance of some event; thus, a micromort is the microprobability of death. The micromort concept was introduced by Ronald A. Howard who pioneered the modern practice of decision analysis.
In the statistical area of survival analysis, an accelerated failure time model is a parametric model that provides an alternative to the commonly used proportional hazards models. Whereas a proportional hazards model assumes that the effect of a covariate is to multiply the hazard by some constant, an AFT model assumes that the effect of a covariate is to accelerate or decelerate the life course of a disease by some constant. This is especially appealing in a technical context where the 'disease' is a result of some mechanical process with a known sequence of intermediary stages.
Irving Kirsch is an American psychologist and academic. He is the Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and a lecturer in medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also professor emeritus of psychology at the Universities of Hull and Plymouth in the United Kingdom, and the University of Connecticut in the United States. Kirsch is a leading researcher within the field of placebo studies who is noted for his work on placebo effects, antidepressants, expectancy, and hypnosis. He is the originator of response expectancy theory, and his analyses of clinical trials of antidepressants have influenced official treatment guidelines in the United Kingdom. He is the author of the 2009 book The Emperor's New Drugs, which argued most antidepressant medication is effective primarily due to placebo effects.
Radon, a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, has been studied by a number of scientific and medical bodies for its effects on health. A naturally-occurring gas formed as a decay product of radium, radon is one of the densest substances that remains a gas under normal conditions, and is considered to be a health hazard due to its radioactivity. Its most stable isotope, radon-222, has a half-life of 3.8 days. Due to its high radioactivity, it has been less well studied by chemists, but a few compounds are known.
The long-term effects of cannabis have been the subject of ongoing debate. Because cannabis is illegal in most countries, clinical research presents a challenge and there is limited evidence from which to draw conclusions. In 2017, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report summarizing much of the published literature on health effects of cannabis, into categories regarded as conclusive, substantial, moderate, limited and of no or insufficient evidence to support an association with a particular outcome.
Population impact measures (PIMs) are biostatistical measures of risk and benefit used in epidemiological and public health research. They are used to describe the impact of health risks and benefits in a population, to inform health policy.
Salt consumption has been extensively studied for its role in human physiology and impact on human health. Chronic, high intake of dietary salt consumption is associated with hypertension and cardiovascular disease, in addition to other adverse health outcomes. Major health and scientific organizations, such as the World Health Organization, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and American Heart Association, have established high salt consumption as a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
Pre-test probability and post-test probability are the probabilities of the presence of a condition before and after a diagnostic test, respectively. Post-test probability, in turn, can be positive or negative, depending on whether the test falls out as a positive test or a negative test, respectively. In some cases, it is used for the probability of developing the condition of interest in the future.
Diabetes mellitus, often known simply as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough insulin, or the cells of the body becoming unresponsive to the hormone's effects. Classic symptoms include thirst, polyuria, weight loss, and blurred vision. If left untreated, the disease can lead to various health complications, including disorders of the cardiovascular system, eye, kidney, and nerves. Untreated or poorly treated diabetes accounts for approximately 1.5 million deaths every year.
