Tuesday, 12 May 2015

13 May, 2015

Father's age linked to blood cancer risk in his kids

Washington: A new study links a father's age at the birth of his child to the risk that the child will develop blood and immune system cancers as an adult, particularly for single kids.

However, the study found no association between having an older mother and these cancers.
"The lifetime risk of these cancers is fairly low - about one in 20 men. Still, the study does highlight the need for more research to confirm these findings and to clarify the biologic underpinning for this association," said lead author Lauren Teras from American Cancer Society.
The researchers analysed data from women and men enrolled in the American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study-II Nutrition Cohort.
Among 138,003 participants, there were 2,532 cases of hematologic cancers identified between 1992 and 2009. The researchers found a strong, positive association with paternal age among participants without siblings.
In that group, those whose fathers were aged 35 years or older at the time of their birth were at 63 percent higher risk of hematologic malignancies compared to those whose fathers were younger than 25.
The study points to the need for further research to better understand the association between paternal age at birth and hematologic malignancies.
The study appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
13.05.2015



80 million births and deaths in world go undocumented every year


London: Scientists have found that as many as 40 million new births and 40 million deaths in the world are undocumented every year.

University of Melbourne Laureate Professor Alan Lopez, one of the lead authors, has been leading a global campaign to improve how countries capture civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS). The four-paper series promote the case to change CRVS systems to collect more reliable and timely data.
Lopez said that policy should be informed by accurate and timely data, as poor quality data equals to poor decisions, which in turn leads to lost opportunities to improve population health.
In remote areas where there are no doctors, CRVS improvements could include family members of deceased responding to a limited number of questions about symptoms experienced by the deceased which an algorithm using big data samples would then analyse to record a most-likely cause of death, Professor he said.
He said other technology advances could also be exploited such as using mobile phones to transmit information about recent cases of births and deaths, as "mobile phones are now common virtually everywhere".
The first Lancet series paper looks at the current landscape of CVRS. It highlights inconsistent recordkeeping worldwide, and argues for marked improvements in order to gather better statistics to help policy makers make better decisions. The second paper makes the case that good CRVS data is not only required for informing health policies, but that it is also actually good for health. In the third paper, the authors monitor the development of existing CRVS systems and its limited growth.
The concluding paper presents a research and development agenda for CRVS and challenges global health and development agencies to ensure that every birth and death is registered, and every decision-maker has detailed, continuous and locally relevant information needed to support policy and planning.
The study is published in The Lancet.  
13.05.2015







Truth & courage are not always comfortable but they are never weakness

Brene Brown


No comments:

Post a Comment