FDA Issues Updated Guidance Loosening Regulatory Approach to Certain Digital Health Tools - Latham & Watkins LLP

Its belt-tightening is good micro, but bad macro

York and Scarborough hospitals are facing a shortfall of dozens of beds this winter, according to senior leaders. York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust forecasts a shortfall of 52 beds at York Hospital and 32 at Scarborough Hospital, based on expected winter demand. The prediction comes after the proportion of patients waiting for more than 12 hours in emergency departments at the trust's hospitals more than doubled, from 5.9% in April to 14.6% in August. Despite the predicted shortfall, the trust said plans were in place to reduce pressure on services and provide extra capacity if needed. Health bosses said that improvements in same-day emergency care, shorter hospital stays and faster discharges could free up the equivalent of around 30 beds at York and 13 at Scarborough Hospital. Even with those improvements, a residual shortfall of 22 beds at York and 19 at Scarborough is still expected. A trust spokesperson said they were preparing for additional pressures by working closely with health and social care partners.

LONGITUDINAL data demonstrate that physical capacity decline begins before age 40, accelerating toward substantial sarcopenia risk. In a population-based cohort of 427 participants evaluated across nearly five decades from age 16 to 63, objective functional assessments revealed that physical performance follows a constitutive trajectory. Peak muscular endurance and aerobic capacity occurred between ages 26 and 36, whereas muscular power peaked as early as age 19 in women and age 27 in men. Following these peaks, functional capacity entered a progressive decline that initiated at modest rates of 0.3% to 0.6% annually before accelerating to over 2.0% per year by the seventh decade of life. Cumulative functional loss reached 30% to 48% from peak performance to age 63 across upper-body muscular endurance, lower-limb power, and cardiorespiratory fitness. Relative rates of decline followed comparable curves in both sexes, indicating that physical capacity decline reflects an innate biological aging trajectory rather than sex-specific divergence.