Google brings Health Guardian to the Fitbit Air and Edge, and expands automatic activity tracking - Engadget

Perhaps the single most important finding of the independent review into mental health, ADHD and autism in England, published last Friday, is that mental distress across the population, and particularly young people, has substantially worsened. Its chair, Prof Peter Fonagy, told the BBC that the former health secretary Wes Streeting had been “completely wrong” to suggest that conditions and disorders were being overdiagnosed. Mr Streeting acknowledged his mistake. But some rightwing politicians and commentators have leapt on the notion that medicalisation of ordinary states of mind is behind the huge rise in young people seeking help. This review should bury that idea. Instead, this should be a moment to face facts. First, that the rises in psychological distress, and the need for support with neurodevelopmental differences, are real and tied to social changes. Second, that current services are not up to what is being asked of them. Fifteen years after the phrase “parity of esteem” gained prominence – the idea being that people with mental ill health have equivalent entitlements to those with physical illnesses – it is a long way from being realised.

Bioengineer.org news storyFor people living with HIV, modern antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to levels below what standard laboratory tests can detect. Yet some patients on long-term treatment experience a curious phenomenon: a single test result showing a small, transient amount of virus in the blood, followed by an immediate return to undetectable levels. These events, known as viral blips, have puzzled clinicians and researchers for years, raising questions about whether they represent harmless statistical noise, brief bursts of viral production from hidden reservoirs, or early warnings of impending treatment failure. A new nationwide Swedish study, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, offers one of the most comprehensive answers to date. Drawing on the Swedish national InfCareHIV cohort, researchers analyzed data from 4,210 treatment-naïve adults who began antiretroviral therapy from 1 January 2007 onward, with follow-up data extracted through 30 September 2020. The median observation time was 5.5 years, with some individuals followed for as long as 13.7 years.

European Medical Journal news storyPeople living with HIV may experience subtle changes in heart muscle function even when conventional measures of cardiac performance remain normal, according to findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis. Researchers identified significantly impaired global longitudinal strain (GLS) among people with HIV compared with HIV-uninfected individuals, despite preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in both groups. The findings suggest that speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) could provide additional information about early myocardial dysfunction in this population. Read the full news story here.

Among cancer patients, the high financial cost of cancer care is a prevalent problem. This financial burden is also associated with potentially harmful behavioral strategies that patients might use to cope with costs, such as delaying or forgoing treatment and skipping medications. Collectively, researchers refer to this impact as financial toxicity.