Learn About the Science of Health through videos, interactive modules, and more

From the US government agency – National Institute of Health , specifically the Know the Science

Learn About the Science of Health

There’s a lot of health information out there, and not all of it’s accurate. The more you know about the science of health, the better prepared you can be to evaluate health information and make well-informed decisions. NCCIH’s Know the Science toolkit, available in both English and Spanish, can help. It features a variety of interactive modules, quizzes, and other tools to help you better understand complex scientific topics that relate to health research. You can also subscribe to NCCIH’s Know the Science email update for monthly bulletins about helpful resources. Dive in and get to know the science!

How to make sense of articles in scientific journals

Have you ever come across a scientific article and it just seems too dense to read? And you want to share the information with your health care provider or a family member or friend?
Here’s some tips that just might help out!

From a Web page at the National Institutes of Health (A US government agency)

Know the Science: 9 Questions To Help You Make Sense of Health Research

Almost every day, new findings on medical research are published, some of which may include complementary health approaches.

Research studies about medical treatments and practices published in scientific journals are often the sources of news stories and can be important tools in helping you manage your health.

But finding scientific journal articles, understanding the studies they describe, and interpreting the results can be challenging.

One way to make it easier to understand information you find in a scientific journal is to share the information with your health care providers and get their opinions. Once you understand the basics and terminology of scientific research, you have one more tool to help you make better, informed decisions about your health.

Here are 9 questions that can help you make sense of a scientific research article.

The article goes on to answer 9 questions, including

• What were the goals of the study?

• Was the study a controlled clinical trial?

  In a controlled clinical trial, investigators compare the effects of different treatments in groups of study participants who are as identical as possible in all other respects.

• What does it mean when the results of a study are described as statistically significant but not clinically significant?

[Press release] Living longer, not healthier

Living longer, not healthier 

From the press release

New research by UMass Medical School suggests genes that extend lifespan won’t necessarily improve health in advanced age

By Jim Fessenden, UMass Medical School Communications
January 22, 2015

	Heidi A. Tissenbaum, PhD

A study of long-lived mutant C. elegans by UMass Medical School scientists shows that the genetically altered worms spend a greater portion of their life in a frail state and exhibit less activity as they age then typical nematodes. These findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest genes that increase longevity may not significantly increase healthy lifespan and point to the need to measure health as part of aging studies going forward.

“Our study reveals that if we want to find the genes that help us remain physically active as we age, the genes that will allow us to play tennis when we’re 70 similar to when we were 40, we have to look beyond longevity as the sole criteria. We have to start looking at new genes that might play a part in ‘healthspan.’” said Heidi A. Tissenbaum, PhD, professor of molecular, cellular & cancer biology and the program in molecular medicine and principal investigator of the study.

Genomic and technological advances have allowed scientists to identify several groups of genes that control longevity in C. elegans, a nematode used as a model system for genetic studies in the lab, as well as in yeast and flies. These genes, when examined, have analogs in mammals. The underlying assumption by scientists has always been that extending lifespan would also increase the time spent by the organism in a healthy state. However, for various reasons, most studies only closely examine these model animals while they’re still relatively young and neglect to closely examine the latter portion of the animals’ lives.

Challenging the assumption that longevity and health are intrinsically connected, Dr. Tissenbaum and colleagues sought to investigate how healthy long-lived C. elegans mutants were as they aged.

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• Living longer, not healthier
• A Longer Life Isn’t Always A Healthier One
• Life Extension May Add Just Bad Time

[Press release] Elsevier Announces the Launch of Atlas: Research for a Better World | Elsevier

Elsevier Announces the Launch of Atlas: Research for a Better World | Elsevier.

Only three articles so far, may be worth returning to in the future. Bonus – all scientific articles referred to will be available for free.

Excerpt from the press release

ublishing about the science behind global issues that affect us all in a format that can be read by all

Oxford, January 5, 2015Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the launch of a new virtual journal: Atlas. Published as a virtual journal, Atlas selects already published research on topics that hold high societal relevance or address global issues, and summarizes and presents the science in a lay-friendly, story format to reach an as wide as possible global audience.

Atlas showcases research that can (or already has) significantly impact(ed) people’s lives around the world. Articles published are selected by an external advisory board made up of representatives of some of the world’s most renowned Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), including the United Nations University and Oxfam.  Every month the Board selects a paper from a shortlist of suggested articles published in any of Elsevier’s 1800+ journals. Once selected, the author(s) of the paper are awarded “The Atlas” and work with a team of dedicated Atlas science journalists to summarize the research into an easy-to-digest, lay-friendly story format which will be published online. Additionally, all articles featured on Atlas will include a direct link to the full research paper on ScienceDirect which will be made freely available for all.

– See more at: http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsevier-announces-the-launch-of-atlas-research-for-a-better-world#sthash.fGan6rY2.dpuf

Less Research Is Needed

Research being carried out at the Microscopy lab of the . This photo was taken on July 28, 2006 using a Nikon D70. For more information about INL’s research projects and career opportunities, visit the lab’s facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/idahonationallaboratory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From a thoughtful 25 June 2012 post at The Health Care Blog

he most over-used and under-analyzed statement in the academic vocabulary is surely “more research is needed”.

These four words, occasionally justified when they appear as the last sentence in a Masters dissertation, are as often to be found as the coda for a mega-trial that consumed the lion’s share of a national research budget, or that of a Cochrane review which began with dozens or even hundreds of primary studies and progressively excluded most of them on the grounds that they were “methodologically flawed”.

Yet however large the trial or however comprehensive the review, the answer always seems to lie just around the next empirical corner.

With due respect to all those who have used “more research is needed” to sum up months or years of their own work on a topic, this ultimate academic cliché is usually an indicator that serious scholarly thinking on the topic has ceased. It is almost never the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from a set of negative, ambiguous, incomplete or contradictory data…

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• Understanding the nuances of evidence-informed healthcare (thehindu.com)