Store your health data in a Biobank!
The largest and most detailed database of medical data has been opened
All this is available to specialists who need a large sample to find the causes of diseases and treatment methods. The main goal of the project is to understand to what extent genetic, environmental and other factors are responsible for the occurrence and development of the disease.
The database contains data only for those people who have agreed to disclose them.
Biobank bins (photo by UK Biobank).
The project was established in 2006. Only those researchers who can prove that they are acting in the interests of medicine and that their findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals will have access to information. The applications will be handled by a special council. One of the first clients is likely to be the US National Institutes of Health, which wanted to create something similar, but found it too expensive ($2 billion!) pleasure. In the UK, they were able to manage with a smaller amount.
China has a similar database, it is called Kaduri-Biobank. There are also 500 thousand volunteers there, but the founder of the British version, Rory Collins, claims that he has more detailed information. However, the archives complement each other in some ways and can be used together in some studies.
The Chinese project has already yielded a number of important results. For example, it turned out that thinner men have a higher risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and that diabetes and psychological stress are among the main risk factors for a heart attack.
The information in the British database is sorted into more than a thousand categories: whether a person uses a mobile phone, how often he sees friends and relatives, with what force he clenches his fist, what is the density of bone tissue, how are things with blood pressure, how much fat, how the lungs work, how many points he scores according to the results of standard tests for cognitive abilities...
And this is not the limit. The organizers plan to have an MRI scan of at least every fifth volunteer. A lot of attention will be paid to accelerometers: project participants will wear them for a week in order to accurately measure their physical activity. Plus ultrasound, X-rays of bones and joints, etc.
Every two to three years, about 20 thousand volunteers will undergo complete repeated examinations. In addition, all new records will automatically get into the database, which will be made in the medical records of all volunteers by district therapists, hospital staff and pathologists.
Some of the participants already have dangerous diseases: 26,000 have diabetes, 50,000 have joint problems, 11,000 have had a heart attack at least once. It is expected that in ten years 40,000 volunteers will have diabetes, and the number of "cores" will grow to 28,000.
Prepared by NewScientist: Biobank promises to pinpoint the cause of diseasePortal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru