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☆ EU Commission allocates $1.3 bln to tackle mental health 'silent epidemic'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRUSSELS, June 7 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it would allocate 1.23 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to mental health initiatives across the 27-member European Union and make mental health a pillar of health policy. "Today marks a new beginning for a comprehensive, prevention-oriented and multi-stakeholder approach to mental health at EU level," Stella Kyriakides, EU Commissioner for health and food safety, said in a statement. "We need to break down stigma and discrimination so that those in need can reach out and receive the support they need. The Commission said mental health problems already impacted around 84 million people before the COVID-19 pandemic with an economic cost of about 600 billion euro a year, or 4% of the bloc's GDP. At a press conference, Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas called it a "silent epidemic" and said the topic was the last piece in the European Health Union "puzzle".

Persons: Stella Kyriakides, Margaritis Schinas, Julia Payne, Mark Potter Organizations: European, European Union, EU, European Health Union, Mental Health, Thomson Locations: BRUSSELS, Ukraine, EU

☆ Fried food is linked to increased risk of anxiety and depression
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Taylor Nicioli | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

A research team in Hangzhou, China, found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried potatoes, was linked with a 12% higher risk of anxiety and 7% higher risk of depression than in people who didn’t eat fried foods. These results “open an avenue in the significance of reducing fried food consumption for mental health,” according to the paper published Monday in the journal PNAS. Frequent consumption of fried foods was linked to higher risk of anxiety and depression. Dr. Walter Willett said the results “should be regarded as very preliminary, especially the connection with fried food and acrylamide.”“The health effects of fried food will depend greatly on what food is fried and what type of fat is used for frying,” said Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. It's also possible that some people with mental health issues reach for fried food.

☆ Apple Plans iPhone Journaling App in Expansion of Health Initiatives
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Aaron Tilley | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty ImagesApple Inc. is planning an iPhone app to let users compile their daily activities as part of its efforts in the market for mental and physical health technology, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The software will compete in a category of so-called journaling apps, such as Day One, which lets users track and record their activities and thoughts. The new Apple product underscores the company’s growing interest in mental health.

☆ Academic researchers blast Twitter’s data paywall as ‘outrageously expensive’
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

But Twitter’s new tiered access system undercuts all of that, the researchers said. That represents 0.3% of what researchers used to be able to collect in a single day, the letter said. Before the change, researchers could pay about $500 a month for the ability to access up to 10% of the roughly 1 billion tweets a month that flow across Twitter’s platform. Now, though, “the most expensive Enterprise tier would cut that by 80% at about 400 times the price,” the researchers’ letter said. “The new pricing plans will also end at least 76 long-term efforts, including dashboards, tools, or code packages that support other researchers, journalists, first-responders, educators, and Twitter users.”

☆ Former pro breaks record for world's longest surf in Australia
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( James Redmayne | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SYDNEY, March 17 (Reuters) - A former Australian professional surfer broke the world record for the longest recorded surfing session in Sydney on Friday. The Australian plans to surf until Friday evening, extending the new record to over 40 hours on the water. Spotlights were used at night to help guide Johnston in the surf and medics monitored his health on the beach. Johnston, who surfed more than 600 waves during his session, took on the world record to raise money for youth mental health initiatives in collaboration with the Chumpy Pullin Foundation. Reporting by James Redmayne in Sydney Editing by Alasdair Pal, Editing by Peter RutherfordOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Google's working on an updated version of its medical A.I. that can answer health questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The Google Health team shared updates about features coming to search, tools for building health apps and the latest in artificial intelligence-powered health research. It's designed to provide high-quality responses to medical questions. The company said the second iteration of the technology, Med-PaLM 2, consistently performed at an "expert" level on medical exam questions. Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam, a research lead at Google Health, said the company is also testing Med-PaLM's answers against responses from real doctors and clinicians. In some cases, Med-PaLM 2's answers were on a par, and even more detailed, than the answers that clinicians had provided.

☆ Oracle reorganized its AI and data initiatives amid a leadership shakeup, leaked internal memo shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Oracle moved its AI and data unit under its cloud business amid a leadership shakeup. Oracle is moving its data and artificial intelligence unit under its cloud business and making its health initiatives a major focus, an internal email shows. The reorganization means Oracle is "consolidating all of the new data and AI initiatives back into OCI," according to an internal email. Don Johnson, the former Oracle Cloud Infrastructure boss once named by Ellison as a potential contender for co-CEO, recently left his latest role leading Oracle Health and Artificial Intelligence, Insider previously reported. After about six months, he returned to run engineering for Oracle Health after the company bought Cerner in 2022.

☆ Ultraprocessed food may contribute to dementia, study says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Sandee Lamotte | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —We all eat them — ultraprocessed foods such as frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals make our busy lives much easier. If more than 20% of your daily calorie intake is ultraprocessed foods, however, you may be raising your risk for cognitive decline, a new study found. While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultraprocessed foods are probably bad for our brains.”There was an interesting twist, however. “Ultraprocessed foods drag diet quality down, and thus their concentration in the diet is an indicator of poor diet quality in most cases,” Katz said. One easy way to ensure diet quality is to cook and prepare your food from scratch, Suemoto said.

☆ Vermont town employee who quietly lowered fluoride in water for years resigns
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

A town employee who quietly lowered the fluoride in a Vermont community’s drinking water for years has resigned — and is asserting that the levels had actually been low for much longer than believed. While fluoridating municipal water is voluntary, Vermont towns that do “shall control the level of fluoride” within the state’s specified ranges, according to the state’s water supply rule. The Vermont Health Department said it does not regulate municipal water systems. Town Manager Josh Arneson said Thursday that he will review fluoride levels monthly and that the town’s Water and Sewer Commission will also look at the report. The addition of fluoride to public drinking water systems has been routine in communities across the United States since the 1940s and 1950s.

Mental health as a spectrumChew said he was inspired to try to popularize mental healthcare after battling a panic attack when he was 16 years old. Justin Kim, CEO and co-founder of Ami, another digital mental healthcare start-up based in Singapore and Jakarta, agreed that there’s a need to scale mental health offerings. Alistair Carmichael, an associate partner at McKinsey & Company, said employers will benefit from better mental health in their workforce. “Mental health has long had a stigma across Asia, whereby traditionally we’ve seen it as a clinical issue, a crisis,” he said. “We see mental health just as important as physical health.

Food stamps restrict shoppers to nonalcoholic beverages, cold food items, seeds and plants. Expanding payment options for low-income shoppers could help the delivery platforms lure low-income grocery shoppers away from Walmart.com WMT.N and Amazon.com , which also have food stamp payment options. Shipt shoppers will also be able to pay for orders with SNAP EBT in 2023. Target.com customers can make grocery purchases online with SNAP EBT and their deliveries are powered by Shipt. Shipt does not currently offer any WIC or TANF payment options.

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