A New Digital Health Program for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Preliminary Program Evaluation.

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) causes chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. IBD is characterized by an unpredictable disease course that varies greatly between individuals and alternates between the periods of relapse and remission. A low energy level (fatigue) is a common symptom, whereas stress and reduced sleep quality may be the triggering factors.

Improving outpatient care for heart failure through digital innovation: a feasibility study.

Background: Heart failure (HF) affects over 26 million people worldwide. Multidisciplinary management strategies that include symptom monitoring and patient self-care support reduce HF hospitalization and mortality rates. Ideally, HF follow-up and self-care support includes lifestyle-change recommendations and remote monitoring of weight and HF symptoms.

Randomized Trial for Weight Loss Using a Digital Therapeutic Application.

Background: Smartphones present a near-ubiquitous channel through which structured lifestyle change can reduce risk or progression of the most common noncommunicable diseases. We explored whether a digital structured lifestyle program enhances weight loss.

Methods: We randomized overweight and obese participants attending a four-month lifestyle change program to either standard weekly coaching sessions (controls), or standard treatment supplemented with a digital therapeutic mobile application (intervention).

Intracellular location of BRCA2 protein expression and prostate cancer progression in the Swedish Watchful Waiting Cohort.

Prostate cancer patients with inherited BRCA2 mutations have a survival disadvantage. However, it is unknown whether progression is associated with BRCA2 protein expression in diagnostic prostate cancer tissue, among men without inherited mutations. We conducted a nested case-control study within the Swedish Watchful Waiting cohort.

Behavioral economics: merging psychology and economics for lifestyle interventions.

The field of behavioral economics combines psychology and economics to investigate how individuals actually behave as opposed to how they would behave if they were being perfectly rational (as in the sense of maximizing their utility). Although initial applications focused on consumer behavior, such as explaining why people failed to save adequately for retirement, the field has moved increasingly into the area of explaining health behaviors as well as the design of lifestyle interventions, such as weight loss and smoking-cessation programs. This article provides an overview of several important behavioral economics concepts of relevance to public health and health behavior change.

Prostate cancer progression and survival in BRCA2 mutation carriers.

Background: Mutations in the BRCA2 gene are associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer, but it is not known whether they are associated with progression of the disease. We compared prostate cancer-specific survival, disease stage, and tumor grade between prostate cancer patients carrying the Icelandic BRCA2 999del5 founder mutation and noncarriers.

Methods: Using population-based registries, we identified all 596 prostate cancer patients who were diagnosed in Iceland during 1955 through 2004 among 29603 male relatives of unselected breast cancer probands.