On the windy streets of Copenhagen, children, young adults, and older people are all on bikes, with parents and their children on cargo bikes (a quarter of families in Copenhagen own one). It may look as though Copenhageners crave the outdoors, get a kick out of exercise, want to be fit and healthy. It may or may not be the reason. Maybe, it’s just the easiest way to get anywhere.

Admiring all this and more, we at InnovatioCuris, attended the 24th Annual International partnering conference BIO-Europe 2018. BIO-Europe, scheduled for 5th – 7th November 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark, a pre-eminent conference for the life sciences, is Europe’s largest partnering conference that serves the global biotechnology industry. It brought together the thought leaders and international decisionmakers from the whole healthcare sector including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, investors and policymakers, offering networking opportunities, workshops & panel discussions, high profile exhibition and B2B meetings. It provided an excellent networking platform for strategic partnerships.

InnovatioCuris supported the event as a media sponsor with focus on networking through B2B meetings and exhibition, along with the aim of strengthening its ecosystem with innovative partners in order to bring down the healthcare delivery cost and improve the quality of care.

It was an exceptional experience coupled with reinforcing existing partnerships and scouting new stakeholders / global experts in the healthcare space.

We came back home with warm memories and new friends. We look forward to creating an impact together by fostering innovations in the health sector.

Parthvee Jain is an engineering graduate with specialization and interests in fields like Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food Processing, and Nutraceuticals. Connecting European Healthcare innovation leaders with the Indian healthcare system and pioneers, she heads the market access program and partnerships at InnovatioCuris: impacting organizational performance through expert research, analysis and evaluating market competitive conditions, current and emerging trends, and industry-specific solutions.

“Previous research has shown that loneliness and social isolation are linked with coronary heart disease and stroke, but this has not been investigated in patients with different types of cardiovascular diseases.”

The study investigated whether the poor social network was associated with worse outcomes in 13,463 patients with ischaemic heart disease, arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm), heart failure, or heart valve disease.

Data from national registers were linked with the DenHeart survey, which asked all patients discharged from April 2013 to April 2014 from five heart centers in Denmark to answer a questionnaire about their physical and mental health, lifestyle factors such as smoking and social support.

Social support was measured using registry data on living alone or not, and survey questions about feeling lonely – Do you have someone to talk to when you need it? Do you feel alone sometimes even though you want to be with someone? “It was important to collect information on both, since people may live alone but not feel lonely while others cohabit but do feel lonely,” explained Ms. Vinggaard Christensen. Feeling lonely was associated with poor outcomes in all patients regardless of their type of heart disease, and even after adjusting for age, level of education, other diseases, body mass index, smoking and alcohol intake.

Loneliness was associated with a doubled mortality risk in women and nearly doubled risk in men. Both men and women who felt lonely were three times more likely to report symptoms of anxiety and depression and had a significantly lower quality of life than those who did not feel lonely.

Ms. Vinggaard Christensen noted that people with poor social support may have worse health outcomes because they have unhealthier lifestyles, are less compliant with treatment, and are more affected by stressful events. But she said: “We adjusted for lifestyle behaviors and many other factors in our analysis, and still found that loneliness is bad for health.”

She concluded: “We live in a time when loneliness is more present and health providers should take this into account when assessing risk. Our study shows that asking two questions about social support provides a lot of information about the likelihood of having poor health outcomes.”

European guidelines on cardiovascular prevention state that people who are isolated or disconnected from others are at increased risk of developing and dying prematurely from coronary artery disease. The guidelines recommend an assessment of psychosocial risk factors in patients with established cardiovascular disease and those at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The study has highlighted growing concerns about the issue and assumes great significance at places where loneliness is turning into a bane for victims due to lack of support system.

The study assumes significance and greater attention as the world marks the International Day of Older Persons on October 1, each year.

On December 14, 1990, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish October 1 as the International Day of Older Persons as recorded in Resolution 45/106.

The holiday was observed for the first time on October 1, 1991. The holiday is celebrated by raising awareness about issues affecting the elderly, such as senescence and elder abuse. It is also a day to appreciate the contributions that older people make to society. This holiday is similar to National Grandparents Day in the United States and Canada as well as Double Ninth Festival in China and Respect for the Aged Day in Japan.

Dr. Ida Elisabeth Huitfeldt Madsen, National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark, the corresponding author said: “We were surprised to see the differences between the effects of harassment by clients or customers compared to harassment by other employees. This is not something that has been shown before. Previous research showed an increased risk of long-term sickness absence for employees exposed to sexual harassment by a colleague, supervisor or subordinate but an increased risk was not always found in association with sexual harassment by clients or customers.”

Dr. Madsen added: “Our findings suggest that sexual harassment from clients or customers have adverse consequences and should not be normalized or ignored. In this study, we found that sexual harassment from clients or customers, which is more prevalent than harassment from other employees, is associated with an increased level of depressive symptoms. This is important as some workplaces, for example in person-related work like care work or social work, may have an attitude that dealing with sexual harassment by clients or customers is ‘part of the job’.”

The researchers found that compared to employees not exposed to sexual harassment, employees harassed by clients or customers scored 2.05 points higher on the Major Depression Inventory (MDI) – a self-report mood questionnaire that generates a diagnosis of depression together with an estimate of symptom severity. Scores on the MDI range from 20 for minor depression to 30 or more for major depression. Employees harassed by a colleague, supervisor or subordinate scored 2.45 points higher compared to employees who had experienced sexual harassment by clients or customers.

When looking at clinical depression only, the researchers found no increased risk among those harassed by clients or customers compared to those not exposed to harassment, whereas those harassed by colleagues, supervisors or subordinates had a significantly higher risk of clinical depression.

Out of the 7603 employees who participated in this study, 2.4% (180) were exposed to sexual harassment by clients or customers, while 1.0% (79) was exposed to harassment by colleagues. Women were more likely to be exposed than men, with 169 out of 4116 women reporting sexual harassment by clients or customers compared to 11 out of 3487 men, and 48 women reporting sexual harassment by colleagues compared to 31 men. Participants employed in care workers were more often exposed to sexual harassment by clients or customers – 152 out of 2191 (6.9%) – than participants employed in other occupational groups such as education, service or industrial work.

The authors note that as the number of exposed individuals in this study was relatively low. This increases the uncertainty of the reported estimates, especially for men. The observed associations may thus largely be reflective of women’s experiences. The cross-sectional observational design of this study does not allow for conclusions about cause and effect. Also, the use of self-reported data that relied on participant recall may have led to sexual harassment being under- or over-reported.

Despite these limitations, the authors suggest that it is important to investigate sexual harassment from clients or customers and sexual harassment by colleagues, supervisors or subordinates as distinct types of harassment and to identify methods to prevent sexual harassment and the development of depressive symptoms.

Want to write for InnoHEALTH? send us your article at magazine@innovatiocuris.com

Researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, North Carolina State University, and the Natural History Museum of Denmark published findings recently in Scientific Reports revealing that a greater number of bug species can be found in high-traffic, ground level, carpeted rooms with many windows and doors. (And a word of comfort for pet owners with messy habits: don’t worry, bugs don’t really care.)

“We are just beginning to realize— and study—how the home we create for ourselves also builds a complex, indoor habitat for bugs and other life,” says Dr. Misha Leong, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at the Academy. “We’re hoping to better understand this age-old coexistence, and how it may impact our physical and mental well-being.”

Humans spend most of their time indoors. Aside from pests, most life within the home—be it bacteria, fungi, or arthropods (a group that includes insects and their close relatives like spiders and millipedes)—has rarely been studied. The scientific team surveyed 50 urban homes in Raleigh, North Carolina to see what it is about a home that might lead to a buggier abode.

FROM THE ATTIC TO THE BASEMENT

Next time you climb the stairs, remember that insects, too, prefer lower levels. Survey findings revealed that as floor numbers increase, fewer types of insects thrive. Larger rooms, especially on the ground floor (or even below ground), harbored more insect diversity. More varied types of insects were also observed in carpeted rooms versus those with bare floors as well as “airier” rooms with more windows and doors offering greater accessibility to the outdoors. Species diversity within the home tends to mirror the life thriving outside, with neighborhood affluence playing an important and recently studied role.

“While the idea of uninvited insect roommates sounds unappealing, bugs in houses may contribute to health in a roundabout way,” says Dr. Michelle Trautwein, senior author and the Academy’s Schlinger Chair of Diptera. “A growing body of evidence suggests some modern ailments are connected with our lack of exposure to wider biological diversity, particularly microorganisms— and insects may play a role in hosting and spreading that microbial diversity indoors.”

ROOM TO ROOM

Bugs can also vary from room to room. An analysis of core representative species—like book lice, fruit flies, and ladybugs—revealed how common areas like living rooms hosted more diverse communities when compared to bathrooms, kitchens, and bedrooms. Basements also proved unique: these dark, damp, and cavernous spaces lent to diverse communities of caved welling insects like spiders, mites, millipedes, camel crickets, and ground beetles.

Every room within the home revealed a complex ecological structure of predator and prey— with scavenger species, strays from the outdoors, and transient go-among all playing critical roles. The study also noted how indoor ecology is much like island ecology—a scientific discipline that examines what lives where, and why. Once species permeate inside, they tend to colonize their new “island” habitat and disperse across the household.

“We’re beginning to see how houses can be a passive go-between for insects traveling through the surrounding landscape,” says Trautwein. “The more numerous the entry points of windows and doors, the more diverse the community that thrives inside.”

No need to de-clutter; cats and pups are a-ok For the messy among us, rest assured: study findings revealed that tidiness does not play a significant role in insect diversity except for the presence of cellar spiders—delicate, long legged critters of the family Pholcidae typically spotted in damp crawl spaces. While more cluttered areas hosted a greater number of these web-spinners, overall human behavior played a minimal role in determining the composition of bug communities in the survey.

The presence of cats or dogs, houseplants, pesticides, and dust bunnies revealed no significant impact, suggesting that our indoor communities are more strongly influenced by the environment outside the window than how tidily we live inside with Fido and Kitty.

“Even though we like to think of our homes as shielded from the outdoors, wild ecological dramas may be unfolding right beside us as we go about our daily lives,” says Leong. “We’re learning more and more about these sometimes invisible relationships and how the homes we choose for ourselves also foster indoor ecosystems all their own.”

This study is part of a seven-continent exploration to understand overlooked life in the home: how our tiniest roommates arrive and thrive, and the unknown impacts—both harmful and benign—that stem from living together in close quarters.

Want to write for InnoHEALTH? send us your article at magazine@innovatiocuris.com

Read all the issues of InnoHEALTH magazine:
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 1 (July to September 2016) – https://goo.gl/iWAwN2
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 2 (October to December 2016) – https://goo.gl/4GGMJz
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 1 (January to March 2017) – https://goo.gl/DEyKnw
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 2 (April to June 2017) – https://goo.gl/Nv3eev
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 3 (July to September 2017) – https://goo.gl/MCVjd6
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 4 (October to December 2017) – http://amzn.to/2B2UMLw
InnoHEALTH Volume 3 Issue 1 (January to March 2018) – https://goo.gl/fksdQx
InnoHEALTH Volume 3 Issue 2 (April to June 2018) – https://goo.gl/grbtRo

Connect with InnovatioCuris on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/innovatiocuris
Twitter: https://twitter.com/innovatiocuris
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7043791
Stay updated about IC, visit: www.innovatiocuris.com

Want to write for InnoHEALTH? send us your article at  magazine@innovatiocuris.com

Read all the issues of InnoHEALTH magazine:
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 1 (July to September 2016) – https://goo.gl/iWAwN2 
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 2 (October to December 2016) – https://goo.gl/4GGMJz 
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 1 (January to March 2017) – https://goo.gl/DEyKnw 
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 2 (April to June 2017) – https://goo.gl/Nv3eev
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 3 (July to September 2017) – https://goo.gl/MCVjd6
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 4 (October to December 2017) – http://amzn.to/2B2UMLw

Connect with InnovatioCuris on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/innovatiocuris
Twitter: https://twitter.com/innovatiocuris
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7043791
Stay updated about IC, visit: www.innovatiocuris.com