The U.S. Surgeon General recently challenged mobile device application developers to come up with apps that would “provide tailored health information and empower users to engage in and enjoy healthy behavior.” The first place winner in the Fitness/Physical Activity category was Lose It!, an app designed to help users lose weight. According to the Lose It! website, the average user loses 12.3 pounds with the help of the app, with a 99% success rate (defined as losing any amount of weight) over 4 weeks.
Archives for June 2012
FDA Works Toward Regulating Medical Apps
In recent years, people are turning more and more to the Internet for health information and to “self-diagnose.” With an increasing variety of medical apps available for the iPhone, iPad, Android, and other mobile platforms, self-diagnosis has become even more accessible. Unfortunately, however, checking the boxes next to a variety of symptoms and waiting for a mobile device to spew forth a litany of potential ailments lacks the sensitivity and accuracy of a human diagnostician. Further, those who are not trained in medicine may misinterpret symptoms as erroneously relevant or erroneously irrelevant, leading to misdiagnosis.
New CDC Data Shows Drowning Rates Down Overall, Still High
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a five-year review of drowning rates for 2005-2009 in a recent issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report [1]. The report shows that overall drowning rates are decreasing, though drowning is still the leading cause of preventible death in children aged 1–4 [2].