[photopress:MBA_Chinese_doctor_1.jpg,full,alignright]Scientists with Fudan University are teaming up with a pharmaceutical company in neighboring Jiangsu Province to establish a residents’ health database.
Conducted by the Taizhou Fudan Health Sciences Research Institute, the database program will track health conditions of about 30,000 residents in Taizhou, Jiangsu, for at least the next two decades. (Note that a similar program has been going on in the United States in Framingham, Mass, since 1918 and has shown, for example, connections between excessive weight and cardio-vascular problems. It has made a difference to the world’s health.)
Researchers will record common diseases such as cardiovascular problems, diabetes, cancer and mental illness, and try to analyze the relationship between the diseases and people’s daily lifestyle. This is is expected to ease prevention and treatment of common diseases
Lu Daru, professor with Fudan’s School of Life Sciences, said, ‘The biggest goal of the unprecedented project is to set up a national-level and open disease information database that could be shared and used by all domestic research institutes and hospitals.’
Setting up a national health database containing systematic information on diseases is a common practice in many Western countries. In China, however, only individual research groups compile databases on specific diseases.
Lu Duru explained that fast-paced modern life had changed people’s lives, which meant there was an urgent need for a health database. Absolutely. And from that information can come immense improvements to people’s health. As out illustration shows, medicine in China has a very long history. This initiative now moves it one step further.
Source: ChinaView
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