Informatics for Precision Medicine and Healthcare

Remotely Supervised Exercise during the COVID-19 Pandemic versus in-Person-Supervised Exercise in Achieving Long-Term Adherence to a Healthy Lifestyle

The World Health Organization's global action plan on workers' health establishes that occupational health services should carry out lifestyle interventions within the workplace, to prevent the development of non-communicable diseases. The objective of the study was to compare adherence to a healthy lifestyle six months after completion of a multi-component intervention with remotely supervised physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic versus a multi-component intervention with in-person supervised physical exercise before the COVID-19 pandemic in university employees with unhealthy habits and predisposed to change. A prospective cohort study following the "Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology" (STROBE) guidelines was conducted, with two arms. Each multi-component intervention lasted for 18 weeks, and consisted of education on healthy habits, Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet)-based workshops, and a physical exercise program. Twenty-one middle-aged sedentary university employees with poor adherence to the MedDiet completed the study. Six months after completion of the intervention, both groups increased physical activity levels, adherence to the MedDiet, eating habits, health-promoting lifestyle, health responsibility, and health-related quality of life. There were no differences between groups in any of the variables analyzed. Therefore, remotely supervised physical exercise could be adequate to achieve long-term adherence to a healthy lifestyle in the same way as conventional face-to-face intervention, at least in a population willing to change.

Effectiveness of Workplace Exercise Interventions on Body Composition: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this review was to analyze the effectiveness of workplace exercise interventions on body composition (BC).

DATA SOURCE

Studies published in PubMed, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, CINAHL and PsycINFO, from the earliest time point until 8 July 2020.

STUDY INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA

Inclusion criteria were worksite interventions, in adults, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), real exercise practice, and measuring BC outcomes. Exclusion criteria were full-text non-available, abstract not in English, and exercise protocol missing.

DATA EXTRACTION

157 studies were retrieved and assessed for inclusion by 2 independent reviewers, who also used the Cochrane's Collaboration Tool to assess study quality and risk of bias.

DATA SYNTHESIS

We performed a meta-analysis to determine the effect size of the interventions on BC outcomes reported in at least 5 studies.

RESULTS

Twelve RCTs were included (n = 1270, 66% women), quality of studies being low to high (25% moderate, 67% high). Interventions achieved a statistically significant decrease in waist circumference (SMD = 0.24; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.06 to 0.41; p = 0.008), total mass fat (SMD = 0.21; 95%CI: 0.00 to 0.41; p = 0.047), and body adiposity index (SMD = 0.20; 95%CI: 0.00 to 0.41; p = 0.049). No changes were observed in body weight (SMD = 0.08 95%CI: -0.02 to 0.18; p = 0.128). Additionally, muscle mass increased in interventions that included strength training. There were no adverse events reported.

CONCLUSION

The most effective workplace exercise interventions to improve BC combined supervised, moderate-intensity aerobic and strength training, for at least 4 months.

Future of Health Services: The Role of Physicians in the Disruptive Era

This article aimed to address the role of physicians in future health in the disruptive era. Physicians in this disruptive era must increase their capability and knowledge to compensate for this development. Advances in technology increase the impact on health care and the significance of disruption. Disruptive innovation encompasses several fields, such as physics, digital, and biology. Big data as one of the most important parts in clinical aspects encompass high-throughput cellular and protein-binding assays toward chemoinformatic-driven databases. Health status can be modified by changing epigenetic factor, such as lifestyle and environment. As a result, they affect human genetics and provide the insight of pathophysiology of disease, clinical treatment, and early preventive action. Disruptive innovations in health-care align with the development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, Internet of things, digitalization, and genomics. New paradigm shifting in physician–patient relationships is relevant to consumer health informatics.

Translational Informatics for Parkinson's Disease: from Big Biomedical Data to Small Actionable Alterations

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurological disease in elderly people, and its morbidity and mortality are increasing with the advent of global ageing. The traditional paradigm of moving from small data to big data in biomedical research is shifting toward big data-based identification of small actionable alterations. To highlight the use of big data for precision PD medicine, we review PD big data and informatics for the translation of basic PD research to clinical applications. We emphasize some key findings in clinically actionable changes, such as susceptibility genetic variations for PD risk population screening, biomarkers for the diagnosis and stratification of PD patients, risk factors for PD, and lifestyles for the prevention of PD. The challenges associated with the collection, storage, and modelling of diverse big data for PD precision medicine and healthcare are also summarized. Future perspectives on systems modelling and intelligent medicine for PD monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, and healthcare are discussed in the end.