The HemAway® toilet seat was designed by a physician suffering from hemorrhoids who wanted a simple option to help retract the swollen tissue. By sitting down in the specialized seat and performing a few basic, carefully choreographed body movements, a patient supposedly can relieve the pain without applying ointment or having to reach back there at all. The product has FDA clearance and is now on sale direct from the manufacturer.

A study from the Department of Safety and Quality of Milk and Fish Products, Max Rubner Institute of Germany's Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food, may have come up with a method of distinguishing organic milk from the "non-organic" variety. The chemical difference between the two substances seems to be the relative amount of alpha-linolenic acid and the carbon stable isotope ratio.

From the article abstract in J. Agric. Food Chem.:

To record the variable effect of feeding, including the seasonal influence on milk composition, three conventionally and three organically produced brands of retail milk were collected biweekly during a period of 18 months. Altogether 286 milk samples were analyzed. Threshold values for the identification of German organic milk were established and allowed to delimit almost all conventional samples. Organic retail milk was always above a minimum C18:3ω3 content of 0.50% and below a maximum δ13C of −26.5‰. The universal and strongly negative correlation (r = −0.93) between C18:3ω3 and δ13C impedes the intentional manipulation of conventional milk. Conventional milk can naturally exceed the C18:3ω3 limit under atypical and rare conditions, but differentiation from organic milk can be improved by time-resolved comparison of data. In contrast with the general opinion, organic milk did not generally contain more c9,t11-C18:2 (CLA) than conventional milk. The proposed limits may deviate with dairy products containing milk from foreign countries.

Vaica Medical out of Tel Aviv, Israel has come up with a programmable pill box for elderly folks and those taking a complicated regiments. The unit, with a grid of boxes for a week and four times a day, plugs into the phone line and is programmed by a provider to call the patient and notify which compartment to take the pills from. The only trick is to get a pharmacist or family member to load up the the pills into the boxes.

From the product page:

SimpleMed ™, when integrated with a monitoring center regularly sends "I am alive" signals in response to the opening and closure of the correct compartment, and is capable of sending alert signals in response to recognized deviations such as missed doses, wrong time doses etc.

SimpleMed ™ also features a panic button with a 2 way communication system. All events are logged and sent periodically to the monitoring center and caregivers.

Smith & Nephew has released a new negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device specifically designed for people who want/need to ambulate. Unlike its larger cousins, the RENASYS GO can be worn around the neck like a fashionable MP3 player. Except, it sucks at your gross wound, but no one has to know.

From the press release announcing the product:

Southern Ontario-based Nursing Practice Solutions Inc. conducted a study in Canada comparing average total costs required to treat patients with conventional dressings to the same costs required to treat patients with gauze- and foam-based NPWT, in cases for which NPWT was appropriate. The study found that the cost-per-patient treated with NPWT was 55% less than the cost-per-patient treated with conventional dressings, and that wounds treated with NPWT healed more quickly than wounds treated with conventional dressings. Among patients treated with NPWT, there was no difference in healing times between wounds dressed with foam and those dressed with gauze.

In addition to its small, easy to carry footprint and quiet operation, Smith & Nephew designed RENASYS GO with the additional features customers want to support the patient’s dignity and facilitate its ease of use.

* It is lightweight – weighing less than three pounds and comes with an attractive, discrete carrying case.
* The frosted 300cc canister minimizes the visibility of exudate.
* Multiple alarms and the patient lock-out feature enhance patient safety.
* An extended, 20-hour battery life and less than four-hour charge-up time extend mobility.
* User-friendly digital settings reduce the risk of error.

Using technology licensed from the Mayo Clinic, a company called Muve from Minneapolis, Minnesota has created a simple device that can help optimize exercise habits. Essentially a 3-D accelerometer, the Gruve from Muve is designed to measure person's movement and roughly convert that into calories expended. By setting weight loss goals, the unit can help the user optimize and when and how much movement needs to be done.

From the Associated Press:

As a lifelong runner and cross-country skier, Wood [Andy Wood, chief "muvologist" at Muve] was surprised by what his Gruve showed him. Days of sitting in the office broken up by a long distance run at lunchtime did not bring him to his green goal.

However, steady movement and small walks throughout the day, minus the noon-time run, did make his Gruve green.

After sitting for a long time, the body changes and begins creating fat instead of energy. Wood calls this the E.C.P or energy conservation point. His is 74 minutes and after 69 minutes of sitting, the Gruve vibrates like a cell phone to remind him to move.

Those little bursts of energy keep his body from shifting into neutral and creating excess weight.

Via: medgadget.com

It's probably too late to remedy our self-induced scoliosis, but the iPosture looks promising all the same. It's a 1-inch button that can attach to a variety of garments (like a bra strap or even a necklace) and vibrates when your posture succumbs to the heavy weight of gravity/your underwhelming life. Then you pull back your shoulders and straighten your back until you start to slouch and the cycle repeats. Not a bad idea, but we'd need a painful electroshock component to ever take the thing that seriously enough.

As well as letting you keep an environmentally-friendly eye on your time in the shower, Cue from Avie Products is specifically designed to remind women to check their breasts each month. Like those cheapo shower radio designs, it suckers on to the wall of your shower cubicle and then each month, seven days after your period, it'll ping you. It can also cope with reminders for up to four women. So it's pretty basic, but also sounds pretty darn useful in terms of reminding you to check your health: currently it's available for just $US25 since it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month—regular pricing is $US30. Update: we contacted Avie, and they've confirmed that a less "flowery" version is in the works, to remind men to check for testicular lumps.

Via: gizmodo.com

Philips' Intelligent Pill is a robotic capsule that can carry out a number of advanced medical functions, such as knowing its location in the body. According to Reuters, the pint-sized devices measures acidity and temperature in the stomach, determines it's position in the stomach, and knows whether or not it should release its dose of medicine. Making use of a microprocessor, wireless radio and battery, along with a pump and a deposit for the drugs, the pill could greatly help patients with disorders like Crohn's disease; because the iPill can deliver drugs to a more exact spot, less drugs would be required (leading to less side effects). Researchers say the prototype is ready for mass manufacturing.

Via: gizmodo.com

The brain-to-computer barrier continues to fall with the introduction of Korea's new HIMS Brain HUBI biofeedback device. The unit connects to your computer on one end and offers biofeedback ports for your fingertips on either side of its housing. The device then "reads" the electrical impulses from your fingertips and shows you a graph that you must match to attain an optimum mental state for concentration, memory, creativity and stress relief. While there is definitely a smoke and mirrors element to the contraption, it does point the way towards a likely future for digitally-assisted meditation devices.

Via: dvice.com

Snoring occurs when the muscles of the throat, tongue and soft palate relax during deep sleep. The tissue sags, narrowing the air passage and causing one to inhale more forcefully. This in turn causes the tissue at the back of the throat to vibrate. There are a number of contributing factors, including smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption, or physical characteristics like a narrow airway or an elongated soft palate. In some cases, finding a way to quit snoring will require a specific diagnosis of the cause. Seeking a simple and effective solution to snoring has been a major concern for the 37 million American sufferers and their loved ones. Snoring has become an everyday occurrence, much more common than many care to admit. For many of those who struggle with snoring problems, finding an effective snoring product can prove to be extremely challenging. For many who snore, constantly being the butt of jokes can be humiliating. For their partners, continual interruptions during the night can have a dramatically affect their mood, job performance and general outlook on life. In serious cases, health problems that are related to interrupted breathing patterns associated with severe snoring may arise.

A 1993 National Commission on Sleep Report revealed that chronic sleep disorders affect 60 percent of Americans. The result: "Sleepy individuals are less ambitious and less productive. Sleep loss impairs performance and decision making." Numerous studies have shown that REM sleep is necessary to recharge our mental functions, and non-REM sleep is necessary to repair our physical functions. While the current national average requirement is 7 hours, "short sleepers" (6% of the population) require less than six hours to feel fully rested, and "long sleepers" (4% of the population) require nine hours or more. Sleep medicine specialists suggest that you're getting adequate sleep if about 85% of your total time in bed is spent asleep. Snoring can prevent you and those sleeping with you from getting the vital deep and REM sleep.

Your snoring problem could be a thing of the past, and you never again will have restless nights because of your snoring, get up tired in the morning, worry about your partner leaving the bedroom, or worry about snoring surgery or dental implants. You won't have to undergo expensive snore surgery to solve the problem. And there's no need to take pills. This revolutionary product will solve your snoring blues and save your marriage. Just strap it to your wrist and, thanks to its sensitive micro-sound detector, it will detect your snoring and send a mild harmless electric signal without waking you or disturbing your sleep. Eventually, your body will learn to avoid the electrical signals by not snoring during sleep.