Gear « Weekly Gravy

Only five months have passed since the world got its first taste of the ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as ChatGPT. Promising a brave new world of human-machine connectivity, AI demonstrates near-instantaneous access to in-depth information on almost any subject, all in full conversational sentences, often delivered in a human-sounding voice. A new study says health care may never be the same. That’s the broad takeaway of groundbreaking research that tackled a potentially existential question: When it comes to providing patients with high-quality medical information — and delivering it with compassion and understanding — who does it better: ChatGPT or your doctor? The answer: ChatGPT, by a mile. In fact, after comparing doctor and AI responses to nearly 200 medical questions, a team of health care professionals concluded that nearly 80% of the answers from ChatGPT were more nuanced, accurate and detailed than those shared by physicians. ChatGPT was no slouch on bedside manner, either. While less than 5% of doctor responses were judged to be “empathetic” or “very empathetic,” that figure shot up to 45% for answers provided by AI. “For the first time, we compared AI and physicians’ responses to the same patient messages, and AI won in a landslide,” said study leader John Ayers, vice chief of innovation with the division of infectious disease and global public health at the Qualcomm… read on > read on >

A new study on veterans, gun storage and suicidal thoughts points to an urgent need for mental health and substance-related services, according to researchers. The study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that about 1 in 7 veterans with a firearm at home in California had thought about suicide. “Suicide by firearm is the leading cause of suicide death among veterans,” said the center’s director, Ninez Ponce, principal investigator of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). “Creating programs that would facilitate the secure storage of guns is a critical first step toward ensuring the safety of those struggling with thoughts of suicide, especially California veterans,” she said in a center news release. Researchers used data from the 2021 CHIS survey to better understand the issue. They found that 38% of vets in California lived in a home with a firearm, and about 36% of them stored at least one gun unlocked. About 14% reported that at least one gun was stored loaded and unlocked — about double the number among nonveterans. About 14% of California vets said they had seriously considered suicide at some point. In all, just over 18% of veterans who had had suicidal thoughts currently had at least one firearm that was stored loaded and unlocked. About 18% of vets with a firearm said they had needed professional help… read on > read on >

Older drivers using alcohol or drugs are much more likely to be at fault in a car crash. Researchers studying the issue say that calls for sober-driving campaigns aimed at seniors. “Our research shows just how much aging increases the risk of being at fault for injury or fatality in a drug- or alcohol-related traffic accident,” said lead author Dr. Satish Kedia. He’s a professor in the division of social and behavioral sciences at the University of Memphis School of Public Health in Tennessee. His team’s analysis of nine years of U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data revealed that substance use in older drivers increased the likelihood of being at fault in a crash by two to four times. The researchers looked at alcohol, marijuana, stimulants, narcotics, depressants and hallucinogens. Overall, older drivers are less likely to report using such substances, according to the study. But in a sample of more than 87,000 drivers involved in crashes between two moving vehicles, more than one-third were drivers over 70 who tested positive for substances, the investigators found. “In general, older drivers are at an elevated risk for being at fault in a fatal car crash, this is especially the case when they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs,” Kedia said. In the more than 43,000 pairs involved in two moving-vehicle crashes, substance use… read on > read on >

Traffic deaths are down on U.S. roadways, but the small drop pales in comparison to the surging rate of recent years. Deaths in traffic crashes fell 0.3% last year compared to 2021, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). On average, crashes claimed the lives of 117 people a day — more than 42,000 in all for 2022. “Any reduction in roadway deaths is positive, but the minor decrease announced by NHTSA follows an unprecedented pandemic-fueled surge in roadway fatalities and dangerous driving,” said Jonathan Adkins, chief executive officer of the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). He spoke in a news release from the governors’ group responding to the NHTSA announcement. The GHSA noted that traffic deaths surged 30% over the past decade. Between 2019 and 2022, they rose from 36,355 to 42,795, an increase of nearly 18%. Dangerous driving behaviors, including speeding, impaired driving and not wearing a seat belt all increased between 2020 and 2021. Pedestrian deaths reached a 40-year high of nearly 7,500 in 2021, according to a GHSA analysis. Early indications are that 2022 was also a deadly year for people walking, the group said. “These roadway deaths are heartbreaking, unacceptable and preventable,” Adkins said. “We will not accept such incremental safety progress after two years of escalating deaths and more dangerous driving on U.S. roads.” Adkins pointed… read on > read on >

ChatGPT, the AI chatbot everyone is talking about, can often give reliable answers to questions about breast cancer, a new study finds. But it’s not yet ready to replace your physician. The big caveat, researchers said, is that the information is not always trustworthy, or offers only a small part of the story. So at least for now, they said, take your medical questions to your human doctor. ChatGPT is a chatbot driven by artificial intelligence technology that allows it to have human-like conversations — instantly generating responses to just about any prompt a person can cook up. Those responses are based on the chatbot’s “pre-training” with a massive amount of data, including information gathered from the internet. The technology was launched last November, and within two months it had a record-setting 100 million monthly users, according to a report from the investment bank UBS. ChatGPT has also made headlines by reportedly acing the college SATs, and even passing the U.S. medical licensing exam. Despite that suggestion that the chatbot could be a doctor, it’s still far from clear whether it provides users with trustworthy medical information. The new study, published April 4 in the journal Radiology, tested the chatbot’s ability to answer some “fundamental” questions on breast cancer screening and prevention. Overall, it found, the technology provided appropriate answers 88% of the time. Whether… read on > read on >

Texting and driving can be deadly. Holding your phone in your hand to talk and surfing the internet while behind the wheel is dangerous, too. This is widely known, but a new survey finds that about half of all respondents still use an electronic device most or every time they drive. “I’d say it’s not as much surprising as it is frustrating,” said Adam Snider, a spokesman for the nonprofit Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), which wasn’t involved in the study but issued a news release after it was released. “Distracted driving is something that is incredibly pervasive.” In the survey, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), more than 2,000 licensed drivers were asked how much they agreed with dozens of statements designed with the Health Belief Model in mind. That model is described as a behavioral change theory developed to understand why some people don’t adopt a certain health behavior. It’s usually applied to illness or disease prevention, according to the study. “I think the results from this study really help shed some light on the reasons why” people are still using their phones in their cars, said lead author Aimee Cox, a research associate with the IIHS. Cox said that appears to include “the need or the perceived need to respond to family or friends, the need for information, all… read on > read on >

Telehealth appointments — meetings with a doctor through a phone or video call — are valuable tools in the fight against opioid use disorder in the United States, researchers say. The use of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with medications for addiction, reduced the risk for fatal overdose among Medicare recipients, a new study finds. The study findings support continuing these services. “The results of this study add to the growing research documenting the benefits of expanding the use of telehealth services for people with opioid use disorder, as well as the need to improve retention and access to medication treatment for opioid use disorder,” said lead author Christopher Jones. He is director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The findings from this collaborative study also highlight the importance of working across agencies to identify successful strategies to address and get ahead of the constantly evolving overdose crisis,” Jones added in a CDC news release. For the study, the researchers analyzed data among two groups of Medicare beneficiaries with opioid disorder. Data for the first group — the pre-pandemic cohort — stretched from September 2018 to February 2020. It included more than 105,000 participants. For the pandemic group, data ranged from September 2019 to February 2021 and encompassed more than 70,000 people.… read on > read on >

Marijuana legalization in the United States appears to be driving an increase in car crash deaths due to a jump in “intoxicated driving,” researchers say. In 4 out of 7 states that legalized recreational cannabis, deaths from car crashes rose 10%, according to the University of Illinois Chicago study. On a brighter note, suicide and opioid overdose deaths declined in the states that legalized recreational marijuana. “Overall, this study provides evidence of the potential harms and benefits of legalizing recreational markets,” said lead author Samantha Marinello, a postdoctoral research associate in the university’s School of Public Health. “A potential unintended consequence of legalizing recreational cannabis is an increase in intoxicated driving and crash deaths,” she added. “Therefore, there is a need for policies and public health initiatives to reduce driving under the influence.” As of December, 21 states and Washington, D.C., allowed the sale of recreational marijuana to adults age 21 and older. Where folks can legally toke, it’s likely people are driving under the influence of cannabis or cannabis in combination with another drug such as alcohol, Marinello said. However, this study cannot prove cause and effect, she added. Some people may believe driving high is safe. “Studies of cannabis users have found safety perception is a strong predictor for cannabis-intoxicated driving,” Marinello said. There is evidence that many cannabis users do not believe… read on > read on >

Children’s screen use could be altering their developing brains as they enter adolescence and increasing their risk for mood disorders, a major new study finds. Children ages 9 and 10 who spend more time on smartphones, tablets, video games and TV exhibited higher levels of depression and anxiety by the time they were 11 and 12, researchers found. Further, the investigators linked some of these mood disorders to actual structural changes occurring in the kids’ developing brains, according to the report published online recently in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions. “There were specific brain mechanisms that in part contributed to this relationship, meaning from a statistical perspective there were brain-based changes occurring over the two-year period that mediated the relationship between screen media activity in the younger children and internalizing concerns relating to depression and anxiety two years later,” said senior researcher Dr. Marc Potenza. He is a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center, in New Haven, Conn. The proportion of mood disorders associated with structural changes in the brain is relatively small, “on the order of 2% to 3%,” Potenza noted. But child development experts hailed the study as an important step toward fully understanding how excessive screen time affects children. For the study, Potenza and his colleagues analyzed data on more than 5,100 children participating in the… read on > read on >

Curated images of perfect bodies — often highly filtered and unrealistic — are common on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. And a broad new review of 50 recent studies across 17 countries finds that relentless online exposure to largely unattainable physical ideals may be driving up the risk for eating disorders, particularly among young girls. This study, said co-author Komal Bhatia, is “significant because it tells us how social media can lead to body image concerns, through constant social comparison, internalization of thinness and self-objectification.” Girls and others with weight challenges and/or concerns about body image are among those most vulnerable to the “self-perpetuating cycle of risk” highlighted by the research review, she added. Bhatia, a research fellow in adolescent health at University College London, pointed out that even though roughly of half of the world’s population — about 4 billion people — has access to social media, social media platforms “are largely unregulated.” And many users are young; researchers noted that more than 90% of American and British teens regularly engage with such platforms. Fully half are believed to jump online at least once an hour. The studies covered in this review were conducted between 2016 and 2021. Most took place in wealthy countries, with the United States and Australia accounting for nearly half. Studies from Canada, Italy, Singapore, United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Belgium,… read on > read on >