The use of social media by older people can offer valuable additional support in cases of sickness and diseases, new research from the University of Luxembourg has shown. In a new publication, Dr Anja Leist from the University's Research Unit INSIDE, concludes that possibilities for a systematic application in clinical practice seem promising.

Their study is the first to evaluate a smartphone app as the sole method for monitoring weight loss, with researchers creating My Meal Mate to trial against similar products for monitoring food intake, an online food diary and the traditional paper version. The My Meal Mate app allows users to monitor their food intake and exercise, set a weight loss target and sends a weekly update on progress via text message.

Self-management interventions delivered by computer and mobile phone currently provide limited benefits for people with diabetes, according to a systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. Although computer and mobile phone-based self-management programmes had small positive effects on blood sugar levels, these effects seemed to be short-lived.

Telehealth does not seem to be a cost effective addition to standard support and treatment for patients with long term conditions, finds a study published on bmj.com. The findings follow a BMJ study showing that telehealth does not improve quality of life for patients with long term conditions.

In these austere times, when the NHS is charged with delivering efficiency challenges of £120 billion, the adoption of an integrated, IT-driven healthcare system is seen as an important move, enabling the introduction of new services, saving time (and money) and providing more efficient operations and better informed decision making.

The human brain can learn to treat relevant prosthetics as a substitute for a non-working body part, according to research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Mariella Pazzaglia and colleagues from Sapienza University and IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia of Rome in Italy, supported by the International Foundation for Research in Paraplegie.

Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) researchers Alfonso Valencia, Director of the Structural Biology and Biocomputing Programme and David de Juan, jointly with Florencio Pazos, from the Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), publish a review on the latest computational methods that, based on evolutionary principles, are revolutionising the field of analysis and prediction of protein structure, function and protein-protein interactions, as well as the short- and long-term expectations for the field.