科技让生活更美好:健康APP真的有用吗?

There are more than 1,000 health smartphone/tablet apps released every month. You can use them to measure your mood, track your menstrual cycle (to determine your fertile period) and monitor your glucose levels. Last year the Department of Health suggested that GPs should start prescribing them.
每个月有超过1000款健康智能手机/平板电脑应用程序发布。您可以使用它们来检测你的情绪、跟踪你的月经周期(来确定你的育龄期)以及监控你的血糖水平。去年，卫生部建议普通开业医生应该开始对其开处方。

But you shouldn't confuse a health app with your doctor. For a start, they aren't regulated – in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has been working on guidelines, but in the UK the MHRA only regulates medical devices, which excludes most apps – and are of varying quality.
但是你不应该把你的医生与健康应用混淆。首先，他们没有受到监管——在美国，食品和药物管理局一直致力于准则，但在英国药监机构只监管医疗设备，包括大多数应用程序——且质量不一。

They can also be harmful. This week a research paper published in the Archives of Dermatology looked at four smartphone apps designed to help people diagnose their skin lesions as benign moles or melanomas. It showed that the accuracy of the apps in identifying lesions that were melanomas varied between 6.8% and 98.1%. The best results were with an app that sent the image of the lesion directly to a board-certified dermatologist for analysis. The worst ones used automatic algorithms to analyse images.
他们也可能是有害的。本周，发表在《皮肤病学档案》上的研究论文着眼于四款旨在帮助人们诊断皮肤病变是良性的痣还是黑素瘤的智能手机应用程序。它表明应用程序确定病变是黑素瘤的准确性在6.8%到98.1%之间变化。最好的结果是通过应用程序直接把病变图片发送到急诊室进行分析。最糟糕的是用自动算法来分析图像。

The solution
解决办法

Smartphone apps can be brilliant but where health is concerned you should be realistic. No app as yet can cure you of a disease. An investigation by the New England Centre for Investigative Reporting found that out of 1,500 health apps, more than one in five claimed to cure or treat medical problems. Nearly half relied on cellphone sound for treatment, others used light and a couple opted for vibrations. The investigation said that scientists were clear that none of these methods could help the conditions they were sold for.
智能手机应用程序可以是睿智的，但困扰你的健康问题应该是实际的。至今还没有应用程序能治好你的病。新英格兰调查中心的调查报道发现1500款健康应用程序中超过五分之一声称能治愈或治疗医疗问题。近一半回答说依靠手机声音进行治疗，其他则使用光，一些选择了振动。调查说科学家们清楚任何一种方法都不能成为帮助他们卖出去的条件。

Last year the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined the manufacturers of two mobile applications for claiming they could cure acne. The marketers of AcneApp said that a study in the British Journal of Dermatology showed blue and red light treatments (such as were emitted from their app) eliminated bacteria and reduced skin blemishes from acne by 76%. No wonder more than 11,000 people bought it from the iTunes store. The FTC said the study did not prove the light treatment worked and consumers who were holding their phones to their faces for a few minutes each day were wasting their time and $1.99 (£1.25).
去年联邦贸易委员会(FTC)对两个声称他们可以治疗痤疮的移动应用程序制造商进行了罚款。AcneApp销售商说《英国皮肤病学》杂志上的一项研究显示蓝红光疗法(如他们的应用程序发出的)可以消除痤疮76%的细菌和减少皮肤瑕疵。难怪有超过11000人从iTunes商店购买了它。美国联邦贸易委员会说这项研究并没有证明光疗有效，消费者拿着他们的手机每天花几分钟对着自己的脸是在浪费自己的时间和1.99美元(1.25英镑)。

If you do want to use a health app, go for well-known health brands (eg organisations such as the NHS, Red Cross, etc). Apps to track dieting that are produced by established weight loss companies are often good. Otherwise check who the authors are, how often it is updated and if it is referenced.
如果你真的想使用一个健康应用程序，选一些知名的健康品牌(比如英国国家医疗服务体系、红十字会等组织)。由减肥企业开发的跟踪饮食的应用程序通常是好的。否则检查开发者是谁，多久更新以及它是否有说明。

Meanwhile, doctors may be using apps to support their decision making even more than patients. A 2012 survey of UK doctors found that nearly 20% have a work-related app.
与此同时，医生甚至可能比病人更会使用应用程序来支持他们的决策。2012年对英国医生的一项调查发现近20%的人有一个工作应用程序。