The UK has the most extensive medical base
Last reviewed: 20.11.2021
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In the UK, Biobank has been operating - the most extensive and detailed database, which includes medical and genetic data, as well as information on the lifestyle of 500,000 islanders aged 40 to 69 years.
All this is available to specialists who need a large sample to find the causes of diseases and treatments. The main goal of the project is to understand the extent to which genetic, environmental and other factors are responsible for the emergence and development of the disease.
The database contains data only for those people who agreed to disclose them.
The project was established in 2006. Only those researchers who can prove that they are acting in the interests of medicine will gain access to information and that their findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Applications will take special advice. One of the first customers is likely to be the US National Institute of Health, which wanted to create something similar, but found it too expensive ($ 2 billion!). In the UK, they could manage less.
A similar base is possessed by China, it is called "Kaduri-Biobank". There are also 500 thousand volunteers, but the founder of the British version of Rory Collins claims that he has more detailed information. However, both archives are somewhat complementary and can be used together in some studies.
The Chinese project has already yielded a number of important results. For example, it turned out that thinner men have a higher risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and that diabetes and psychological stress are among the main risk factors for a heart attack.
The information in the British database is sorted into more than a thousand categories: whether a person uses a mobile phone, how often he sees friends and relatives, with what force clenches his fist, what is the density of bone tissue, how things are with arterial pressure, how much fat, how the lungs work, how many points are scored based on the results of standard tests for cognitive abilities ...
And this is not the limit. In the organizers' plans - an MRI of at least one in five volunteers. A lot of attention will be paid to accelerometers: the project participants will wear them during the week, in order to accurately measure their physical activity. Plus, ultrasound, x-rays of bones and joints, etc.
Every two to three years, about 20,000 volunteers will undergo a complete re-examination. In addition, the database will automatically get all the new entries that will make in the medical cards of all volunteers district therapists, hospital staff and pathologists.
Some of the participants already have dangerous diseases: 26,000 have diabetes, 50,000 have joint problems, and 11,000 have experienced a heart attack at least once. It is expected that in 10 years diabetes will have 40 thousand volunteers, and the number of "cores" will grow to 28 thousand.