We are relatively sure about what we categorize as ‘sick,’ and we define the limits of what we consider ‘healthy.’ But what is ‘normal?’ “Individualized medicine suffers from the absence of standards,“ says the Dean of the College of Medicine at Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, Heyo K. Kroemer, MD, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology. Scientists at the Institute of Community Medicine are trying to find those standards. They look at the whole picture in order to help the individual.

In 1995, they began to develop a concept for the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP). In SHIP 0, basic data was to be acquired that allows scientists not only to detect relationships between frequent medical and dental diseases, but also their possible sources. During SHIP 0, between 1997 and 2001, 4,310 people took part in extensive examinations, each of them taking about six hours. In the following year the scientists extended SHIP 0 to a follow-up study: SHIP 1. From 2002 to 2006, 3,300 healthy volunteers returned to the university to be examined in a second round. The third round of examinations started in March 2008 and will run for the next three years. From the very first cohort, 3,420 volunteers are still alive. Approximately 8,000 new potential volunteers will be added via a representative random sampling. The inquiries for SHIP 2 will be even more extensive than the previous data acquisitions. The questioning and examining will take a total of ten hours per volunteer. For example, examinations under sleep lab conditions have been added. On top of this, whole-body examinations in the magnetic resonance imaging system MAGNETOM Avanto will be carried out in the framework of SHIP 2. The system was made available by Siemens. .

Since the scientists are currently surveying the status of health of the same people for the third time in five-year intervals, they not only determine how sick or healthy the population really is. They also recognize how the risk factors solidify, how a disease develops over the years, and the course it takes under which individual circumstances. Last but not least, the scientists are looking for an algorithm to find those very few characteristics in millions of variables of the collective examined which allow the prediction and prevention of an imminent disease in an individual case. By building up the database and converting the information gained into medically useful knowledge with performance-oriented IT, the study is opening up new possibilities to increase the quality of healthcare and to reduce costs.