Health News
Kids spanked by mothers more aggressive
Washington, June 23 : Children who are spanked by mothers are more likely to be aggressive towards other children and adults than kids who are not, says a new study.
In the study, 38 mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their kids over six days.
Smoking moms' kids more vulnerable to heart disease
Sydney, June 23 : Children whose mothers smoke during pregnancy have lower levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, known to protect against heart disease in later life.
By the age of eight, children born to mothers who smoked had HDL levels of about 1.3 millimoles per litre as against a more normal level of 1.5 millimoles per litre among children of non-smoking mothers.
Power, alcohol, anonymity make you drop guard
Washington, June 23 : Power can either lead to great acts of altruism, or corruptive, unethical behaviour. Being intoxicated can lead to a first date, or a bar brawl.
And the mask of anonymity can encourage one individual to let a stranger know they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe, whereas another may post salacious photos online. What is the common thread that binds three disparate behaviours?
Weaker brain ''sync'' may be new biological marker of autism
Washington, June 23: A diminished ability of a young brain''s hemispheres to `sync' with one another could be a powerful, new biological marker of autism, according to scientists at the University of California,
San Diego Autism Center of Excellence.
With this novel imaging study of sleeping toddlers, one might enable an autism diagnosis at a very young age.
Potatoes pile on pounds, while nuts, yoghurt help people stay slim
Washington, June 23: A study has found that potatoes can make people pile on the pounds while fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and yoghurt can help them stay slim.
The Harvard study for the first time details how much weight individual foods make people put on or keep off.
Including leucine in diet helps fight pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome
Washington, June 23: A new study has indicated that adding the amino acid `leucine' to the diet may help people combat pre-diabetes condition and metabolic syndrome.
Researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center conducted a test on mice, wherein, the creatures were put on a high-fat diet and were given twice the usual intake of leucine, an amino acid found in protein.
Even modest changes in diet may lead to long-term weight gain
London, June 23: Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that modest changes in specific foods and beverages, physical activity, TV-watching, and sleep duration were strongly linked with long-term weight gain.
Changes in diet, in particular, had the strongest associations with differences in weight gain.
Cause behind hereditary blindness in humans identified
Washington, June 23: Researchers from Bochum have found that a common hereditary disease called retinitis pigmentosa is the cause of blindness in humans.
The occurrence of this hereditary disease was initially identified in Schapendoes dogs as progressive retinal degeneration - progressive retinal atrophy.
Molecular glue to impart cutting edge to chemotherapy
Toronto, June 23 : When you drop a cake of soap into a sink full of greasy water, the grease recoils and retreats to the edges of the sink.
Now, what if the sink was a cancer cell, the globs of grease were cancer-promoting proteins and the soap was a potential drug?
Silicone breast implants neither harmful nor completely safe!
London, June 23: Amid controversies regarding the safety of silicon breast implants, the US drug regulators' report is sure to give some relief to women contemplating to go under the knife.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that the implants are relatively safe, despite frequent complications and a small increased risk of the disease lymphoma.
Researchers clock the speed of brain signals
London, June 23: Two new studies have discovered surprising details about the complex process that leads to the flow of neurotransmitters between brain neurons -- a dance of chemical messages so delicate that missteps often lead to neurological dysfunction.
Fat substitutes in snacks may trigger weight gain
Washington, June 23 : Beware of fat substitutes in popular snacks - instead of helping you shed weight, they may promote weight gain, says a new study.
"These substitutes are meant to mimic the taste of fat in foods that are normally high in fat while providing a lower number of calories, but they may end up confusing the body," said Susan E. Swithers, professor of psychological sciences at Purdue.
Fertile women can tell straight from gay
Toronto, June 23 : A woman can more accurately tell whether a guy is gay or straight by looking at his face during her most fertile period.
"This suggests that fertility influences a heterosexual woman's attention to potential mates rather than merely increasing sensitivity to sexual orientation or nonverbal cues more generally," says Nicholas Rule, professor in psychology at the University of Toronto.
Women's prejudice linked to their biology
Washington, June 23 : Ovulating women seem to be more suspicious of male strangers, says a new sociological study.
Male strangers may have posed considerable risk of sexual coercion throughout human history, said Melissa McDonald, doctoral student in psychology and study co-author.
Pine bark extract can help improve heart health
Washington, June 23: A combination of pycnogenol, or pine bark, and Coenzyme Q10 can help stable heart failure patients become more physically energetic by naturally strengthening the heart, and increasing the blood volume ejected with each beat, according to a new study.
Furthermore, blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rates were improved among patients.
Angioplasty with stents better than bypass surgery for low-risk heart patients
Washington, June 23 : Angioplasty with medication-coated stents report favorable long-term outcomes for low-risk heart patients rather than bypass surgery, according to a new study.
A more minimally invasive procedure than surgery, angioplasty is performed by snaking a tiny wire up through an artery in the groin to the blocked area of the heart.
Women’s prejudice associated with menstrual cycle
Washington, June 23: A study by Michigan State University psychology researchers has indicated that women's bias against male strangers increases when women are fertile, suggesting prejudice may be partly fuelled by genetics.
"Our findings suggest that women''s prejudice, at least in part, may be a byproduct of their biology," said Melissa McDonald, a doctoral student and lead author on the paper.
Bihar's mystery disease identified as toll rises to 41
Patna, June 23 : The mystery disease that has rocked Bihar and killed six more children by Thursday morning, has at last been identified. It is encephalitis, an official Thursday said. The latest deaths have pushed the toll in the state to 41 children in the past ten days.
Gold nanoparticles show promise in earlier diagnosis of liver cancer
Washington, June 23 : A research team led by Brown University has come up with promising results for earlier diagnosis of Hepatocellular carcinoma, which is the most common cancer to strike the liver.
In lab tests, the team used gold nanoparticles ringed by a charged polymer coating and an X-ray scatter imaging technique to spot tumour-like masses as small as 5 millimeters.
British patients shake tambourine to call nurse
London, June 22 : Elderly patients at a hospital in Britain were told to shake a tambourine to alert the staff in an emergency as there was no proper alarm system.
The managers of the Cardiff Royal Infirmary hospital Tuesday apologised and said they were replacing it with a "lightweight hand-bell".