Health

Three cans of fizzy drinks a day can knock off years of your life, a new study has revealed.

When mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar – the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily – females died at twice the normal rate and males were a quarter less likely to hold territory and reproduce, according to a toxicity test developed at the University of Utah.

“Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health,” the researchers said.

Pregnant women who don’t produce enough thyroid hormone are nearly four times likelier to give birth to autistic children than their healthy peers, a new study has claimed.

Scientists from the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute in US and Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, Netherlands studied more than 4,000 Dutch mothers and their children.

Their results support the growing view that autism spectrum disorders can be caused by a lack of maternal thyroid hormone, which past studies have shown is crucial to the migration of foetal brain cells during embryo development.

Eating at least one portion of oily fish once a week could halve the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has revealed.

The research conducted on more than 32,000 Swedish women found that a fish diet is beneficial because it is rich in omega-3- a good anti-inflammatory agent, the BBC reported.

The researchers found that women who consistently ate any type of fish at least once a week cut their risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis by nearly a third, while those who ate at least one portion of oily fish or four servings of other fish each week halved their risk.

A study has claimed that Vitamin D supplementation does not seem to improve blood pressure or markers of vascular health in older patients suffering from hypertension.

In the study conducted by Miles D. Witham, Ph.D., of the University of Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, and colleagues, a total of 159 patients (average age 77 years) with isolated systolic hypertension participated in the randomized clinical trial.

Patients were randomly assigned to either the vitamin D group or the matching placebo group, and received supplementation every three months for one year.

A team of scientists have made a significant breakthrough in understanding the cancer-promoting action of Aristolochic Acid (AA), a natural product of Aristolochia plants traditionally used in some Asian herbal remedies for weight loss and slimming.

A well-connected core brain network based in the lateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex – parts of the brain most changed evolutionarily since our common ancestor with chimpanzees – contains “flexible hubs” coordinating the brain’s responses to novel cognitive challenges, according to a study.

A new research has revealed that healthy brain cells, once damaged by radiation designed to kill brain tumours, can be regenerated.

Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who conducted the study in mice, found that neural stem cells, the body`s source of new brain cells, are resistant to radiation, and can be roused from a hibernation-like state to reproduce and generate new cells able to migrate, replace injured cells and potentially restore lost function.

A new study has claimed that focusing on a single factor like the degree of BMI change among obese children is restrictive and can overlook other important health outcomes.

According to the study, an intervention intended to combat childhood obesity can have beneficial effects on other health outcomes, such as cardiovascular fitness, regardless of its effect on BMI.

Retinal imaging may someday help assess if you`re more likely to develop a stroke, a new research by an Indian origin author has revealed.

Mohammad Kamran Ikram, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor in the Singapore Eye Research Institute, the Department of Ophthalmology and Memory Aging and Cognition Centre, at the National University of Singapore, and his team tracked stroke occurrence for an average 13 years in 2,907 patients with high blood pressure who had not previously experienced a stroke.

Breastfeeding has been linked to decreased risk of overweight and obesity among school children, a new study has found.

A total of 43,367 singleton Japanese children who were born after 37 gestational weeks and had information about their feeding during infancy from Japan`s Longitudinal Survey of Babies in the 21st Century, were included in the study.

Researchers measured for underweight, normal weight (reference group), overweight, and obesity at 7 and 8 years of age defined by using international cutoff points of body mass index by sex and age.

British scientists have developed a new method to treat brittle bone disease in children.

The new treatment for Osteogenesis Imperfecta has been developed by scientists from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Children’s Hospital.

The findings were published in The Lancet.

This is the first study to clearly demonstrate that the use of the medicine risedronate can not only reduce the risk of fracture in children with brittle bones but also have rapid action, as the curves under fracture risk begin to diverge after only six weeks of treatment, reported Science Daily.

Researchers have revealed that stem cell technology could lead to a faster treatment for cancer patients and reduce reliance on chemotherapy.

Dr Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said that the new discovery would also be more effective at stopping the disease from returning back by reprogramming cancer-fighting cells, the Daily Express reported.

Smith said that the technology effectively uses the body`s own immune system and harnesses its power to attack the cancer cells.

Using advanced gene technology, Australian scientists along with a US team have claimed to have found new genes and genetic mutation that causes severe childhood epilepsies.

Lead researcher Sam Berkovic, Director of the Epilepsy Research Centre at the University of Melbourne and Melbourne`s Austin Hospital, said, as well as providing a pathway to treating epilepsy the research provides answers to patients and families who previously had little or no idea where epilepsy had come from.

Scientists have identified the five psychiatric disorders, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, autism and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), share a common genetic link.

They showed substantial overlap of genetic risk factors shared between bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia and less overlap between those conditions and autism and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD).

They are now moving toward understanding the molecular underpinnings of psychiatric illness.

A nanoscale drug carrying many weapons to sneak into cancer cells for breaking them from the inside has added a new component: a protein, which stimulates the immune system to attack HER2-positive breast cancer cells.

The research team led by scientists at the Nanomedicine Research Center, part of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, conducted the study in laboratory mice with implanted human breast cancer cells.

Scientists have identified the five psychiatric disorders, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, autism and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), share a common genetic link.

They showed substantial overlap of genetic risk factors shared between bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia and less overlap between those conditions and autism and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

They are now moving toward understanding the molecular underpinnings of psychiatric illness.

A two-year-old Mumbai boy suffered cardiac arrest after eating peanuts.

The incident happened July 30 when Krishna Yadav had to be rushed to the Seven Hills Hospital, Andheri east, after suffering breathlessness upon eating peanuts with some friends at his home.

A team of doctors immediately carried out tests and gave their shocking medical conclusion – the child had suffered cardiac arrest and required tertiary care.

A new study suggests that women, on an average, seek alcohol treatment between 4 to 5 years earlier than men.

The term “telescoping” refers to a more rapid progression of alcohol-related diseases in women.

The new study looks at gender differences among individuals seeking treatment for a substance use disorder.

While certain aspects of the findings confirm telescoping in women, others do not.

Clamping the umbilical cord too soon after birth could reduce the amount of blood that passes from mother to baby via the placenta, which could affect the baby’s iron stores and birth weight, a new study has found.

The findings of the international review led by La Trobe University are in conflict with the standard practice in many Western countries of clamping and cutting the umbilical cord within a minute of birth.

A study has blamed the junk food for the diabetes epidemic.

Harmful compounds present in processed red meats like burgers, bacon and sausages could be the cause behind the 132,000 new patients coming up every year, the Daily Express reported.

A review of research by Plymouth University implicated iron in red meat that helped form compounds that attack the immune system and people’s ability to control inflammation that triggers many diseases.

The study has been published in the journal Advances in Nutrition. (ANI)

Dogs at Penn Vet Working Dog Center have been able to detect ovarian cancer tissue 100 percent of the time.

Ohlin Frank, a chocolate lab and his fellow trainee, McBaine Chamberlain, a spunky springer spaniel, are part of an interdisciplinary research project at the University of Pennsylvania’s to help scientists discover a chemical footprint that might lead to earlier diagnostic tests to save human lives, ABC News reported.

They are among 15 carefully bred detection dogs learning to sniff out explosives, drugs and missing people.

HIITS- an exercise and weight-loss trend that involves alternating bouts of extremely vigorous exercise with brief rest periods- may be a superior way to slim down, but it can lead you to the hospital with rhabdomyolysis, it has been revealed.

Rhabdomyolysis is relatively rare condition in which muscle tissue breaks down to such an extent that toxins released into the blood stream can damage the kidneys, the ABC News reported.

Pre-eclampsia is a relatively common pregnancy disorder that is characterized by high blood pressure and high quantity of protein in blood.

In a recent study pregnant rats were fed a high-fat diet for 20 days.

The scientists found that these pregnant rats experienced preeclampsia-like syndromes such as hypertension and proteinuria.

Simultaneously, metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 mRNA and protein expressions were upregulated in the rat hippocampus.

A new malaria vaccine, which is being developed in the US, has shown promising results in early stage clinical trials, scientists say.

Researchers found that high doses of the vaccine protected 12 out of 15 patients from the disease.

The vaccine involves injecting live but weakened malaria-causing parasites directly into patients to trigger immunity.

Risk of potentially fatal blood clots in the legs and lungs are increased by rheumatoid arthritis, a nationwide study has claimed.

According to the evidence, between 11 percent and 30 percent of people who develop a blood clot in the legs, known as a deep vein thrombosis or DVT, or a blood clot in the lungs, known as a pulmonary embolism, or PE, die within 30 days of their diagnosis.