Here is a new excuse for older chocoholics to treat their cravings, as researchers have found that drinking two cups of hot chocolate a day may help them keep their brains healthy and sharp.
The study conducted by Harvard Medical School in Boston involved 60 people with an average age of 73 who did not have dementia. The participants drank two cups of hot cocoa per day for 30 days and did not consume any other chocolate during the study.
A new study has found that the length of a human pregnancy can vary naturally by as much as five weeks.
Normally, women are given a date for the likely delivery of their baby that is calculated as 280 days after the onset of their last menstrual period.
Yet, only four percent of women deliver at 280 days and only 70 percent deliver within 10 days of their estimated due date, even when the date is calculated with the help of ultrasound.
Mental disorders including depression and alcohol abuse were linked to a higher risk of suicide among current and former military personnel, in a new study – but combat exposure and number of deployments were not.
Researchers said the analysis of 83 suicides between 2001 and 2008 does not support the assumption that experiences in combat – such as seeing dead bodies or firing a gun – and time spent in a war zone are directly tied to a higher suicide risk.
The first scientific analysis of probable human-to-human transmission of a deadly new strain of bird flu that emerged in China this year gives the strongest evidence yet that the H7N9 virus can pass between people, scientists said on Wednesday.
Research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) analyzing a family cluster of cases of H7N9 infection in eastern China found it was very likely the virus “transmitted directly from the index patient (a 60-year-old man) to his daughter.”
A month-long “Pink Chain” campaign to create awareness about breast cancer among Delhi University (DU) students has been launched.
The campaign, launched Wednesday, is an initiative of Punarjeevan Bihar, a non-governmental organisation, along with eminent doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in association with the Department of Bio-technology (DBT) Science Centre, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur (SGTB) Khalsa College.
Eating raw garlic twice a week can nearly halve the risk of developing lung cancer, even lowering the danger for smokers, a new study has claimed.
Chinese researchers found that those who consumed raw garlic as part of their diet were 44 per cent less likely to suffer the disease.
Even when they allowed for whether people smoked – the biggest single cause of lung cancer, the scientists found garlic still seemed to reduce the dangers by around 30 per cent, the `Telegraph` reported.
Sleep deprivation can make us crave for junk food more than healthy food, a new study has revealed.
Researchers at UC Berkeley scanned the brains of 23 healthy young adults, first after a normal night`s sleep and next, after a sleepless night by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
They found impaired activity in the sleep-deprived brain`s frontal lobe, which governs complex decision-making, but increased activity in deeper brain centers that respond to rewards. Moreover, the participants favored unhealthy snack and junk foods when they were sleep deprived.
A team of researchers has discovered a brain molecule that is responsible for regulating human emotion and mood.
The research team at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has found that an enzyme called Rines regulates MAO-A, a major brain protein controlling emotion and mood. The enzyme is a potentially promising drug target for treating diseases associated with emotions such as depression.
Monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) is an enzyme that breaks down serotonin, norephinephrine and dopamine, neurotransmitters well-known for their influence on emotion and mood.
Tumors develop resistance because a protein called AXL helps cancer cells to circumvent the effects of ErbB inhibitors, allowing them to grow unchecked, a new study has revealed.
The findings by Doug Lauffenburger, the Ford Professor of Bioengineering, head of MIT`s Department of Biological Engineering and an affiliate member of MIT`s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, have suggested that combining drugs that target AXL and ErbB receptors could offer a better way to fight tumors.
A new study has found that the length of a human pregnancy can vary naturally by as much as five weeks.
Normally, women are given a date for the likely delivery of their baby that is calculated as 280 days after the onset of their last menstrual period.
Yet, only four percent of women deliver at 280 days and only 70 percent deliver within 10 days of their estimated due date, even when the date is calculated with the help of ultrasound.
A new study has found that people who walk to work are around 40 percent less likely to have diabetes as those who drive.
Researchers at Imperial College London and University College London examined how various health indicators related to how people get to work, using data from a survey of 20,000 people across the UK.
They found that cycling, walking, and using public transport were all associated with lower risk of being overweight than driving or taking a taxi.
If you don’t sleep well, you could well feel the pressing urge to gorge on junk food — thus doing much harm to your health, says new research that seeks to shed light on the link between poor sleep and obesity.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, examined the brain regions that control food choices and found that inadequate sleep makes one crave junk food.
Researchers have found that weight loss surgery can reverse the symptoms of fatty liver disease.
Earlier research has found that the surgery not only benefits obese people to shed their extra pounds, it also causes early remission of type 2 diabetes.
The findings are derived from research on liver samples in normal and obese patients—some with fatty liver disease and some without fatty liver disease.
The results provide another example of the DNA-altering effects of weight loss surgery.
Blue-coloured night lamps have the worst effect on one’s moods while exposure to red light at night has significantly less evidence of depressive symptoms, says a new study.
New research has shown how colours of night lamps could influence moods. In a study done on hamsters, researchers found that blue light had the worst effects on mood-related measures, followed closely by white.
Hamsters exposed to red light at night had significantly less evidence of depressive symptoms and changes in the brain linked to depression, compared to those that experienced blue or white light.
In a quest for a larger and shapelier bottom, women across the US are risking their lives for black market procedures, which often involves home-improvement materials such as silicone injected by people with no medical training.
Deaths from black market buttocks injections have been reported in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York and
Nevada, the New York Daily News reported.
An interior decorator in Mississippi faces trial in the deaths of two women who were injected at her house.
Alzheimer and Parkinson disease do not appear to share a common genetic risk, a new study has revealed.
Researcher Valentina Moskvina, Ph.D., of the Cardiff University School of Medicine, Wales, United Kingdom, and colleagues, examined the genetic overlap between Parkinson disease (PD) and Alzheimer disease (AD).
Data sets from the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the United States were used to perform a combined genome-wide association analysis (GWA).
Mothers who breastfeed run a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s, with longer periods of breastfeeding further reducing the risk, a new study suggests.
The report suggests that the link may be to do with certain biological effects of breastfeeding.
For example, breastfeeding restores insulin tolerance which is significantly reduced during pregnancy, and Alzheimer’s is characterised by insulin resistance in the brain.
Do you struggle with your dietary decisions and eat too much at night? Well, try a two-week experiment that can help you control these cravings.
According to an expert, time-based struggle has something to do, at least in part, with a hunger hormone called ‘ghrelin’- which is known to increase in response to fasting and recurrent feeding patterns.
Oftentimes people, who are night-time eaters, keep their daytime calories purposely low and even intentionally skip meals because they will struggle in the later parts of the day.
A new study has found that washing down sugary breakfast cereal with milk after eating reduces plaque acid levels and may prevent damage to tooth enamel that leads to cavities.
Dry ready-to-eat, sugar-added cereals combine refined sugar and starch. When those carbohydrates are consumed, bacteria in the dental plaque on tooth surfaces produce acids, Christine Wu, professor of pediatric dentistry and director of cariology, who served as principal investigator of the study, said.
Scientists have unveiled two classes of drug compounds, which could help combat Alzheimer`s disease.
Their research suggests that these compounds target the disease-causing peptides with high precision and with minimal side-effects.
At the same time, the scientists offer a molecular explanation for early-onset hereditary forms of Alzheimer`s, which can strike as early as thirty years of age.
The conclusions of their research are very encouraging regarding the future of therapeutic means that could keep Alzheimer`s disease in check.
Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have shown for the first time that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) can replicate in monkeys, by differentiating monkey stem cells into liver cells and inducing successful infection.
The new findings may lead to the first new animal model and provide new avenues for developing treatments and vaccines for this disease, which impacts more than three million people in the United States.
A doctor in UK has urged women at high risk of ovarian cancer that they have their Fallopian tubes removed as a precautionary step.
However, Cancer Research UK said that there was no evidence how effective it would be.
The Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer after finding out she had a faulty BRCA gene.
The same mutation can also cause ovarian cancer. Prof Sean Kehoe said removing fallopian tubes might help, the BBC reported.
Tylenol and other painkillers containing the ingredient acetaminophen can cause a potentially deadly skin rash known as Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, U.S. health regulators said on Thursday.
Companies that sell prescription acetaminophen will be required to add a warning about the skin rash to the drug`s package insert, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The agency will also request or encourage companies who sell acetaminophen products over the counter to add a warning about the risk of serious skin reactions.
Reuters
Doctors on Friday discharged a one-year-old Indian baby who underwent multiple surgery to correct a rare disorder that caused her head to nearly double in size, a neurosurgeon told AFP.
Roona Begum endured several surgical procedures which saw doctors at a hospital near New Delhi drain fluid from her head in a life-saving operation and dramatically reduce the size of her skull.
“Roona`s health has improved significantly…. We have discharged the baby this morning and she is fit to travel,” neurosurgeon Sandeep Vaishya said.
A simple and non-invasive ultrasound-based therapy might prevent acute kidney injury that commonly arises after major surgery, a new study has revealed.
Mark Okusa, MD, Joseph Gigliotti, PhD, University of Virginia, and their colleagues found that a drug-free, noninvasive, ultrasound-based treatment could prevent acute kidney injury in mice.
When they exposed anesthetized mice to ultrasound with a routine clinical imaging system 24 hours prior to blood disruption to the kidneys, the mice exhibited preserved kidney health after blood flow was restored.