Night shifts raise heart attack risk

 Shift work can dramatically increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, warn researchers.

A study of two million people found shift workers are almost 25 percent more likely to suffer, the Daily Mail reported Friday.

Night shift workers run the highest risk of 41 percent, says a study published on the British Medical Journal website bmj.com.

People working shifts also have higher levels of unhealthy behaviours such as eating junk food, sleeping badly and not exercising, which are linked to heart problems.

But researchers said they took this into account - and the excess risks remained.

The latest study is the biggest analysis of shift work and likelihood of vascular problems, including heart attacks, strokes and angina.

Heartburn pills could increase cancer risk: Study
 A class of drugs that bring instant relief from heartburn could actually increase your chances of getting cancer, according to a study.

It suggests that if you take the drug, known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), for more than a year - the risks can include infections, cancer and heart disease.

The drug are among the most widely prescribed in Britain - 43 million prescriptions for them were written last year, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

Taken about an hour before a meal, PPIs block the enzymes that make stomach acid so that you produce only about 10 percent of normal levels.

Too much light at night causes depression
  Sleeping in a room with too much light can cause depression, experts claim.

Even just the glow from leaving the television on while you sleep can be enough to trigger the effect, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

Lack of darkness during sleeping hours can cause changes to the brain and depressive symptoms, according to animal studies.

Researchers believe staying up late to watch TV or go online might have the same impact on humans.

But the evidence also suggests the effects can be reversed by switching the lights off at night, the Mail said.

Cheese cuts risk of diabetes by 12 percent
Eating just two slices of cheese a day cuts the risk of type 2 diabetes by 12 percent, scientists have discovered.

The findings go against current health guidelines, which advise cutting back on dairy products and other high-fat foods to help prevent the illness.

British and Dutch researchers looked at the diets of 16,800 healthy adults and 12,400 patients with type 2 diabetes from eight European countries, including Britain.

The study found that those who ate at least 55 gm of cheese a day were 12 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, the Daily Mail reported Monday.

The risk fell by the same amount for those who ate 55 gm of yoghurt a day. The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

One theory is that the so-called 'probiotic' bacteria in cheese and yoghurt lower cholesterol and produce certain vitamins which prevent diabetes.

Low birth weight, poor diet impair girls' learning ability
 Lower birth weight and poor diet in childhood can lead to poor learning and behaviour in children, particularly girls, according to a new study.

Researchers from Australia's Monash University and Taiwan's National Defence Medical Centre as well as the National Health Research Institute, found girls with lower birth weight experienced a greater inability to learn and weaker overall competence than girls of normal birth weight.

The study linked the national birth registry to Taiwan's Nutrition and Health Survey to examine possible relationships between lower birth weight, childhood diet and learning outcomes in children between six and 13 years old, the journal Research in Developmental Disabilities reports.

Chemicals in cosmetics may spike diabetes risk
The presence of phthalates (endocrine disrupting chemicals) in moisturizers, nail polishes, soaps, hair sprays and perfumes may elevate diabetes risk in women, says new research.

Researchers led by Tamarra James-Todd, from Division of Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital, analyzed urinary concentrations of phthalates in 2,350 women who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Phthalates interfere with endocrine (or hormone system) in animals, including humans. These disruptions can cause cancerous tumours, birth defects, and other developmental disorders, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives reported.

Specifically, phthalates are known to cause learning disabilities, severe attention deficit disorder, cognitive and brain development problems, deformations of the body (including limbs); sexual development problems, feminizing of males or masculine effects on females, according to a university statement.

TV habits can foretell kids' fitness
Each hour of TV that a two to four-year-old watches elevates the risk of a larger waistline and reduction of muscle fitness, says a study.

According to experts, children should not watch more than two hours of TV a day.

"We already knew that there is an association between pre-school television exposure and the body fat of fourth grade children, but this is the first study to describe more precisely what that association represents," said Linda Pagani, who conducted the research with Caroline Fitzpatrick, both from the University of Montreal and its St-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital.

"Parents were asked about their child's TV habits. Trained examiners took waist measurements and administered the standing long jump test to measure child muscular fitness," said Pagani.

World's first anti-obesity shot promising

The world's first anti-obesity vaccine has shown promising results in boosting weight loss, according to a study.

Keith Haffer from Braasch Biotech LLC, south Dakota, who developed the vaccines in two versions JH17 and JH18, derived from a peptide hormone somatostatin, tested them in two groups of diet induced obese male mice, and compared with a group of mice that received saline injections.

Somatostatin inhibits the action of growth hormone (GH) and insulin like growth factor (IGF1), both of which increase metabolism and result in weight loss.

Obesity and obesity related disease is a growing health issue worldwide.

Mice in all groups had been fed a high fat diet for eight weeks prior to the study and continued to eat the same food for the duration of the six week study. The vaccinations were administered twice at the start of the study followed by a booster vaccination on day 22, the Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology reported.

Four days after the first injection of modified somatostatin, the vaccinated mice had a 10 percent drop in body weight (not seen in the mice receiving saline shots), said a university statement.

Later, results showed that both vaccines induced antibodies to somatostatin and significantly reduced body weight, sustaining the lower body weight, without affecting normal levels of the growth hormone IGF1, or insulin levels.

"This study demonstrates the possibility of treating obesity with vaccination," Keith explained. "Treatment of human obesity with vaccination would provide physicians with a drug and surgical free option against the weight epidemic."

Braasch Biotech LLC is a privately held company that specializes in the development of bio pharmaceutical vaccine products for the human and veterinary health care markets. Specifically, Braasch has developed the world first anti-obesity vaccine.

Cannabis can help treat obesity
Two cannabis compounds can raise the quantum of energy the body burns and keep obesity at bay. Called THCV and cannabidiol, they were found to have an appetite suppressing effect too for a short while.

Animal tests have shown these compounds can help treat type two diabetes while also lowering levels of cholesterol in the blood stream and fat in key organs like the liver.

Scientists also found the compounds also had an impact on the level of fat and its response to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar levels, the Telegraph reports.

THCV was also found to increase the animals' sensitivity to insulin while also protecting the cells that produce insulin, allowing them to work better and for longer.

Steph Wright, director of research and development at GW Pharmaceuticals developing the drugs, said: "The results in animal models have been very encouraging. We are interested in how these drugs effect the fat distribution and utilisation in the body as a treatment for metabolic diseases".

"We are conducting four Phase 2a clinical trials and we expect some results later this year," Wright said.

Tests in mice showed the compounds boosted their metabolism, leading to lower levels of fat in their livers and reduced cholesterol in their blood stream.

They are now conducting clinical trials in 200 patients in the hope of producing a drug that can be used to treat patients suffering from "metabolic syndrome", where diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity combine to increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Mike Cawthorne, director of metabolic research at the University of Buckingham who has been conducting the animal studies, said: "Over all, it seems these molecules increase energy expenditure in the cells of the body by increasing the metabolism".

647 British teenage girls have breast reduction surgery

A total of 647 British girls aged 15 to 18 have undergone state-funded breast reduction surgery in the past five years, a media report said Friday.

Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbott said the surgeries, which cost around 5,000 pounds each, were often a waste of precious funds of the National Health Service, The Sun reported.

She said it was due to women's "obsession with physical perfection".

"An obsession with physical perfection is driving women. Society needs to debate whether scarce NHS resources are best spent on a 15-year-old who has convinced herself her breasts are too big" Abbott said.

However, a total of 359 women in their 70s also had the surgery, according to official statistics.

In total, 21,328 women had reductions between 2006 and 2011.

Diabetes drug spurs growth of brain cells
Popular diabetes drug metformin offers an unexpected yet alluring side effect - it encourages the growth of new brain cells.

The discovery is an important step toward therapies that aim to repair the brain not by introducing new stem cells but rather by spurring those that are already present into action, says the leader of the study team, Freda Miller, from the University of Toronto-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children.

The fact that it is a drug that is so widely used and safe makes the news all that much better.

Earlier work by Miller's team highlighted a pathway known as PKC-CBP for its essential role in telling neural (brain related) stem cells where and when to differentiate into mature neurons (brain cells).

As it happened, others had found before them that the same pathway is important for the metabolic effects of the drug metformin, but in liver cells, reports the journal Cell Stem Cell.

"We put two and two together," Miller says. According to a Toronto statement, it was felt that if metformin activates the CBP pathway in the liver, it could perhaps also do the same in neural stem cells of the brain to encourage brain repair.

The new evidence lends support to that promising idea in both mouse brain and human cells. Mice taking metformin not only showed an increase in the birth of new neurons, but they were also better able to learn the location of a hidden platform in a standard maze test of spatial learning.

While it remains to be seen whether the very popular diabetes drug might already be serving as a brain booster for those who are taking it, there are already some early hints that it may have cognitive benefits for people with Alzheimer's disease.

It now appears that metformin may improve Alzheimer's symptoms by enhancing brain repair.

Strawberries prevent heart disease, diabetes

Strawberries, the traditional summer treat, could offer unexpected health benefits of preventing development of heart disease and diabetes, says a study.

University of Warwick scientists have been studying the beneficial effects of strawberries on cardiovascular health, particularly around how they prevent the development of heart disease and diabetes.

Paul Thornalley, professor at the Warwick Medical School, heads the team that discovered extracts from strawberries positively activate a protein in our bodies called 'Nrf2', which is shown to increase antioxidant and other protective activities.

This protein works to decrease blood lipids and cholesterol, the very things which can lead to cardiovascular problems, said a university statement.

Eating strawberries has previously been found to counter post-meal blood glucose and low density lipoprotein, or 'bad' cholesterol and therefore decrease risk of diabetes and heart disease, but this is the first time that strawberry extracts have been proved to actively stimulate proteins that offer us protection against disease.

Thornalley explained: " We've discovered the science behind how strawberries work to increase our in-built defences to keep cells, organs and blood vessels healthy and which can reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular problems such as heart disease and diabetes."

Screening and math modelling techniques developed at Warwick can now take this research further to help identify the best varieties of strawberries, how they are served or processed and how many strawberries should be eaten for optimum health benefit.

Thornalley will be presenting these findings at the 16th biennial meeting for the Society for Free Radical Research International (SFRRI), Imperial College London.

Children exposed to violence suffer health problems: Study

Children exposed to community violence may be traumatised up to a year after the event, which may carry long-term negative consequences for health, says a study.

"We know that exposure to violence is linked with aggression, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms and academic and cognitive difficulties in the short term, but little is known about the long-term effects of such exposure," said Elizabeth Susman, professor biobehavioural health, Penn State University, US.

The scientists from the Penn State and University College London, chose 124 children, aged between eight and 13 years and living in small city and rural communities, to participate in the study, the Journal of Adolescent Health reports.

"We focused on children who live in small towns, so you would normally not expect them to be exposed to a lot of violence. Also, these were healthy children without a history of reported maltreatment," said Melissa Peckins, biobehavioural health graduate student from Penn State.

The researchers gave each of the adolescents a questionnaire, which identified their exposure to violence during lifetime and within the past 12 months, according to a Penn State statement.

The adolescents were then given the beginning of a story and asked to complete it in front of two mock judges, whom they were told were evaluating their responses and performances for later comparison to those of other children the same age.

Following the story-completion task, adolescents were also given a serial subtraction task.

The team measured the children's stress responses by comparing the cortisol levels present in samples of their saliva collected before and after the stress test was administered.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone, produced by adrenal gland and is released in response to stress.

"In males, we found that as exposure to violence increased, cortisol reactivity decreased, so cortisol reactivity was attenuated; it was a habituation effect," Peckins said. The finding was not present in females.

"In enduring stressful conditions, we may have adapted evolutionarily to suppress our cortisol levels because higher and more prolonged levels of cortisol in the bloodstream can lead to negative health consequences, such as autoimmune disorders, lowered immunity, arthritis and atypical depression," Susman said.

This may explain why cortisol reactivity was lower for males," Susman added.

"However, there is a theory that females may react to stressful situations by talking about it, which may be their way of reducing the negative effects of cortisol in the bloodstream," Susman said.

Coffee lowers risk of common skin cancer

Drinking more coffee could lower the risk of basal cell carcinoma, the commonest form of skin cancer, according to a new study.

"Our data indicate that the more caffeinated coffee you consume, the lower your risk of developing basal cell carcinoma (BCC)," said Jiali Han, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

"I would not recommend increasing your coffee intake based on these data alone. However, our results add basal cell carcinoma to a list of conditions for which risk is decreased with increasing coffee consumption," said Han, the journal Cancer Research, reported.

Even though BCC is slow-growing, it places a burden on health care systems. Though the cancer rarely kills, it can cause significant destruction and disfigurement by invading surrounding tissues.

"Given the large number of newly diagnosed cases, daily dietary changes having any protective effect may have an impact on public health," said Han, according to a university statement.

Of the 112,897 participants included in the analyses, 22,786 developed basal cell carcinoma during the more than 20 years of follow-up in the two studies.

"These results really suggest that it is the caffeine in coffee that is responsible for the decreased risk of basal cell carcinoma associated with increasing coffee consumption," said Han.