The Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, which hit the north-east coast of Japan with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale, was one of the largest ocean-trench earthquakes ever recorded in Japan. The tsunami caused huge damage, including 15,861 dead and 3018 missing persons, and, as of 6 June 2012, 388,783 destroyed homes.

Following an investigation of the ambulance records made by doctors in the Miyagi prefecture, close to the epicentre of the earthquake and where the damage was greatest, cardiologist Dr Hiroaki Shimokawa and colleagues from the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine at Sendai, Japan, found that the weekly occurrence of five conditions -- heart failure, acute coronary syndrome (including unstable angina and acute MI), stroke, cardio-pulmonary arrest and pneumonia -- all increased sharply soon after the earthquake occurred.

Such reactions -- in ACS, stroke and pulmonary embolism -- have been reported before, said Dr Shimokawa, in Japan, China and the USA. However, these studies reported only the short-term occurrence of individual CVD events, and the mid-term CVD effects of such great earthquakes remain to be elucidated. To this end, the study examined all ambulance transport records in the Miyagi prefecture from 11 February to 30 June for each year from 2008 to 2011 (ie, four weeks before to 16 weeks after 11 March, a total of 124,152 records). Incidence records from before, during and after the earthquake disaster were compared, the aftershocks counted and recorded according to a seismic intensity of 1 or greater.

Being physically fit during your 30s, 40s, and 50s not only helps extend lifespan, but it also increases the chances of aging healthily, free from chronic illness, investigators at UT Southwestern Medical Center and The Cooper Institute have found.

For decades, research has shown that higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels lessen the risk of death, but it previously had been unknown just how much fitness might affect the burden of chronic disease in the most senior years -- a concept known as morbidity compression.

"We've determined that being fit is not just delaying the inevitable, but it is actually lowering the onset of chronic disease in the final years of life," said Dr. Jarett Berry, assistant professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study available online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Researchers examined the patient data of 18,670 participants in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study, research that contains more than 250,000 medical records maintained over a 40-year span. These data were linked with the patients' Medicare claims filed later in life from ages 70 to 85. Analyses during the latest study showed that when patients increased fitness levels by 20 percent in their midlife years, they decreased their chances of developing chronic diseases -- congestive heart failure, Alzheimer's disease, and colon cancer -- decades later by 20 percent.

Separated and divorced couples are increasingly using emails, texting and social media to communicate with their ex-partners about their children. However, when ex-spouses use that technology to withhold or manipulate information, the children are the ones who suffer most, according to a University of Missouri family studies expert. A new study suggests divorce counselors should teach separated parents effective ways to use communication technology in order to maintain healthy environments for their children.

Lawrence Ganong, a professor of human development and family studies at MU, found that ex-partners who were cooperative with one another used emails and texting to facilitate effective co-parenting, while couples who did not get along used communication technology to avoid confrontations and control their former partners' access to their children.

"Technology makes it easier for divorced couples to get along, and it also makes it easier for them not to get along," said Ganong, who also is a professor of nursing at MU. "Parents who use technology effectively can make co-parenting easier, which places less stress on the children. Parents who use communication technology to manipulate or withhold information from the other parent can cause pain to the child."

Ganong and his colleagues interviewed 49 divorced parents individually about the quality of their relationships with their ex-partners.

In a study to decipher clues about how prostate cancer cells grow and become more aggressive, Johns Hopkins urologists have found that reduction of a specific protein is correlated with the aggressiveness of prostate cancer, acting as a red flag to indicate an increased risk of cancer recurrence.

Their findings are reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Aug. 27, 2012.

The team focused on a gene called SPARCL1, which appears to be critically important for cell migration during prostate development in the embryo and apparently becomes active again during cancer progression.Normally, both benign and malignant prostate cancer cells express high levels of SPARCL1, and reduce these levels when they want to migrate. The team correlated this reduction or "down regulation" of SPARCL1 with aggressiveness of prostate cancer.

"Our findings should allow physicians to not only pinpoint those patients whose cancers are destined to return after surgery, but could also reveal a potential new option for treatment," says Edward Schaeffer, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of urology, oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Prostate Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic.

After waking up, the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in saliva rises considerably; this is true not only for grown-ups but for babies as well. A research team from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and from Basel has reported this finding in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

"This gives us a new, non-invasive and uncomplicated possibility to already research the activity of the stress system during infancy," Prof. Dr. Gunther Meinlschmidt, of the Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the LWL University Hospital of the RUB, said.

The information not only open doors to the pursuit of as-yet unresolved research inquiries, but could also be used in the future to diagnose illnesses in the hormone-producing organs, such as the adrenal gland, of infants.

An outbreak of gastroenteritis has landed more than 3500 people in NSW hospitals over the past fortnight.

NSW Health says primary school-aged children and people in aged care facilities, hospitals and child care have been struck down by the epidemic.

NSW Health Director of Health Protection, Dr Jeremy McAnulty, says viral gastroenteritis is highly infectious and warns those afflicted to stay away from vulnerable people in hospitals and aged care facilities.

"These outbreaks are mostly caused by infection with a virus, most often norovirus or rotavirus, and spread easily from person to person," Dr McAnulty said in a statement.

"It is vital that if you or your family contract gastroenteritis that you stay home from work or keep a child home from school if they are sick."

People with the virus should avoid preparing food for others until at least 48 hours after recovery, he said.

Good hygiene is also essential to avoid contracting the virus by washing hands thoroughly with soap and running water for at least 10 seconds before handling and eating food, and after visiting the bathroom.

Symptoms include nausea and diarrhoea.

People who are concerned should visit their local GP.

Duke University scientists have discovered how breast milk, but not infant formula, fosters colonies of microbiotic flora in a newborn's intestinal tract that aid nutrient absorption and immune system development. The new findings add to existing evidence showing how mother's milk protects infants from infections and illnesses.

In the new study, appearing in Current Nutrition & Food Science, the researchers grew bacteria in samples of infant formula, cow's milk and breast milk. For the infant formula, the researchers used three brands each of popular milk- and soy-based products. Breast milk was donated and processed to separate different components, including proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

The team also tested a purified form of an antibody called secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), which is abundant in breast milk and plays a role in establishing an infant's immune system.

The infant formulas, the milk products and the SIgA were incubated with two strains of E. coli bacteria - necessary early inhabitants of the gut that are helpful cousins to their more dangerous variety associated with food poisoning.

The connections between the rising rates of chronic disease and the production and consumption of modern foods can no longer be ignored. Our food supply is not healthy, nor is it sustainable. It has changed so dramatically that we have yet to adapt to the changes. Our food supply has been completely adulterated over the past few decades alone, more drastically than during any other time in history.

In an article by Eaton et al., it states that "although our genes have hardly changed, our culture has been transformed almost beyond recognition during the past 10,000 years, especially since the Industrial Revolution."¹

We have strayed so far from our ancestral diets and lifestyles. Ancient peoples and even isolated hunter-gatherer cultures that still exist today ate wild, fresh foods in their natural state with minimal processing and certainly without synthetic chemicals. Their lifestyles were also very different from ours. According to another article by Eaton et al., "groups whose way of life tends to continue the Stone Age pattern have low rates of complex degenerative diseases."² They did not suffer the same rates of degenerative diseases that plague modern society.

The majority of food Americans spend their money on is processed food. It may resemble food, but it certainly is not real food. Food that has been overly processed and packaged into a container is not food for it is virtually devoid of nutrients. Food manufacturers oftentimes must add vitamins and minerals that have been lost during the processing back into the food.

These synthetic vitamins and minerals, usually isolated from their natural forms, act more like anti-nutrients than nutrients in these foods, adding to the body's chemical burden. Modern methods of food preparation and processing have effectively depleted many nutrients and co-factors necessary for the absorption and utilization of foods that in order for the body to process these modern foods, it must use its own store of nutrients. Consider the stress that your body undergoes, the vast amounts of energy that is required for digestion, only to be left short-changed and worse off than before you had that food in the first place.

Scientists at the Beijing University of Agriculture have genetically modified a pair of calves in an attempt to make their meat more tender, tastier, and more appealing to discerning palates.

Professor Ni Minhong and colleagues at the school's department of advanced science and technology produced a pair of cloned cows, named Jing Qin 1 and Jing Qin 2, that had been implanted with an extra gene, Telegraph Science Correspondent Richard Gray reported on Sunday.

That gene is designed to increase the amount of fat contained in their muscles, and the scientists hope that it will lead to the development of a high-quality cut of beef that can rival gourmet wagyu or Kobe beef, Gray said. To date, Ni's team has spent three years on their research, though they will have to wait until the calves mature and are slaughtered before they can truly discover whether or not they have succeeded or failed.

"Through this project we will be the first in the world to successfully create transgenic cows with fatty acid binding protein," the professor told The Telegraph. "Unlike pork where leaner is better, a good amount of muscle fat content is one of the key elements when it comes to characterizing beef quality... After more research it may be possible to achieve ideal marbling of meat in domestic cattle and provide an alternative to imported high-grade meat."

The cows at the center of the study are a Chinese-exclusive breed known as Qinchuan, and they were born at the Comprehensive Experimental Base of Beijing University of Agriculture in Daxing district, according to Yin Yeping of the Global Times. Two hundred female cows had been implanted with genetically modified embryos, and seven became pregnant, but only two were born alive - the first on July 19 and the second on August 1 - Yeping added.

Canadian health officials say eight people have died in a rare outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in the province of Quebec, having identified more than 100 cases of the dangerous strain of pneumonia since July.

Aiming to stop the outbreak, public health workers have inspected and disinfected about 89 cooling towers in Quebec City, the provincial government said in a release on Sunday. All told, 104 cases have been identified so far.

Legionnaires' disease is caused by bacteria that can grow in cooling towers, showers and other water sources. It mostly affects people already in poor health, spreading as they inhale small droplets of contaminated water suspended in the air .

The illness, named for a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, is rare in Canada, with only about 75 cases reported each year, according to a fact sheet from the federal public health agency.