Some girls now enter puberty as early as six - with toxic chemicals widely held to blame. But are new drugs to hold back the years really the right answer?:
Puberty is an unsettling stage in anyone's life, but if it happens at an age when you are still playing with dolls, it can be very worrying indeed.
That is exactly what happened to Lucia Reed. She was just seven when her periods started, an event which distanced Lucia from her classmates and led to unexplained medical examinations which terrified her.
As the smell of burnt cow meat once again wafts across the southern English countryside, the stench is not only casting a pallor across the faces of Surrey farmers, but also threatening to expose the sordid relationship between the UK government, U.S. big business and the little-known world of "bio-terrorism".
BBCWed, 08 Aug 2007 12:05 UTC
Diet foods for children may inadvertently lead to overeating and obesity, say researchers.
In tests on young rats, animals given low-calorie versions of foods were induced to overeat, whether they were lean or obese.
The researchers believe low-calorie versions of usually high-calorie foods disrupt the body's ability to use taste to regulate calorific intake.
The University of Alberta study appears in the journal Obesity.
Jennifer Hilliard
MCG NewsWed, 08 Aug 2007 04:04 UTC
Green tea could hold promise as a new treatment for skin disorders such as psoriasis and dandruff, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.
Researchers studied an animal model for inflammatory skin diseases, which are often characterized by patches of dry, red, flaky skin caused by the inflammation and overproduction of skin cells. Those treated with green tea showed slower growth of skin cells and the presence of a gene that regulates the cells' life cycles.
"Psoriasis, an autoimmune disease, causes the skin to become thicker because the growth of skin cells is out of control," says Dr. Stephen Hsu, an oral biologist in the MCG School of Dentistry and lead investigator on the study published in the Aug. 18 edition of Experimental Dermatology. "In psoriasis, immune cells, which usually protect against infection, instead trigger the release of cytokines, which causes inflammation and the overproduction of skin cells."
Lisa Richwine and James Vicini
Reuters Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:22 UTC
Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to experimental drugs not approved by regulators, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
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In the wake of an Iraqi official last month blaming America's use of depleted uranium munitions in its 2003 "Shock and Awe" campaign for a surge in cancer there, the Defense Department is facing an October deadline for providing a comprehensive report to Congress on the health effects of such weapons.
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Depleted Uranium Shells
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DVDs and videos that claim to help boost infants' ability to learn new words may actually hinder their language development, a new study says.
Ed Johnson
BloombergTue, 07 Aug 2007 22:38 UTC
Millions of villagers hit by monsoon floods across northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal are ''days away from a health crisis,'' as stagnant waters become a breeding ground for disease, the United Nations said.
New research by scientists in France and Portugal suggests that drinking caffeine may help protect thinking and memory skills in older women.
The study is published in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).
The fact that a biological research laboratory was probably the source of the foot and mouth outbreak is, paradoxically, both hugely reassuring and at first sight very worrying.
Reassuring because if the multinational firm Merial Animal Health Labs was responsible for the outbreak, then scientists will know exactly which strain of the virus is responsible and will have a vaccine readily available - indeed, the cause of the outbreak would have been the very foot and mouth vaccines that the scientists are producing in huge quantities.
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