Health & WellnessS

Smiley

Diet in the Dark: Brain scans pinpoint how chocoholics are hooked

Chocoholics really do have chocolate on the brain. Their grey matter reacts differently when they see or taste chocolate than people who do not crave the food.

British researchers used brain scans to investigate subconscious reactions to the confection and found that the pleasure centres of chocolate lovers' brains lit up more strongly in response to the food than those who are less partial.

There may also be some truth in calling the love of chocolate an addiction in some people. When cravers viewed pictures of chocolate this activated regions of the brain known to be involved in habit-forming behaviours and drug addiction.

Attention

Survey finds elevated rates of new asthma among WTC rescue and recovery workers

Findings released today by the Health Department shed new light on the health effects of exposure to dust and debris among workers who responded to the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. The data, drawn from the World Trade Center Health Registry, show that 3.6% of the 25,000 rescue and recovery workers enrolled in the Registry report developing asthma after working at the site. That rate is 12 times what would be normally expected for the adult population during such a time period. The paper was published today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and is available online here.

Attention

US: Salmonella found in recalled pet food

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it has found Salmonella bacteria in two Mars Petcare U.S. dry dog food products that are under recall.

The Franklin, Tenn., company has recalled select five-pound bags of Krasdale Gravy dry dog food sold in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and 50-pound bags of Red Flannel Large Breed Adult Formula dry food sold in Pennsylvania.

Wine

Alcoholics show deficits in their ability to perceive dangerous situations

-Previous brain-imaging studies have suggested cognitive deficits in alcoholic patients.

-New findings indicate that alcoholic patients show emotional processing deficits as well.

-These deficits primarily affect processing for negative emotional expressions.

Alcoholics tend to be deficient in both cognitive and emotional processes. Previously, most brain-imaging research focused on cognition rather than emotion. A new study uses functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) to examine emotional processing, finding that alcoholics have stunted abilities to perceive dangerous situations.

Results are published in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

People

100-year-old celebrates her birthday by smoking 170,000th cigarette

An iron-lunged pensioner has celebrated her 100th birthday by lighting up her 170,000th cigerette from a candle on her birthday cake.

Winnie Langley started smoking only days after the First World War broke out in June 1914 when she was just seven-years-old - and has got through five a day ever since.

©KNP
Winne Langley celebrated her 100th birthday the best way she knows how - smoking.

She has no intention of quitting, even after the nationwide ban forced tobacco-lovers outside.

Speaking at her 100th birthday party Winnie said: "I have smoked ever since infant school and I have never thought about quitting.

Health

New warning issued for Indian toothpaste

A popular brand of toothpaste imported from India contains dangerously high levels of harmful bacteria, Health Canada says.

Yesterday's warning comes a month after the agency revealed Neem Active Toothpaste with Calcium also contains a poison used in antifreeze.

Health

Chemicals in non-stick pans may retard babies' growth

Chemicals used in non-stick pans, fast-food containers, carpets, furniture and a host of other everyday household products are retarding babies' growth and brain development, two startling new studies suggest.

The studies - from the United States and Denmark, both published in the past month - found that babies with increased levels of the chemical in their umbilical cords were born smaller and with reduced head sizes. Though the changes were small, reductions in weight and brain development at birth have been associated with health problems throughout life.

Question

Italian police to investigate abortion of wrong twin

Italian police have been asked to investigate a case in which doctors treating a 40-year-old woman who was pregnant with twins aborted a healthy foetus while leaving a second, malformed one untouched.

The San Paolo hospital in Milan yesterday confirmed a report of the blunder in the daily Corriere della Sera. A statement from the hospital said the twins had changed places inside the womb between the first ultrasound scan and a second one carried out shortly before the operation, which took place in the 18th week of the pregnancy. It said it had handed the case notes to the "competent authorities".

Info

Who gives parents a break? Not the USofA that's for sure

Who Gives Parents a Break? Here is yet another indicator that the U.S. lags behind most other countries in providing health care benefits.

Info

Bird flu hits poultry in two Vietnam provinces

Bird flu has spread to two more provinces in Vietnam, killing hundreds of chickens and ducks, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday.

The outbreak of H5N1 in the northern province of Thai Nguyen and Dong Thap to the south brought to four the number of provinces on the government's current bird flu watchlist.