The use of paracetamol for infants may be linked to the development of allergies and asthma later on, according to a report.

But more research is needed to clarify this and the benefits of paracetamol use for fever control still outweigh the potential of later allergy development, said Julian Crane, a professor at Otago University in Wellington and author of the report.

"The problem is that paracetamol is given quite liberally to young children," he told Reuters.

"There's a lot of evidence suggesting that something is going on here. It's not completely clear-cut, that's the problem."

The report, which has appeared in Clinical and Experimental Allergy journal, is based on the New Zealand Asthma and Allergy Cohort Study, which investigated use of paracetamol for 505 infants in Christchurch and 914 five and six-year-olds in Christchurch to see if they developed signs of asthma or allergic sensitivity.

Nanoparticles these days are quietly being slipped into products and processes as diverse as electronics, healthcare products (like sunscreen), and pharmaceuticals to fight cancer.

But for all that promise, there's a dark side. In order to make nanoparticles like tiny gold nanoparticles or titanium dioxide nanoparticles, caustic chemicals frequently are required. Scientists are concerned that minute quantities of those chemicals could harm the human body, causing cancer or other diseases.

But a University of Missouri research team, led by MU Physics and Radiology Professor Kattesh Katti thinks they have a solution -- cinnamon.

The team mixed gold salts in water with cinnamon and discovered that they remarkably formed nanoparticles. Typically such particles form only when exposed to an electric field or when toxic chemicals are added to the mix.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have captured pictures of the brain while patients experienced a pain stimulus with and without acupuncture to determine acupuncture's effect on how the brain processes pain. Results of the study, which the researchers say suggest the effectiveness of acupuncture, were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"Until now, the role of acupuncture in the perception and processing of pain has been controversial," said lead researcher Nina Theysohn, M.D., from the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology at University Hospital in Essen, Germany. "Functional MRI gives us the opportunity to directly observe areas of the brain that are activated during pain perception and see the variances that occur with acupuncture."

fMRI measures the tiny metabolic changes that take place in an active part of the brain, while a patient performs a task or is exposed to a specific external stimulus.

In the study, conducted in close collaboration with the Department of Complementary and Integrative Medicine at University of Duisburg-Essen, 18 healthy volunteers underwent fMRI while an electrical pain stimulus was attached to the left ankle. Acupuncture needles were then placed at three places on the right side, including between the toes, below the knee, and near the thumb. With the needles in place, fMRI was repeated while electrical currents were again directed at the left ankle. The researchers then compared the images and data obtained from the fMRI sessions with no acupuncture to those of the fMRI sessions with acupuncture.

"Activation of brain areas involved in pain perception was significantly reduced or modulated under acupuncture," Dr. Theysohn said.

He's 63 years old, but Bob Krause admits he still eats "a 4-year-old's dream diet."

Krause likes peanut butter, crackers, grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate milk and little else. More adventurous meals look like "a plate of barf," he told LiveScience.

"If I could snap my fingers and change, I would," he said, explaining his pickiness helped ruin two marriages, limited his career options and makes most social occasions sources of stress.

Researchers think Krause could be one of thousands suffering from a previously unrecognized illness: selective eating disorder, more commonly known as very picky eating. Instead of having a couple foods they'd rather avoid, the way most of us do, people with selective eating disorder feel there are very few foods they are even capable of eating.

"People who are picky aren't doing this just to be stubborn," said eating researcher Nancy Zucker of Duke University, explaining that extremely picky eaters experience food differently than the rest of us.

Zucker, who is also the director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders, first became interested in selective eating, because adult picky eaters were walking in, looking for help. Their eating behavior was getting in the way of their job or social life, or they were worried about being bad role models for their kids, she said.

Cashmere, Washington - A Canadian biotechnology company has asked the U.S. to approve a genetically modified apple that won't brown soon after its sliced, saying the improvement could boost sales of apples for snacks, salads and other uses.

U.S. apple growers say it's too soon to know whether they'd be interested in the apple: They need to resolve questions about the apple's quality, the cost of planting and, most importantly, whether people would buy it.

"Genetically modified - that's a bad word in our industry," said Todd Fryhover, president of the apple commission in Washington state, which produces more than half the U.S. crop.

But Neal Carter, president of the company that developed the apples, said the technology would lower the cost of producing fresh slices, which have become a popular addition to children's lunch boxes, and make apples more popular in salads and other quick meals.

Carter's company, Okanagan Specialty Fruits of Summerland, British Columbia, licensed the non-browning technology from Australian researchers who pioneered it in potatoes. Essentially, the genes responsible for producing the enzyme that induces browning have been silenced in the apple variety being marketed as "Arctic."

"They look like apple trees and grow like apple trees and produce apples that look like all other apples and when you cut them, they don't turn brown," Carter said. "The benefit is something that can be identified just about by everybody."

Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of Bisphenol A among adults may negatively influence the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests.

Triclosan is a chemical compound widely used in products such as antibacterial soaps, toothpaste, pens, diaper bags and medical devices. Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in many plastics and, for example, as a protective lining in food cans. Both of these chemicals are in a class of environmental toxicants called endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), which are believed to negatively impact human health by mimicking or affecting hormones.

Using data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, U-M researchers compared urinary BPA and triclosan with cytomegalovirus (CMV) antibody levels and diagnosis of allergies or hay fever in a sample of U.S. adults and children over age 6. Allergy and hay fever diagnosis and CMV antibodies were used as two separate markers of immune alterations.

"We found that people over age 18 with higher levels of BPA exposure had higher CMV antibody levels, which suggests their cell-mediated immune system may not be functioning properly," said Erin Rees Clayton, research investigator at the U-M School of Public Health and first author on the paper.

There's little doubt that one of the best ways to improve your health is to make sure you're eating plenty of fresh, minimally processed high quality vegetables, ideally locally-grown and organic, with a majority of them consumed raw. One simple way to boost your vegetable intake is to juice them.

Juicing organic vegetables is highly recommended to patients in our clinic who are working to restore or improve their health. I am firmly convinced that juicing is one of the key factors to giving you a radiant, energetic life, and truly optimal health.

I simply do not know of any other single nutritional intervention that has a more profound influence on health than eating and/or juicing fresh, organic vegetables.

You can review my comprehensive approach to how to juice on my vegetable juicing page.

As if we really needed anything else affecting a teen's mood and sleep, recent research shows that Internet use and texting can have a serious, detrimental effect on both sleep and mood. At a conference in Canada, U.S. researchers explained that more than half of kids and teens who text or surf the Internet:

• Have problems falling asleep (77.5 percent)
• Have trouble staying asleep - all participants reported being woken up at least once per night by an electronic device
• Experience mood, behavior and cognitive problems during the day including ADHD, anxiety, depression and some learning difficulties

The study showed that on average, a teenager sends a total of 3400 electronic message per month - that is more than 100 per day! When exactly are they in school? And here was the kicker: the author of the study, Dr. Peter Polos, said that on average, kids were texting or e-mailing 33.5 times per night to more than three different people (3.7)! And these electronic messages would occur anywhere from 10 minutes to four hours after the child's bedtime!

Adolescents and young adults are most likely to abuse prescription medications. Yet prescription rates for controlled medications, or drugs the Drug Enforcement Administration deems as having the potential for abuse, have nearly doubled for those age groups in the past 14 years, according to a recent study published in Pediatrics. Overall, a controlled medication was prescribed for young adults at approximately one out of every six visits and for young adult by adolescents one out of every nine encounters.

"Physicians must balance the need to treat patients' symptoms while remaining aware of the possibility that prescription medications can be misused or shared with others. At times, it can be a delicate balance between treating a problem and inadvertently causing one," said Robert J. Fortuna, M.D., M.P.H., principal investigator of the study and assistant professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The study found that between 1994 and 2007, prescription rates for controlled medications nearly doubled from 8.3 to 16.1 percent among young adults and rose from 6.4 to 11.2 percent in adolescents. This increase was observed for both males and females and across multiple settings - ambulatory offices, emergency departments, and for injury related and non-injury related visits.

Advance in understanding of insulin secretion could impact on diabetes control.

Medical scientists at the University of Leicester have identified for the first time a new way in which our body controls the levels of sugar in our blood following a meal.

They have discovered the part played by a particular protein in helping to maintain correct blood sugar levels.

The breakthrough was made in the University of Leicester by a team led by Professor Andrew Tobin, Professor of Cell Biology, who is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. The research is published online ahead of print in the prestigious international scientific journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Tobin said: "The work, which was done wholly at the University of Leicester, is focused on the mechanisms by which our bodies control the level of sugar in our blood following a meal.