Girls drinking more sodas and less milk
According to researchers in the U.S. concerns that teens are drinking too many sodas and fruit drinks are well founded.
A study in which food diaries kept by girls over a ten year period were examined, have shown that milk consumption decreased by over 25% during the course of the study, while soda intake, on average, nearly tripled, becoming the number one beverage consumed by older girls.
Combat Duty in Iraq Linked With High Use of Mental Health Services
About one-third of U.S. military personnel from the war in Iraq access mental health services after their return home, according to a study in the March 1 issue of JAMA.
The U.S. military has conducted population-level screening for mental health problems among all service members returning from deployment to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations. To date, no systematic analysis of this program has been conducted, and studies have not assessed the impact of these deployments on mental health care utilization after deployment, according to background information in the article. Such information is an important part of measuring the mental health burden of the current war and assuring that there are adequate resources to meet the mental health care needs of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mild thyroid disease not tied to heart problems
Mild disease of the thyroid gland, a hormone-secreting organ in the neck, does not generally cause heart problems or stroke, new research shows. The one exception is a slightly overactive thyroid gland, which may raise the risk of atrial fibrillation, a common heart-rhythm disturbance in which the upper chambers beat erratically.
The findings are based on a study of 3233 older adults who had thyroid function testing performed between 1989 and 1990 and then were followed through June 2002 for heart problems and stroke. All of the subjects were 65 years of age or older when the study started.
Treatment of early prostate cancer can wait
Surgical treatment of early prostate cancers can be delayed for more than 2 years without reducing the chances of curing the disease, new research shows.
The study, which appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, compared curability rates for 38 men who had delayed surgery and 150 who were treated with immediate surgery. Men in the former group underwent surgery around 26 months after diagnosis, while those in the latter group waited only about 3 months.
Soy benefits heart health in healthy young men
Soy proteins modulate the ratio of different lipids in the blood, in a way that should reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, in healthy subjects, according Canadian researchers.
Diet is one channel through which blood lipid levels can be modified. Lately, soy has received special attention, in particular soy proteins and soy “isoflavones”—estrogen-like plant compounds whose effects are still controversial—according to lead author Alison Duncan, from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
France urges air ticket tax to fight AIDS, disease
President Jacques Chirac urged rich states on Tuesday to follow France’s lead and adopt a one-euro levy on plane tickets to help poor countries buy drugs they need to fight AIDS and other killer diseases.
Chirac said the surcharge would help spread the benefits of globalisation to people living on less than a euro a day, a level of poverty that prevents those hardest hit by malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis from receiving treatment.
Cocoa consumers have lower disease risk: study
In a group of elderly men, those who consumed the most cocoa had a 50 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease or any cause compared to those who did not drink cocoa or eat cocoa-containing foods, Dutch researchers said on Monday.
Cocoa is known to lower blood pressure, though previous studies have disagreed about whether it staves off heart disease over the long-term particularly since it is contained in foods high in fat, sugar and calories.
Link between rheumatoid arthritis and cancer examined
Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease of the immune system and is thought to be linked to an increased risk of cancers of the lymphatic system.
The lymphatic system plays an important part in the body’s ability to fight infection.
Although various studies have noted this link, none have been able to pinpoint the specific effects of the disease on lymphoma risk, let alone distinguish them from the effects of disease treatment.
