The facts on dieting
According to researchers from Tufts University in the U.S. when overweight or obese individuals were placed on currently popular diets such as Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers and Zone diet, after one year, most who stuck to the regime lost weight and all four diets worked equally well.
It appears however that the old adage eat less and exercise more may not be the definitive answer to obesity and other factors may be at work such as a lack of sleep, modern medications, heating and air conditioning, genes, giving up smoking, birth weight, and aging.
Shingles pain eased with two-pronged therapy
A new approach could bring much-needed relief to people suffering from severe nerve pain following a bout of shingles.
Shingles is caused by reactivation of chickenpox virus, which lies dormant in nerve fibers until stress or illness triggers a resurgence. The resulting rash can damage nerves, causing sometimes-excruciating pain, called postherpetic neuralgia.
Now researchers report in the Archives of Neurology that a course of intravenous treatment with the antiviral drug acyclovir, followed by oral treatment with a similar drug, valacyclovir, helps at least some patients with shingles pain.
77 die from rare tropical disease on island paradise
Travellers to an exotic island in the Indian Ocean have been issued with warnings against a rare tropical disease.
Seventy seven people have already died in Mauritius from the rare chikungunya virus which is carried by mosquitoes.
Mauritius, an island paradise particularly popular with honeymooning couple has about 700,000 visitors annually, generating more than £400 million.
Following the outbreak the number of French tourists who normally account for about a quarter of the total, plummeted.
Women who develop dementia start to lose weight a decade earlier
Researchers in the U.S. have discovered that prior to developing dementia, women experience a decline in weight as early as 10 years before they begin to lose their memory.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota carried out a retrospective study on a group of women by analyzing the medical records of those seen by doctors in Olmsted County, who were diagnosed with the onset of dementia between 1990 and 1994.
Lead study researcher Dr. David Knopman, a Mayo Clinic neurologist says they saw that the weight of those women who developed dementia was drifting downward many years before the onset of symptoms.
Potential new diagnostic test and treatment for lung cancer
University of York spinout company, Cizzle Biotechnology, has secured venture capital funding from the White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund to continue its development of a potential new diagnostic test and treatment for lung cancer.
The finance will enable Cizzle to progress its research into a potential new method of diagnosing and treating lung cancer, based on the discovery of the role that the protein Ciz 1 appears to play in triggering DNA replication and cell growth. As cancer is associated with abnormal cell growth, the Cizzle team ultimately hope to confirm that blocking the actions of this protein will prevent tumours from occurring or slow down the growth of existing tumours.
Cognitive changes in kids
Children aged about four suddenly become capable of recognising that an object can be described differently depending on how it is viewed.
This apparently simple skill requires cognitive changes that are not far enough advanced until then. A project carried out by the Department of Psychology at the University of Salzburg with support from the Austrian Science Fund FWF reached this finding.
The research could also contribute to an improved understanding of developmental disorders such as autism and attention impairment.
Children aged under four are good at classifying objects, meaning that they can cope with a complex world. They effortlessly sort objects such as red apples by colour or shape. However once it has been described as an apple, the classification seems to be final. It is neither necessary nor possible to see it as red. Understanding that an object can be two things at the same time calls for a major cognitive leap forward.
