Month: June 2009

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News on Health & Science

Caffeine Eases Exercise-Induced Asthma

Caffeine taken within an hour of exercise can reduce symptoms of exercise induced asthma (EIA), characterised by shortness of breath  during sustained aerobic activity.

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A large dose equal to nine mg of caffeine per kg of body weight was as effective as an albuterol inhaler in treating or preventing EIA. Smaller amounts also reduced wheezing, coughing and other symptoms of EIA.

Timothy Mickleborough, study co-investigator at Indiana University said no additional benefit was found when caffeine was combined with an albuterol inhaler.

Mickleborough and colleagues have been investigating the efficacy of a number of nutritional factors.

His research has shown that a diet high in fish oil and antioxidants and low in salt has the potential to reduce the severity of EIA and perhaps reduce the reliance on pharmacotherapy.

This is especially important since prolonged use of daily medications can result in reduced effectiveness, and there is growing concern about the potential side effects of inhaled corticosteroid use.

The study was presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference in Indiana during the Respiratory Session.

Source: The Times Of India

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Watching TV May Harm Kids’ Cognitive Development

:Parents buying some time to do the chores by sticking infants in front of the television may be harming their cognitive development,  a study has suggested.
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Researchers at University of Washington in Seattle have carried out the study and found infants vocalise less and hear fewer words from nearby adults when the TV is on, which in turn affects their cognitive development.

“There’s no question that human voice and human words are what babies need. The data aren’t yet conclusive about the fact that television is harmful, but they continue to mount,” lead researcher Dimitri Christakis told the ‘New Scientist‘.

For the study, researchers equipped 329 infants, aged between 2 and 48 months, with lightweight recorders that captured every noise they heard in a 24-hour period. Then, a computer programme determined whether each sound came from the infant, an adult or the television.

The analysis showed that for every hour of television an infant is exposed to — they don’t understand television programmes, Christakis says — he or she hears 770 fewer words from adults, on average, a 7 per cent reduction.

Infants watching TV also utter fewer “googoos” and “gagas” and interact less with adults than kids whose parents use the off switch more enthusiastically, the study, published in the ‘Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine’, found.

Given that a staggering 30 per cent of US households keep a television on at all times, this can have a substantial effect on an infant’s development, according to Christakis.

“The newborn brain is very much a work in progress. All that cognitive stimulation is critical to the underlying architecture that’s developing. Every word that babies hear, and every time they hear it, is extremely important.

“Many of these DVDs that target infants claim that they promote parent-child interaction — which they don’t. The take-home message for parents is to minimise exposure to TV during the first two years,” he said.

In fact, this finding is backed up by observations made by a team at the University of Massachusetts, which found that infants exposed to television hear 20 percent fewer words from their parents during each hour of programming they watch.

“Parents are less engaged with the children if the television is on. Children over two learn a lot of vocabulary from television,” Daniel Anderson, who led the back-up study, said

Source: The times Of India

 
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News on Health & Science

Probiotics May Help Women to Reduce Weight After Pregnancy

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Researchers report that supplements containing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were associated with less central obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more or a waist circumference over 80 centimeters. Women were given the supplements during their first trimester of pregnancy and continued them until they stopped exclusive breastfeeding, up to six months.

Probiotics are live microorganisms that confer health benefits when consumed.

Previous research found that microbial populations in the gut are different between obese and lean people, and that when the obese people lost weight their microflora changed.

Sources: NutraIngredients.com May 7, 2009

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Positive thinking

A Life of Learning

Earth School

Life is the province of learning, and the wisdom we acquire throughout our lives is the reward of existence. As we traverse the winding roads that lead from birth to death, experience is our patient teacher. We exist, bound to human bodies as we are, to evolve, enrolled by the universe in earth school, an informal and individualized academy of living, being, and changing. Life’s lessons can take many forms and present us with many challenges. There are scores of mundane lessons that help us learn to navigate with grace, poise, and tolerance in this world. And there are those once-in-a-lifetime lessons that touch us so deeply that they change the course of our lives. The latter can be heartrending, and we may wander through life as unwilling students for a time. But the quality of our lives is based almost entirely on what we derive from our experiences.

Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul, as well as the intellect. The scope of our instruction is dependent on our ability and readiness to accept the lesson laid out before us in the circumstances we face. When we find ourselves blindsided by life, we are free to choose to close our minds or to view the inbuilt lesson in a narrow-minded way. The notion that existence is a never-ending lesson can be dismaying at times. The courses we undertake in earth school can be painful as well as pleasurable, and as taxing as they are eventually rewarding. However, in every situation, relationship, or encounter, a range of lessons can be unearthed. When we choose to consciously take advantage of each of the lessons we are confronted with, we gradually discover that our previous ideas about love, compassion, resilience, grief, fear, trust, and generosity could have been half-formed.

Ultimately, when we acknowledge that growth is an integral part of life and that attending earth school is the responsibility of every individual, the concept of “life as lesson” no longer chafes. We can openly and joyfully look for the blessing buried in the difficulties we face without feeling that we are trapped in a roller-coaster ride of forced learning. Though we cannot always know when we are experiencing a life lesson, the wisdom we accrue will bless us with the keenest hindsight.

Sources:Daily Om

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Major Confusion on How to Do Breast Checks

Is there a right way to check your breasts for early signs of cancer? Many women remain confused as experts now say there is no evidence that rigorous monthly “self-examination” — widely recommended in the United States — reduces breast cancer deaths. Plus, it can lead to unnecessary biopsies.
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Two large studies looking at a total of more than 388,000 women found that death rates from breast cancer were the same among women who rigorously self-examined as those who did not, while there were almost twice the number of biopsy operations in the self-examination group.

According to some experts, the best way for a woman to check her breasts is not to follow a strict examination routine, but to get to know what is normal, and feel them regularly for signs of any changes.

Resources:
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews July 2008, Issue 3
BBC News July 15, 2008

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