Childhood Obesity Will Shorten
Lives
The explosion in child obesity will shorten life expectancy in the
US, write
researchers today, reversing two centuries of progress.
It has previously been assumed that US life expectancy would rise
indefinitely, but a new data analysis, published as a special report in
today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (volume 352,
pp1138-1145), suggests that if the current epidemic of child and
adolescent obesity continues unabated, life expectancy could be shortened
by two to five years in the coming decades.
David Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston, epidemiologist S. Jay
Olshansky of the University of
Illinois at Chicago, and
colleagues based their predictions on data showing the prevalence of
obesity from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and
previously published estimates of years-of-life lost from obesity.
Ludwig attributes much of the obesity epidemic to environmental
factors of the past 40 years. Fast food, junk food, and soft drinks have
become a prominent part of the landscape, with a huge increase in food
advertising directed at children and ballooning portion sizes have
ballooned. At the same time, children are becoming more sedentary,
spending more time watching TV and using computers.* Read More
Here
Melatonin May Help Blood
Pressure
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and
Harvard
Medical
School have found that
melatonin may reduce nocturnal blood pressure. The study was conducted at
the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research and followed 16 men for three
weeks. The participants were either given a placebo or 2.5mg of melatonin
and the results of the three week period were compared with the results
after the first day. The single dose appeared to have no effect, but the
longer term usage lowered nocturnal systolic blood pressure by 6mm and
diastolic pressure by 4mm on average. The study was published in
Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association. Read
More Here
Weird Cures, Part
II
Chew cheese to clean
teeth
Why? Aged cheeses such as cheddar increase production of
saliva,which washes away tooth acid, says Dr Ralph Burgess from the
University of
Toronto Dental School.How to do
it: Eat one dice-sized cube after every meal.
Stick duct tape over a wart to heal
it
Why? According to researchers linked to the US Army, the
irritation it causes stimulates your immune system to attack the wart. How
to do it: Cut a piece of tape the size of the wart and stick it over it.
Every six days, remove and rub away the top layers using a pumice stone,
then stick on some more. Continue until the wart comes
off.
