Alcohol, cigarettes beat LSD in list of harmful substances.

Alcohol, cigarettes beat LSD in list of harmful substances 

October 31 2009 | Times of India Bangalore 

London: Alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous than illegal drugs such as cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, the British governments top drugs advisor has said. 

David Nutt of Imperial College London on Thursday called for a new system of classifying drugs to enable the public to better understand the relative harm of legal and illegal substances. 

Alcohol would rank as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone, he said in a briefing paper for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College London.
 

Tobacco would come ninth on the list and cannabis , LSD and ecstasy while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively . The ranking is based on physical harm, dependence and social harm. No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful.The critical question is one of scale and degree, said Nutt,the chairman of the governments Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
 

He added: We have to accept young people like to experiment and what we should be doing is to protect them from harm . AFP

Wearing your cellphone on hip weakens pelvic bones.

Wearing your cellphone on hip weakens pelvic bones 

October 31 2009 | Times of India Bangalore 

Accra: Are you wearing the cellphone on the waist belt If yes, think twice.
In a new research, health experts have warned that wearing a cellphone on ones belt could lead to decreased bone density in the area of the pelvis that is commonly used for bone grafts.

The report, carried out by Tolga Atay and colleagues of Suleyman Demirel University in Turkey, is one of the first to document bone-weakening effects of cellphone use.
However, the researchers said that the findings were preliminary , said GNA. Even though findings have not been conclusive, the World Health Organisation and scientists have called for precaution in the use of cellphones.
It would be better to keep mobile phones as far as possible from our body during our daily lives. With long-term exposure , electro-magnetic fields from cellphones could weaken the bone, potentially affecting the outcomes of surgical procedures using bone grafts , the report said.
The report said the researchers measured bone density at the upper rims of the pelvis in 150 male cellphone users who carried their phones on their belts. Out of the 150 men, 122 carried their phones on the right side and 28 on the left side and they had all used cell phones for an average of six years. PTI

Junk food can hook bingers like heroin.

Junk food can hook bingers like heroin 

October 29 2009 | Times of India Bangalore 

London: A diet of junk food is almost as addictive as taking a drug like heroin, warn scientists. 

Researchers found that regularly eating doughnuts, burgers and chocolate cakes can become a substitute for happiness. And as years pass, a diet rich in these junk foods can lead bingers to effectively become hooked just like a drug addict, reports the Daily Express.
 

To reach the conclusion, Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist, carried out tests on rats.
The research shows how dangerous high fat and high sugar foods can be. You lose control. Its the hallmark of addiction, he said.
The researchers believe it is one of the first studies to suggest brains may react in the same way to junk food as they do to drugs.
This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neuro-biological foundations, said Paul Johnson, Kennys colleague.
Kenny, who began his research at Guys Hospital, London , but now works at Floridas Scripps Research Institute , divided rats into three groups for his research, due to be published in the US soon.
One got normal amounts of healthy food to eat. Another lot was given restricted amounts of junk food and the third group was given unlimited amounts of junk, including cheesecake, fatty meat products, and cheap sponge cakes and chocolate snacks.
There were no adverse effects on the first two groups, but the rats who ate as much junk food as they wanted quickly became very fat and started bingeing.
When researchers electronically stimulated the part of the brain that feels pleasure , they found that the rats on unlimited junk food needed more and more stimulation to register the same level of pleasure as the animals on healthier diets. AGENCIES

One cigarette is enough to ruin your health.

One cigarette is enough to ruin your health.

October 29 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

Lighting a single cigarette can have serious adverse effects on young adults, says a new study. Stella Daskalopoulou at McGill University Health Centre found that smoking one cigarette increases the stiffness of the arteries in 18 to 30 year olds by a whopping 25%. Arteries that are stiff or rigid increase resistance in the blood vessels, making the heart work harder-the stiffer the artery, the greater the risk for heart disease or stroke. Young adults aged 20-24 years have the highest smoking rate of all age groups in Canada. Our results are significant because they suggest that smoking just a few cigarettes a day impacts the health of the arteries. This was revealed very clearly when these young people were placed under physical stress, such as exercise, she said.

Pill doubles stroke risk.

Pill doubles stroke risk:
October 28 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

Oral contraceptives nearly double stroke risk, according to a study by three Loyola University neurologists. Nearly 100 million women worldwide use birth control pills. Pills nowadays contain much lower concentrations of estrogens than older preparations. There are about 4.4 ischemic strokes for every 100,000 women of childbearing age. Birth control pills increase the risk 1.9 times, according to a meta-analysis , which combines the results of multiple studies.

Contract killing for just Rs 150

Contract killing for just Rs 150
Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui | TNN | Oct 26 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

Lucknow: That the value of human life is going down by the day we all know. But, how low could it go In Etah district of Uttar Pradesh, police arrested an alleged contract killer who strangled an old man for just Rs 150 contract.

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The sequence of events related to the shocking incident on October 20, when the body of one Narottam was recovered from his house in Birampur village of Etah district . Prima facie, it appeared that the victim, aged around 80 years, was strangled with a nylon rope. A widower, Narottam lived all alone ever since his only child - a daughter - was married to a petty landless farmer Patwari Lal.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Etah, RK Chaturvedi, said in the absence of any apparent motive for the murder, investigators took to the theory of elimination to zero in on the suspects, but to no avail. Next, we began to shortlist those who have had or could have benefited from Narottams death. In the name of wealth there was a piece of four bigha land near GT Road, valued at an estimated Rs 25 lakh, Chaturvedi told TOI. 

 
Police soon discovered that Narottams daughter Sushila and her husband Patwari Lal were his heirs, hence the only ones to benefit from his death. Patwari began to sing without much effort. Confessing to have got Narottam murdered , he led the police to a brother-duo Rajpal and Veerpal . Patwari said his wife Sushila, who had a history of fits, was keeping unwell for months and he was in dire need of money for her treatment. When he suggested Narottam to sell off the land, the latter refused to oblige. He then hired the brother duo who strangled Narottam, SSP, Etah said.

Smoking can trigger back pain.

Smoking can trigger back pain: 

October 26 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

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 Canadian researchers have linked smoking to chronic lower back pain. In the study, boffins identified a higher rate of chronic lower back pain among people who smoke every day. According to Michael Cousins, the study found that smoking interferes with pain transmitters, causing osteoporosis. The condition resulted in chronic lower back pain which could also trigger a downward spiral in a persons life, he warned. Chronic pain is now regarded as a disease in its own right, said Cousins, who is a director at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

Mona Lisa smiling: Its all in your eyes.

Mona Lisa smiling Its all in your eyes 

Mystery Solved: Retina Cells Determine Whether You Can See Her Smile  

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October 26 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

Neuroscientists at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain claim to have solved the mystery as to why some people see the Mona Lisa smile and some dont . 

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According to boffins, Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa is both smiling and not smiling, depending on what cells in the retina pick up the image and through what channel the image is transmitted in the brain. 

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Sometimes one channel wins over the other, and you see the smile, sometimes others take over and you dont see the smile , says Luis Martinez Otero, a neuroscientist at Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, who conducted the study along with Diego Alonso Pablos.
To get a fuller picture of the reasons behind Mona Lisas vanishing smile, Martinez Otero and Alonso Pablos varied different aspects of the Mona Lisa that are processed by different visual channels, and then asked volunteers whether they saw a smile or not.
To start with, the duo asked volunteers to look at the painting in varying sizes from varying distances. When the volunteers moved in closer, or viewed a larger copy, they began to see the smile and the larger the picture more likely they were to see it. This suggests that retinal cells that process deadcentre vision convey information about the smile just as well as the cells that contribute to peripheral vision. 

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Eye gaze also affects how volunteers see the smile, Martinez Otero says. With a minute to gaze at the painting, volunteers tended to focus on the left side of her mouth when judging her as smiling further evidence that dead-centre vision picks out the smile. 

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So did Leonardo intend to sow so much confusion in the brains of viewers, not to mention scientists Absolutely, Martinez Otero contends. He wrote in one of his notebooks that he was trying to paint dynamic expressions because thats what he saw in the street. ANI  

Interesting Facts on Forensic Science.

Forensic Science: Fact or Fiction
October 17 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

Surfing helps the elderly stave off dementia.

BOOSTING GREY MATTER | Surfing helps the elderly stave off dementia
Internet Stimulates The Mind More Strongly Than Reading: Study
Jonathan Leake | October 19 2009 | Times of India Bangalore
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Googling is good for grandparents. Internet use can boost the brain activity of the elderly, potentially slowing or even reversing the age-related declines that can end in dementia, researchers have found.

Using brain scans, they found the internet stimulated the mind more strongly than reading , and the effects continued long after an internet session had ended. We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing internet searches for even a relatively short time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function, said Gary Small, professor of neuroscience at University of California , Los Angeles (UCLA).
Small and his colleagues worked with 24 men and women aged between 55 and 78. They were asked to conduct a series of internet searches while their brains were scanned using a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This measures changes in blood flow around the brain to work out which parts are the most and least active.
After the initial scan, participants went home and used the internet to carry out specified tasks for an hour a day at least seven times over the next fortnight. Then they had another brain scan. Small and his colleagues found the impacts began immediately, with the first scan showing brain activity in regions controlling language, reading, memory and vision. By the second scan, the activated areas had spread to the frontal gyrus, an area important in working memory and decision-making .
Searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise for older adults, said Teena Moody, a UCLA researcher who co-wrote the report. Moody says internet searching challenges the brain more than reading as people need to perform several tasks at once, like holding information in memory while assessing data on screen and extracting the parts they want from graphics. SUNDAY TIMES, LONDON

Smoking ban cuts heart attack.

Smoking ban cuts heart attack 

Pam Belluck October 20 2009 | Times of India Bangalore 

Bans on smoking in places like restaurants, offices and public buildings reduce cases of heart attacks and heart disease, according to a report released on Thursday by a federally commissioned panel of scientists. 

The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to second-hand smoke significantly increased the risk of a heart attack among both smokers and non-smokers . The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels of second-hand smoke could cause cardiovascular problems. 

Even a small amount of exposure to second-hand smoke can increase blood clotting, constrict blood vessels and can cause a heart attack , said Dr Neal L Benowitz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco , and a member of the panel.
The report was commissioned by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

NYT NEWS SERVICE

Eating lots of fish causes diabetes.

Eating lots of fish causes diabetes.

October 20 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

New York: Making sure fish ends up on your dinner plate a couple of times a week may be a good way to cut your risk for developing heart disease, but it may not do the same for diabetes, new study findings hint. 

In the study, researchers found no evidence of reduced risk for diabetes among adults who ate more fish, or the essential omega-3 fatty acids obtained primarily from seafood.Rather, their findings suggest that eating 2 or more servings of fish a week may slightly increase diabetes risk. 
 

Dr Frank B Hu, at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues examined ties between fish and omega-3 fatty acid intake and the development of diabetes among 152,700 women enrolled in the Nurses Health Study and 42,504 men enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. REUTERS  

Now, instant facelift with a cup of coffee.

Now, instant facelift with a cup of coffee 

October 20 2009 | Times of India Bangalore 

 

London: Want to get rid of those pesky wrinkles Well, then forget lotions and grab a cup of coffee. 

  
Nescafe, brand of instant coffee made by Swiss-based manufacturer Nestle, has started selling a version aimed at women, and it comes with the beauty-enhancing ingredient collagen. 

 
So, instead of applying lotions to smooth out wrinkles, users can simply rely on a cup of coffee. Sachets contain coffee, skimmed milk and 200mg of collagen a protein found naturally in body tissue.
The precise beauty benefits of mixing collagen with coffee are unclear, but this product is part of a much wider trend known as nutri-cosmetics . 

This is where food and drink manufacturers promote new products by emphasising the positive effect they can have on the hair, eyes, skin or general appearance.
Collagen is just one popular ingredient used to lend a more skin/beauty-friendly image to a product , and is increasingly found not just in beauty products but also in food and drink products including coffee, the Daily Express quoted David Jago, director of trends and innovation at market analysts Mintel, as saying. 

The drink has so far made its debut only in Singapore.
But health experts questioned how drinking collagen could boost levels in the skin because it would be simply broken down by the gut before being excreted.
Collagen is the elastic material that helps give skin its shape. It is used by cosmetic surgeons as a filler to remove fine lines and is an ingredient in many anti-wrinkle creams. AGENCIES  

Vitamin pills can cause cancer.

Vitamin pills can cause cancer 

October 20, 2009 | Times of India Bangalore

 

London: Vitamin supplements do nothing to stave off illness and could even lead to cancer, a leading expert has warned.

Professor Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific adviser for the World Cancer Research Fund, has pointed out that people who regularly take vitamin and mineral supplements instead of eating a balanced diet are at greater risk.

 
Many people think they can reduce their cancer risk by taking supplements, but the evidence does not support this, the Daily Express quoted Wiseman as saying. Just because a dietary pattern that provides a relatively high level of a particular nutrient might protect against cancer, it does not mean taking it in tablet form will have the same effect. 

In fact, at high doses the effect of these micronutrients is unpredictable and can be harmful to health, Wiseman added. Research suggests that vitamins A and E can actually cause illness. Wiseman said: There are studies that show high doses of some supplements can increase risk of some cancers. ANI