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Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2012 12:35 PM
 Maternal vitamin D supplements may help language Vitamin D deficiency during early pregnancy is associated with an almost two-fold higher rate of language impairment in the offspring; a study from WA has shown. In a long term follow up study of children born between 1989 and 1991, researchers found that maternal serum vitamin D levels at 18 weeks of pregnancy were related to language difficulties in the children at five and 10 years. However, contrary to other studies, vitamin D insufficiency during pregnancy was not linked to offspring behavioural or emotional problems at any age, according to the findings published in |
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Posted on Monday, November 28, 2011 8:33 PM
You have a headache...just add water! Patients with recurrent headaches should be advised to drink more water, a randomised trial concludes. Although advice to drink an extra 1.5L per day did not cut actual numbers of headaches, it did significantly boost patients’ perceived quality of life and led many to feel their headaches improved. And given the low risk associated with the approach, the researchers say all headache patients should try it, at least for a time. The study involved 102 primary-care patients in the Netherlands who had experienced multiple headaches in the preceding month, and who were drinking less than 2. |
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Posted on Friday, November 18, 2011 10:57 AM
A CLEAR LINK:  AIR POLLUTION AND HEART DISEASE
Environmental toxicants such as dioxins, PCBs, and pesticides can pose a risk for cardiovascular disease.
For the first time a link has been demonstrated between atherosclerosis and levels of long-lived organic environmental toxicants in the blood.
The study, carried out by researchers at Uppsala University, was published this week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes, are the most common cause of death in industrialised countries, and the most important underlying cause of these diseases is atherosclerosis. |
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Posted on Saturday, June 04, 2011 3:39 PM
The Neuroscience of the Gut  Strange but true: the brain is shaped by bacteria in the digestive tract
People may advise you to listen to your gut instincts: now research suggests that your gut may have more impact on your thoughts than you ever realised. Scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Genome Institute of Singapore led by Sven Pettersson recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that normal gut flora, the bacteria that inhabit our intestines, have a significant impact on brain development and subsequent adult behaviour. |
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Posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2011 12:45 PM
 BlueberrinMay Inhibit Development of Fat Cells The benefits of blueberry consumption have been demonstrated in several nutrition studies, more specifically the cardio-protective benefits derived from their high polyphenol content. Blueberries have shown potential to have a positive effect on everything from ageing to metabolic syndrome. Recently, a researcher from Texas Woman’s University (TWU) in Denton, TX, examined whether blueberries could play a role in reducing one of the world’s greatest health challenges: obesity. |
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Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 12:25 PM
 Elimination diet for ADHD The study by Lidy Pelsser and colleagues (Feb 5, p 494)attempted to determine whether a restricted elimination diet is an effective treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Although the design had some methodological strengths, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Unfortunately, the study's design was severely flawed since none of the outcome assessments was blind to treatment status. The investigators should have included at least one objective, independent assessment of attention, impulsivity, or activity level. |
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Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 3:51 PM
Price rises hitting diet of Manningham's poor  RISING produce prices are affecting the diet and health of Manningham’s low-income earners, local GPs and welfare workers say.Manningham General Practice’s Dr Amitabh Ilango said he had already seen subtle signs of poor diets among patients in response to rising fruit and vegetable prices. Dr Ilango said there was “no doubt” cases of malnutrition would increase if prices continued to rise. The Templestowe GP said in an effort to record the effect of tight budgets on his patients’ health, he had started asking them whether they were making healthy food cutbacks. |
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Posted on Saturday, April 23, 2011 7:48 PM
Feather bedding no help for asthmatic children Asthmatic children do not gain any benefit from using a feather pillow and doona rather than synthetic bedding, an Australian trialhas found. While observational studies have suggested lower rates of wheeze in children who use feather bedding, this was not borne out in a one year intervention carried out in NSW and the ACT. The prospective study in almost 200 children who were sensitive to house dust mite found no difference in respiratory symptoms between those who were assigned to use a duck feather pillow and quilt and those who used synthetic bedding. |
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Posted on Friday, April 22, 2011 12:39 PM
Persistent crying linked to ADHD  Infants who have problems with persistent crying, sleeping and feeding are at higher risk of developing behavioural problems such as ADHD, a study suggests. Swiss researchers analysed data from 22 studies involving almost 17,000 children and found that infants with previous regulatory problems were more likely to have behavioural problems as children than infants without regulatory problems. The most significant association was found for persistent crying in infancy and the development of externalising problems and ADHD, say the researchers in the |
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