“Scientists and health authorities are increasingly persuaded that the intake of fish – even in small amounts – will protect against the risk of fatal myocardial infarction,” said study investigator Dr Marianne Geleinjse from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

“However, there is no strong evidence that eating fish will protect against heart failure. One study has suggested that this might be so, but we could not confirm it in our cohort study of older Dutch people,” added Geleinjse.

While heart failure treatments are often limited to palliative care, much rests on prevention.
The current study was aimed to investigate whether intake of the long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) found in fish conferred protection against heart failure as they seem to do against coronary heart disease.

The analysis comprised 5299 subjects (41 percent men, mean age 67.5 years) who were free from heart failure and for whom dietary data were available.
During 11.4 years of follow-up, 669 subjects developed heart failure.

Their habitual diet had been assessed at baseline (in a self-reported checklist and by expert interview), with subjects specifically asked to indicate the frequency, amount, and kind of fish they had eaten, either as a hot meal, on a sandwich, or between meals.
Results showed that the dietary intake of fish was not significantly related to heart failure incidence.

However, in diabetic subjects the researchers saw a slight improvement.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Eating-fish-doesnt-save-you-from-heart-failure/articleshow/5071499.cms

She revealed that the first noticeable bump in red wine sales came as a result of the French paradox in the early 1990s.

Hasler also covers recent studies on the link between alcohol consumption and health benefits.

She says that wine has the potential to protect against cardiovascular disease, and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

It can also improvement of cognitive function, and has also been linked with increased bone mineral density.

“Although there is no consensus on whether red wine is more beneficial, it is my opinion that the high concentration of antioxidant polyphenolics in red and the potential anti-inflammatory properties of resveratrol support the choice of red wine as the alcoholic beverage of choice in moderation,” said Hasler.

The study has been published in Food Technology magazine.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Heres-why-wine-is-good-for-health/articleshow/5059391.cms

“In this study, we were investigating whether TV viewership and recognition of snack advertisements were associated with snack food consumption and the odds of being overweight or obese,” Kim added. What the researchers found was quite alarming.

University students who reported medium or high television viewership snacked more frequently while watching TV and recognized more advertising than students who were considered low TV viewers. The students who watched over four hours or more of TV per day snacked more frequently while watching TV, recognized more TV advertisements and consumed more energy-dense snacks than students who viewed less than one hour of TV per day.

Specifically, male students and medium-to-high television viewers had higher odds of being overweight or obese. “The link between how much a person snacks while watching TV was directly related to viewing food advertisements, specifically when choosing to eat an energy-dense snack,” said John Spence, co-author of the study.

“The exposure to the advertising seems to stimulate a desire to eat that particular food product. Also, sitting watching TV provides a prime opportunity to snack,” he added. The study has been published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/fitness/Watching-too-much-TV-can-make-you-obese/articleshow/3321319.cms

It found bans in smoking in places including cafes and bars produced an overall 17 percent decrease in the risk of acute myocardial infarction — more commonly known as a heart attack — with a particular reduction in the risks to the young and non-smokers.

In the United States, 32 states have passed laws banning smoking in public spaces and work places. According to the study, passive smoking — the inhalation of second-hand smoke — can produce a 30 percent increase in the risk of acute myocardial infarction.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Public-smoking-bans-cuts-heart-attack-risk/articleshow/5045808.cms

To find out, researchers led by Robert Clark from the University of Oxford sifted through data from 19,000 male British civil servants who were examined in the late 1960s when they were 40 to 69 years old.

Participants provided detailed information about their medical history, lifestyle and smoking habits, and doctors recorded their weight, blood pressure, lung function, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. More than 7,000 of the surviving participants were re-evaluated in 1997, 28 years after the initial examination.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), found that the men who faced a triple risk threat at the outset were two-to-three times more likely to have died of a heart-related problem that men free of all three risk factors.

On average, their lives were shortened by a decade, the study found.

The percentage of people who have fatal strokes or heart attacks has declined by about a quarter in many rich countries over the last decade. But the prevalence of known risk factors has not dropped as quickly.

In the United States, for example, uncontrolled hypertension has fallen since 1999 by only 16 percent, high blood cholesterol by 19 percent, and tobacco use by just over 15 percent, says the American Heart Association.

Other sources of risk have remained constant or even increased: people exercise no more than 10 years ago, while rates of obesity have climbed sharply, especially among children.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Triple-heart-threat-cuts-decade-off-life/articleshow/5025814.cms

This is the first study to compare the efficiency of various masks, and it revealed that surgical masks offer no protection at all to either influenza or respiratory disease. N95 masks provided 75 percent protection against proven influenza infection and 56 percent protection against proven respiratory viral infections.

The findings could revolutionise current medical practice, which relies on surgical masks providing defence against influenza when vaccines aren’t available.

The protection of health workers is crucial, as they are at the front line of an effective pandemic response, according to Raina MacIntyre, UNSW professor, who led the study.

The results suggest that, although they’re more expensive, N95 masks should be the standard protective equipment offered to health workers.

The random clinical trial was performed in 24 hospitals and involved 1,936 hospital health care workers in Beijing, China.

These findings were presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Surgical-masks-offer-no-protection-against-flu/articleshow/5022179.cms

Weight loss can improve a number of health problems, like it can improve control of diabetes, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and reduce the effects of heart disease.

During the study, Dr Sankar Navaneethan, and his colleagues analysed the studies that examined the effects of weight loss interventions in obese kidney disease patients.

It showed that weight loss attained through diet and exercise reduces proteinuria (excess excretion of protein in the urine—a hallmark of kidney damage) and may prevent additional decline in kidney function in obese patients with kidney disease.

Studies also showed that surgical interventions normalize the filtration rate of the kidneys in obese patients with high filtration rates (a risk factor for the development of kidney disease).

While the findings imply that weight reduction may prevent the progression of kidney disease in obese kidney disease patients, the authors noted that there were only a small number of studies available for analysis and additional high-quality long-term studies on this topic are needed.

The study appears in Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Weight-loss-can-prevent-kidney-disease/articleshow/5026394.cms

Reasons to Smile
Dates are rich in the element fluorine – a component of fluoride, that enamel-friendly compound that can actually help reverse early tooth decay. Dates also provide your body with fibre and important nutrients like vitamins, amino acids and minerals. Do you know know of any other sweet treats that boast such big nutritional benefits? So, what are you waiting for?

Here’s more to chew
While you’re grabbing yourself a handful of dates, here are a few other bites that may double as tooth protectors:
Raisins – a compound in this snack may help curb cavities.
Yogurt – it helps to keep those pearly whites clean.
Gum – this too is good for your teeth.

The golden rule
Of course, yogurt, gum and dried fruits like dates can also contain sugar, so any tooth-friendly eating habits still need to be accompanied by no-excuses oral care. That means regularly brushing and flossing. But there may be a big benefit to doing so – beyond a healthy mouth, a beautiful smile!

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/beauty/Date-A-sweet-treat-to-protect-your-smile/articleshow/3813593.cms

Paul Thomas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, has revealed that their invention is a tweaked form of a commercially available e-nose.

The researcher says that it can detect the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the breath of a person who had smoked a cigarette. The e-nose uses an array of 32 sensors whose electrical resistance changes as different VOCs are detected.

During a test, the researchers could correctly identified 37 out of 39 volunteers as either smokers or non-smokers relying upon on the resultant “smellprint”. Based on their observations, the team came to the conclusion that such e-noses could quickly and reliably reveal smokers without the need for a blood or urine test.

The current method of measuring the carbon monoxide content of exhaled breath to confirm smoking activity picks up a smoker for only a few hours after their last cigarette. It is even prone to error because it cannot tell whether carbon monoxide in the breath came from other sources such as traffic exhaust fumes.

Insurers are very interested in whether a person applying for health or life insurance smokes – for obvious reasons. “Some insurance providers don’t ask questions about smoking at all, while others ask the question on an application form but do not require a test as the applicant is expected to answer the question honestly,” New Scientist magazine quoted Kelly Ostler-Coyle, of the Association of British Insurers, as saying.

By making the test simple and reliable, an e-nose could provide doctors with the truth in minutes, according to the researchers. They, however, admit that their system needs further testing to prove its worth. “This e-nose idea, whilst of interest, will require larger-scale trials to demonstrate clinical efficacy and patient acceptability before it can be considered for use,” says a spokesman for the UK Department of Health.

A research article describing the innovation has been published in the Journal of Breath Research.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/E-nose-New-device-to-catch-smokers/articleshow/5018496.cms

Scientists have now developed the technology to power heart pump wirelessly thus saving thousands of lives, and eventually offering an alternative to heart transplants.

The wireless pump uses magnetic fields to transfer power through skin rather than using wire cables and can be powered this way 24 hours a day for a lifetime.

The new technology came out of collaboration among scientists from University of Auckland’s Bio-engineering Institute, departments of electrical and computer engineering and physiology.

A new company, TETCor, was created to market the technology for powering a wide range of such implanted devices.

TETCor CEO Simon Malpas says heart pumps need a huge amount of power. The only way to power current artificial heart pumps is through a wire cable that goes through a patient’s stomach and chest, according to an Auckland University release.

These wires cause serious infections, sometimes leading to death, in about forty percent of patients. The wires are also prone to breaking and restrict a patient’s activities, said Malpas.

“This new wireless heart pump weights only 92 grams and measures just seven cm by three cm. It uses a coil outside a person’s body to generate a magnetic field. A second coil placed inside a person’s body, near the collar bone, picks up the signal from this field and creates power for the pump.”

Malpas says previous attempts at making wireless heart pumps produced too much heat. These earlier pumps would have ended up “cooking a person from the inside”.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Now-a-wireless-heart-pump/articleshow/5018170.cms