Kids playing sports lead active lives

Learning to play games that involves kicking, catching and throwing a ball can be the best bet for leading a physically active life for ten year-old growing kids, a new research has said. "This study has shown that motor skills have an impact on later activity and fitness," Lisa Barnett, an Australian public health specialist, Sydney University, who carried out the research said. In a longitudinal study Barnett and her team followed 276 children from age 10 to age 16 in schools in northern New South Wales. They compared groups of children who developed different skills at the age of 10. One group developed proficiency at hopping, side galloping and vertical jumping - so-called "movement skills". Another group developed proficiency at kicking, catching and throwing a ball - labelled "object control" skills. Barnett found that 10-year-olds who were good at object control skills were more fit when they reached age 16, than others. These children as they grew up engaged in more sports that require these skills, as well as other activities such as swimming, aerobics, dancing, bike-riding and skateboarding. "The kids that had better [object control] skills when they were younger were more likely to participate in any sort of activity as adolescents," Barnett said.
Link PTI

Smoking is injuries to health!!But Who cares

Smoking is injurious to health, but for some chain smokers, smoking is a pleasure and habit. Supreme Court has banned smoking in public places yet you can see some smoking zone where people can go and have a pleasure of puff. Supreme Court also imposed fine and imprisonment on employer who allows his employee to smoke, but these measures were not yielded much result. "According to a WHO study, around 14.1 per cent of school going children are using some or the other form of tobacco." Recently, Minister for Health Ramdoss has announced that you can not smoke public or private places, government offices, shopping malls, airports, railway stations and even in your own home, you have to take permission of your wife, family members and children, if you want to smoke in your own house. Minister for Health Ramdoss permitted to smoke on the road. This policy will be implemented from October 2 onwards. Mahatma Gandhi Jayanthi Day. Very ambitious proposal, but how far the government will achieve non-smoking India. It is experience in past that in India there are many good laws but when it comes to implementation there is no proper implementation of law. Government has good intention that the citizens should have good health, away from diseases like cancer. Any law can be properly implemented unless there is proper enforcement force, nothing can be imposed and people should be educated first the dangers of smoking. Until then the laws will be on paper. The ban from the day coinciding with Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary would also cover hotels, restaurants and offices. "Though in the beginning, the fine would be only Rs 200, we will try to amend the act in the future, after which the fine can be increased to Rs 1,000 and the employer can also be fined if somebody is found smoking within the office premises in accordance with the National Tobacco Control Act. To begin with, the pictorial warnings would be those cleared by the Group of Ministers and would cover 40 per cent of the product covers, but after around one year, more pictures can be brought in” according toMinister of health Ramadoss said. Next time, if you want to smoke you have to walk near by road from October 2 onwards, so that every one who goes on road knows that you are smoker and you had bad habit, with that guilty feeling, at least you may give up smoking, that may be the reason and idea of Minister for Health Ramdoss, has allowed citizens of India to smoke on the road. India there are innumerable law but implementation of these law are tardy.your health is in your hands you can decide whether you want to smoke or not. Is road is not a public place? This is the matter for debate!!!!!!!

Mahatma Gandhi is happiest person to see smoke less India from October 2 onwards. Can we achieve this???

Link MSN

Eating veggies shrinks the brain

Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage. Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin. The link was discovered by Oxford University scientists who used memory tests, physical checks and brain scans to examine 107 people between the ages of 61 and 87. When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12. Brain scans of more than 1,800 people found that people who downed 14 drinks or more a week had 1.6% more brain shrinkage than teetotallers. Women in their seventies were the most at risk. Beer does less damage than wine according to a study in Alcohol and Alcoholism. Researchers found that the hippocampus-the part of the brain that stores memories - was 10% smaller in beer drinkers than those who stuck to wine. And being overweight or obese is linked to brain loss, Swedish researchers discovered. Scans of around 300 women found that those with brain shrink had an average body mass index of 27 And for every one point increase in their BMI the loss rose by 13 to 16%.
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Eat Vegetarian food for slim waist

Do you want to know who has the slimmest waist? Meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians, or vegans? Well, well! According to a new study, vegans do. Vegans are vegetarians who not only forego eating meat, fish, or fowl but also all foods derived from animals. However, the reason vegans tend to be slimmer may lie in what they do eat: fibre. Lots of it. And that’s a habit you can easily duplicate. Fibre makes you feel full longer, and it seems to inhibit fat absorption. Broccoli pizza on whole-wheat crust, anyone? Although fibre seems to help limit fat deposits, a meat-laden diet does just the opposite - it actually can cause an increase in body fat, especially in the belly, one of the worst places for it to accumulate in terms of both your health and your self-image. In one cross-sectional study, meat-eaters had the highest body mass indexes (BMIs), the height-weight ratio that’s the gold standard for separating healthy weights from weights that are too high or too low. Fish-eaters and vegetarians had lower BMIs than people who regularly ate meat, and vegans tended to have the lowest indexes of all. One possible explanation is that high-protein diets may change the hormonal make-up of the body, altering body chemistry in a way that increases fat around the abdomen. Whatever the reason, the point is clear: You have yet another reason to up your intake of fibre-rich fruits, veggies, and whole grains — a smaller waist

Link Times of India

Tobacco plant to fight against cancer

A personalized vaccine made using tobacco plants — normally associated with causing cancer rather than helping cure it — could aid people with lymphoma in fighting the disease, US researchers said. The treatment, which would vaccinate cancer patients against their own tumour cells, is made using a new approach that turns genetically engineered tobacco plants into personalized vaccine factories. "This is the first time a plant has been used for making a protein to inject into a person," said Ron Levy of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, whose research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This would be a way to treat cancer without side effects," Levy said in a statement on Monday. "The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer." Levy was working with a team of scientists from the now defunct Large Scale Biology Corp, which helped fund the study, as well as Bayer AG's Bayer HealthCare, CBR International Corp, Integrated Biomolecule Corp, The Biologics Consulting Group Inc and Holtz Biopharma Consulting. They were working on a type of cancer known as follicular B-cell lymphoma, a kind of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that attacks the immune system. The cancer makes a specific antibody that is not found in healthy cells. The technology exploits the tobacco plant's vulnerability a virus that only attacks tobacco plants, which most people associate with causing cancer, and not curing it. The researchers altered the virus, adding the specific antibody gene from a patient's cancer cells. Then, they infected the tobacco plants with the gene-carrying virus. "You scratch it on the leaves and it turns the plants into a protein-producing factory for the protein of interest," Levy said. Other approaches that use animals to make the vaccines can take months, but the plant-based approach is very fast. "A week later, you extract the protein. It's that fast." In a test of 16 patients with follicular B-cell lymphoma, 70% of people injected with a made-to-order vaccine developed an immune response, and none had any side effects. Levy said the study suggests personalized cancer vaccines could be produced efficiently and cheaply using plants. The early-stage study only focused on the safety and immune-stimulating ability of the plant-produced vaccines. Future studies will be needed to show how effective they are as a treatment.

Link Reuters

Scientists identify obesity gene

British and French scientists have identified several variants of a single gene that boost the risk of obesity, according to a study published Sunday in the British journal Nature. Previous research had shown that an extremely rare mutation in the same PCSK1 gene can, all by itself, lead to huge gains in weight, making it the only known source of so-called "monogenetic" obesity.
But a team led by Philippe Froguel of Imperial College London wanted to find out if PCSK1 might lead, in combination with other genetic factors, to more complex and widespread forms of obesity as well.
When they compared the genomes of 13,000 obese individuals of European ancestry to those of a normal control group, the researchers found three mutations in the gene that were far more common among those coping with excess weight.
These same variants were also linked to increased risk of childhood obesity, as well as less extreme weight gain, the study found.
The benchmark for obesity is the body-mass index (BMI), defined as one's weight in kilograms divided by the square of one's height in meters.
A BMI from 18.5 to 25 is considered in the healthy range, from 25 to 30 is overweight, and 30 or higher is obese.
PCSK1 produces an enzyme, called proconvertase 1, that plays a critical role in converting inactive forms of hormones that control appetite and regulate energy metabolism into active forms.
These hormones include insulin and glucagon, involved in the metabolism of sugar and carbohydrates, as well as a third molecule that signals to the brain that one has eaten enough.

Link Agence France Presse

Device to 'zap' away migraine

People suffering from migraine can now heave a sigh of relief — thanks to scientists who've developed a portable electronic device that can "zap" away the debilitating pain before it starts. In their study, a team at the Ohio State University has found that the experimental device is safe and effective in eliminating headaches when administered during the onset of the migraine. According to lead scientist Yousef Mohammad, the results of the study are promising given that only 50 to 60% of migraine patients respond to traditional migraine drug treatments. The noninvasive transcranial magnetic stimulator (TMS) device interrupts the aura phase of the migraine, described as electrical storms in the brain, before they lead to headaches.

Migraine sufferers often describe "seeing" showers of shooting stars, zigzagging lines and flashing lights, and experiencing loss of vision, weakness, tingling or confusion, followed by intense throbbing head pain, nausea and vomiting. Previous studies, conducted at Ohio State University, using a heavy and bulky TMS device, reduced headache pain. To expedite treatment at home, this portable hand-held device was developed and tested. "Stimulation with magnetic pulses from the portable TMS device proved effective for the migraine patients," Mohammad said

Link PTI

Global CEOs Call on Government to Halve Climate Emissions by 2050

A high-powered group of international CEOs is asking G8 leaders to agree on an ambitious 50% cut in global climate emissions by 2050.The so-called Gleneagles CEO Statement (PDF), signed by a who's who of the international business community, urges G8 leaders to take a stronger leadership stance on climate once the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
"We urge governments to seek consensus on a long-term goal of at least halving global emissions against current levels by 2050," the statement reads. "We seek leadership from the G8 to agree to deep cuts by 2050."
In place of government-to-government, top-down emission reduction commitments (as in Kyoto), the CEO statement recommends a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches, including public-private collaboration to set carbon-reduction strategy and create new financing mechanisms to support research into low-carbon technologies.
This isn't the first time international business leaders have called on policymakers to take more aggressive action on climate - and to assign a greater role to the private sector in developing emissions-reduction strategy. In November, a business group calling itself Combat Climate Change (3C) released its own plan for tackling climate change. Also in November, 150 of the biggest companies in the world signed the so-called Bali Communique, calling for a "comprehensive, legally binding" United Nations framework to tackle climate change.
U.N. leaders met in Bali the following month, agreeing to a roadmap of next steps toward an international climate pact to pick up where the Kyoto Protocol leaves off.

Link Sustainable life media

Hormone to help keep weight off

Falling levels of a hormone called leptin that helps the brain resist tempting foods may explain why people who lose weight often have a hard time keeping it off, US researchers said. Restoring leptin to pre-diet levels may reverse this problem, they said, offering a way for weary dieters to finally win the weight battle. "When you lose weight you've created about the perfect storm for regaining weight," said Michael Rosenbaum of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, whose research appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. After weight loss Rosenbaum said the metabolism not only becomes more efficient, so the body needs fewer calories, but the brain becomes more vulnerable to tasty-looking treats. "Areas of your brain involved in telling you not to eat seem to be less active. You are more responsive to food and you are less in control of it," he said. Leptin is a natural appetite suppressant secreted by fat cells in the body. Its discovery created a stir in the 1990s when researchers found leptin caused mice to eat less and lose weight. This rarely happens in humans.

Link Times of India

Exercise 'to cut cancer death risk'

You can cut your cancer death risk with just 30 minutes of walking daily, for a new study has revealed that physically fit people are less likely to die from the disease. Researchers at Karolinska Institute in Sweden have found that people who do at least half-an-hour of exercise everyday have a 34 per cent lower chance of being killed by cancer than those who do not. "The study shows, for the first time, the effect that very simple and basic daily exercise such as walking or cycling has in reducing cancer death risk in middle-aged and elderly men," lead researcher Prof Alicja Wolk said. They monitored the health and exercise levels of over 40,000 men, aged between 45 and 79, for seven years to reach the conclusion, the British Journal of Cancer has reported. During that time, 3,714 of the participants developed cancer and 1,153 died from their disease. The findings showed that exercise had a significant influence on cancer survival and a smaller impact on incidence. In fact, men who walked or cycled at least 30 minutes a day were 34 per cent less likely to die from cancer than men who exercised less or not at all. The same activities led to only a five per cent reduction in cancer rates, a result which could be due to chance. However, a more intensive programme of walking and cycling for between an hour and an hour-and-a-half a day was associated with a 16 per cent lower cancer incidence, the study found. "This study gives us a clear indication that men who exercise are less likely to die from cancer," The Daily Telegraph quoted Dr Lesley Walker of Cancer Research UK, which publishes the journal, as saying.
Link Times of India

Smart clothes that track your health
Scientists in Europe are in the final stages of devising smart fabrics that can provide an assessment of wearer's health. Embedded within the fabric are numerous sensors, constantly monitoring your vital signs. If danger signs are detected, the garment is programmed to contact your doctor and send a text message telling you to take corrective measures, the ScienceDaily said. Miniaturised biosensors in a textile patch can now analyse body fluids, even a tiny drop of sweat, and provide a much better assessment of someone's health, the report said. A cluster of EU research projects (SFIT Group) is supporting this burgeoning field of smart fabrics, interactive textiles and flexible wearable systems. "One of the most obvious applications for smart fabrics is in the medical field," said Jean Luprano, a researcher at the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), who coordinates the BIOTEX project. Garments that can measure a wearer's body temperature or trace their heart activity are just entering the market, but the European project BIOTEX weaves new functions into smart textiles. One of the main achievements of the project has been the development of a suite of prototype ionic biosensors, capable of measuring sodium, potassium and chloride in sweat samples.
Link Times of India

Brain has sixth sense for calories
The brain has a way of sensing calories in food, independent of the taste mechanism, according to a new study. The discovery that the brain's reward system is switched on by this "sixth sense" machinery could have implications for understanding the causes of obesity. For example, the findings suggest why high-fructose corn syrup, widely used as a sweetener in foods, might contribute to obesity. Findings of the study have been published in the latest issue of the journal Neuron. Ivan de Araujo and his research colleagues genetically altered mice to make them "sweet-blind", or lacking a key component of taste receptor cells that enabled them to detect the sweet taste. The researchers next performed behavioural tests in which they compared normal and sweet-blind mice in their preference for sugar solutions and those containing the non-caloric sweetener sucralose. In those tests, the sweet-blind mice showed a preference for calorie containing sugar water that did not depend on their ability to taste, but on the calorie content. In analysing the brains of the sweet-blind mice, researchers showed that the animals' reward circuitry was switched on by caloric intake, independent of the animals' ability to taste. Those analyses showed that levels of the brain chemical dopamine, known to be central to activating the reward circuitry, increased with caloric intake. Also, electrophysiological studies showed that neurons in the food-reward region, called the nucleus accumbens, were activated by caloric intake, independent of taste.
Link Times of India

Probiotic hope for kidney stones

Treating patients with bacteria may be an effective way of reducing their risk of repeatedly developing painful kidney stones, a study suggests.
People naturally carrying the bacterium Oxalobacter formigenes were found to be 70% less likely to have problems.
Researchers at Boston University, in the US, are now investigating the possibility of using the bacteria as a "probiotic" treatment.
The study features in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Kidney stones are small, hard lumps formed of waste products contained in the urine.
They normally range in size from a grain of sand to a pearl. They can be smooth or jagged, and are usually yellow or brown.
Once a kidney stone has formed in a kidney it may travel down through the other parts of the urinary system, where they can slow the flow of urine, cause infection, severe pain and even lead to kidney failure.
About three in 20 men and one in 20 women in the UK will develop a kidney stone at some point in their lifetime.
They are most likely to occur in people aged 20 to 40.
Up to 80% of kidney stones are predominately composed of a compound called calcium oxalate.
O. formigenes breaks down oxalate in the intestinal tract and is present in a large proportion of the normal adult population.
The Boston team compared 247 patients with recurrent calcium oxalate kidney stones with 259 people with no history of the condition.
They found just 17% of the kidney stones group were colonised with O. formigenes, compared with 38% of healthy group.
Researcher Professor David Kaufman: "Our findings are of potential clinical importance.
"The possibility of using the bacterium as a probiotic is currently in the early stages of investigation."
Promising avenue
Derek Machin, clinical director of urology at University Hospital, Aintree, said an effective treatment for recurrent kidney stones would be a significant step forward.
He said bigger kidney stones were currently treated by using shock waves to break them up, but this was not always completely effective.
Passing a stone in the urine intact can be extremely painful, and even getting rid of the smaller pieces created by shock treatment could cause significant pain.
"For some people kidney stones can be an on-going lifelong problem," he said.
"And in some cases a stone can destroy kidney function before it is even identified."
However, Mr Machin warned that there was much work to be done before clinical trials of a probiotic could be considered.
He said kidney stones had been linked to dehydration and were more common in countries such as Saudi Arabia where the climate is hot and dry.
In instances they may be linked to an unusually high rate of calcium excretion.
However, he said in many cases there was no obvious cause for the condition. It is a particular problem for airline pilots, who are not allowed to fly if they have a stone.

Link BBC News

Healthy signs of growth

Kerala’s booming Ayurveda industry is opening up employment opportunities for many women.

Even as more and more people are looking at Ayurveda for holistic healing, the popular ancient Indian system of medicine is offering a remedy in the area of gender development. In Kerala, the booming industry has been instrumental in the empowerment of women by engaging them in all aspects of the trade — from cattle rearing and tending herb gardens to contractual work as herb collectors and sifters to contributing as doctors, masseuses and packagers.
Every morning, serpentine queues form outside Vaidyaratnam Oushadhasala, an Ayurveda centre in Trichur district. Women from the nearby Thykattussery village supply fresh milk to the centre, which is used for manufacturing medicines. Over 200 women in the village have invested in milk cows. “The milk required by the Oushadhasala has to be of very good quality so we have invested in cows. I started with one cow, now I have three. I supply milk to the centre the year round. The cows are fed properly and kept in clean surroundings. They also undergo regular veterinary check-ups. The Oushadhasala is a confirmed customer and we make good money,” says Girija, 40, whose mother and sisters have joined her in the venture. After testing the milk for purity, the Oushadhasala buys around 700 litres daily at a competitive rate of Rs 11 per litre.Source of income
Before they started deriving economic benefit from the Ayurveda centre, most women in Thykattussery either worked as domestic help or farm labourers. However, now the milk business gives them a steady income. Girija’s sister, Rati, 26, says, “We took a loan from the lady of the house where Girija used to work as a domestic help to buy our first cow. But the next two cows were bought from the profits made by selling the milk.”
Centres like the Vaidyaratnam Oushadhasala play a huge role in the economic development of the area and thousands of women are piggy-backing this wave of prosperity. Doctors, nurses and masseuses head the list of qualified professionals that have found favour with the industry. Massage training
Dr Ambika Rahulan, 56, joint owner of Aswathy Bhavan Vaidyasala in Tiruvalla, says that while doctors and nurses require relevant degrees, masseuses can enrol for a six-month training course the centre offers, during which they are paid a stipend. “After completing the course, the women are qualified to start a massage unit of their own or join any centre or hotel as masseuses.”
“Besides those qualified to work in this sector, there is a large section of marginally educated women who take home a decent pay packet.” About 500 rural women, living mostly in forest and hill regions like Amdallur, Velikulangara and Peachy, are involved in collecting herbs for our pharmaceutical wing,” says T. Unnikrishnan, General Manager, Vaidyaratnam Oushadhashala.
“We impart preliminary knowledge to the women on the herbs we need at the lab. While some are natural, having lived amidst these plants throughout their lives, others are taught.” “We collect herbs like tulsi, kuruntoti and ketakamuladi , which are easily available. Depending on the herb, we are paid Rs 15 per kg. For example, a kg of Kuruntoti would fetch Rs 40. Many of us also have herb gardens where we plant the common herbs and then sell them,” says Thallur-based Lalita Srinivasan. Women look for herbs in the fields, forests and farms. At times, they even offer landowners a nominal fee for permission to collect herbs. They begin work early in the morning and sell the herbs to the Ayurveda centres by 4 p.m. every day.
“I studied only till Class IV. There were no job opportunities for me. My husband is a heart patient and is unable to work. I have two children. I earn about Rs 2,000 every month collecting and selling herbs like unnginver and chanakayanga ,” says Lalitha. High returns
Kanakamma, 28, from Marathakkara, cautions, “One has to be a regular to make good money. My mother did it for 30 years and now I am doing it. I have planted a herb garden near my house with an investment of Rs 5,000 and it has given me excellent returns.”
Other than those collecting herbs, there are women who sift and clean the collection for a daily wage of about Rs 70 to Rs 100. Susheela, 34, from Cherp, works as a contractual labourer and manages to earn around Rs 1,800 per month. “Some herbs take more time and effort to clean. We are paid more for such difficult tasks. Chuk or dry ginger is easier to clean so we do it in large quantities to make more money. This is the kind of work where the lack of education does not matter. I have only studied till Class III. Where else would I find work? My husband doesn’t work. I have to feed my children.”
Packaging units, where medicines and other products are made market-ready, are also popular avenues of employment. A.M. Sreedevi, 54, who has studied till class 10, works at the Oushadhasala’s packaging unit as a permanent employee. “It was unheard of in my family for women to work. However, when we were faced with financial difficulties, I started looking for work. The Ayurveda drugs packaging unit here was perfect. I joined in 1973. It is a comfortable working environment and there is no physical toil. I get basic pay, dearness allowance, washing allowance and incentives,” she says.
Shanta, 51, who joined in 1993, adds, “We work in shifts and the pay is good. We also get overtime. With an education up to Class III only, what more could I have expected? I am earning about Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 every month.”

Link Business Line