Most US women face stroke risk

People who tend to be sedentary-as indicated by the amount of time they spend watching television-are likely to have high levels of glucose in their blood, even though they may not be diabetec.David W.Dunstan,of the International Diabetes Institute,Melbourne, Australia,and colleagues examined the association between television viewing and blood glucose levels,measured after fasting and after a glucose test-drink,in 3781 men and 4576 women in Australia. All of the subjects were free of diabetes at the time.

Patients with type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop Parkinson's disease,although the reasons are unclear.Finnish researchers reported.They found that people with type 2 diabetes were 83% more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's later in life than people in the general population. This risk was the same for men and women and was independent of other risk factors. "Diabetes might increase the risk of Parkinson's disease partly through excess body weight," the researchers wrote in the April issue of "Diabetes Care". Earn $180 per month without any investment: www.slashmysearch.com/earn/id/21334

Sprucing up its famously plain web site, Google is offering a new option that plants its Internet search box in panoramic settings that change with the time of day and the outside weather. The colourful graphics represent the latest bit of pizazz to be served up on Google's home page as the company caters to the digerati who want to customise everything. While most of Google's users remain content seeing little more than the company logo and the search box, others have created log-ins that enable them to select from a variety of features that appear with each visit. These additional bells and whistles, introduced nearly two years ago, include stock quotes, local weather and news headlines.

Looking at various proteins in urine may help doctors predict the development of diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetes patients well before they develop the condition,according toa report in the March Diabetes Care. "We have identified a set of urine proteins almost 10 years before the onset of diabetic nephropathy that identify those who will go on to get diabetic nephropathy, the most common cause of renal failure in the US and the world," Ravi Thadani,from Masachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston,said. Diabetic nephropathy is a serious complication of diabetes in which the kidneys lose their ability to function over time.

You don't have to rush to the gym to get rid off cellulite.A few at-home tips could work as well: 1) Detoxify your body, especially the liver and colon. Cut out nicotine and caffeine, do not eat extra salt or fat and drink a lot of water. Eat things like soya,blueberries and nuts. Onions are good for reducing cellulite as they act like a natural diuretic and will release the excess water from the skin cells. 2) Do exercises that will help you loose weight on your legs and buttocks, like special exercises to improve muscles in your thighs like walking, cycling,climbing stairs, yoga and pilates. 3) Massaging the areas that have cellulite will increase circulation and break the fat up. You can use a body brush or use a body wash or exfoliator while bathing. This will also increase circulation. Use aromatherapy oils like sage,cypress and juniper help in cellulite reduction. 4)Wearing pantyhose helps to reduce cellulite. Wear those that are body shaping and contour your thighs. Pant

Women who use a contraceptive patch appear to be more than twice as likely to develop a dangerous blood clot in their veings as those who use an oral contraceptive, new research shows. Alexander M Walker and colleagues, form i3 Drug Safety in Auburndale, Massachusetts, note that it was not known if users of the patch system ran the same risk of stroke, heart attack and venous blood clots as users or oral contraceptives. They point out that the FDA changed the labelling for the patch contraceptive system in 2005 to warn of a possible increased risk of socalled "thrombotic events," because of a higher average circulating estrogen elvels with the product.

During adolescence, girls but not boys may be more likely to develop depression if they were born weighing less than 5.5 pounds, new research suggests. "Parents and pediatricians of girls who were of low birth weight should pay close attention to their mental health as they enter puberty," write researchers in the medical journal,"Archives of General Psychiatry."

A French study says people with pacemakers suffer from a high incidence of undiagnosed sleep apnea. The study,which looked at 98 patients with pacemakers, found that 57 percent had undiagnosed sleep apnea, WebMD reported. The report, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, says all potential pacemaker patients should be screened for sleep apnea, which is known to increase risk of cardiovascular disease. Researchers say abnormally slow heart rhythms are common among patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

A leading Chinese matchmaking portal will check the age,marital status and other personal details of prospective cyber daters against an official database to prevent deception. The portal,Baihe.com,will screen its eight million online daters from Sunday against an "ID authentication system". The system was jointly developed by the website and the ministry of public security. "In the long run,we'll arrange dates only for those who are proven to be telling the truth,'' company CEO Jason Tian said.Tian said the move would enhance trust among online daters,improve credibility and prevent deception.

For people who suffer a stroke and are treated quickly with the clot-buster drug rtPA to open up the blocked brain artery, recovery of function is likely to be better for men than women, new research shows. However,more men than women die from the stroke. "Other studies have shown that women have worse functional outcomes after stroke;this shows that this is also true when women are treated with rtPA," said lead author Mitchell S V Elkind from Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, in a statement. The goal of stroke treatment is to administer a clot-busting drug within three hours after a stroke begins, so that blood flow to the brain can be restored before too much damage is done.

Teens who lose their virginity earlier than their peers are more likely to steal,destroy property,shoplift or sell drugs than their virgin counterparts, according to one of the first studies to look at what happens in the lives of teens in the years after they start having sex. The study,in February's "Journal of Youth and Adolescence," found that those who had sex early were 26% more likely to be in trouble than those who waited. The protective effect of late sexual debut appreared to last well into early adulthood. Those who had sex later had delinquency scores 20% lower than their "on-time" peers.

The use of light could detect bacteria faster than the current laboratory-based detection system. Sheila MacNeil and researchers at Sheffield University have identified a mothod that could ascertain the presence of bacteria in less then a minute by using light, reported the only edition of BBC News. The technology could have wide applications in would healing, counter-terrorism and screening patients ofr MRSA (bacterial)infection,the experts said. The scientists are developing a portable kit in which specially designed molecules emit a light signal when bound to bacteria .

Cigarette smoking appears to be a risk factor for tuberculosis infection, according to findings from a review of the literature and pooled analysis of studies,Kirk R.Smith,of the University of California ,Berkeley, and colleagues searched eight databases for relevant articles on the topic and identified 24 that met their inclusion criteria. Taken together, the data point to a marked increased the relative risk of TB infection and disease among current and former smokers compared with nonsmokers. There did not appear to be an increased relative risk for death from TB in association with smoking in people with active tuberculosis, the researchers note.

According to your calculation,you know its time to sleep because your child has to be up in the morning for school or you have some other plans.But your naughty little darling doesn't want to sleep.What do you do? Create fuss over his fussiness?Critisise him for not understanding that its time to sleep?Certainly not but exactly what parents do.So how do you ensure that his fussiness changes into readiness at bedtime? First try to understand why putting your child to bed becomes a difficult task. When we force children to sleep at the time we want,they feel their independence is being taken away. In order to be in control of the situation, they rebel.So,always give them a choice to wait for sometime to make it look as if they are sleeping at a time of their own choosing. Also, make bedtime special for your child. A little but of planning and a little bit of flexibility can make bedtime a time you and your child looks forward to. Bedtime is not a time you and your child looks forward

Japanese researchers have developed a prototype miniature robot that can be inserted through an incision and used to perform medical procedures deep inside the body. The beetle-shaped robot,which weighs five grammes and measures two centimetres in length and one in diamter, is the result of three years of work by researchers from Ritsumeikan University and its partners. The tiny robot incorporates various medical devices including a small camera, sensors and a drug delivery injector, which could reduce the need for surgery. Data is sent to a computer through a slim cable although researchers hope to develop a transmitter.

You have waited too long: This is the most important reason why several couples,especially women, are facing infertility problems. These days,couples are postponing their conception,says expert doctors.By the time a woman turns 40,the pool reserve of her eggs gets depleted. So the biological for producing children practically stops, observes doctors.Unlike a man, who can produce sperms till he dies, a woman is born with half a million eggs that deplete as she ages.Till about the age of 35, a woman's chances of conception are very high (about 55 per cent).The 36-40 age-group is the grey zone, where the chances of conception drop to about 20-25 per cent. As a woman ages the success rate of assisted reproduction technologies procedure also drops proportionately. You smoke or drink: Some doctors observed that an ongoing study on the effects of smoking on sperm count at hospital shows a marked increase in abnormal-looking sperm, which also affects men's fertility potential.Internat

Women who use a contraceptive patch appear to be more than twice as likely to develop a dangerous blood clot in their veints as thhose who use an oral contraceptive, new research shows. Alexdender M Walker and colleagues,from i3 Drug Safety in Auburndale, Massachusetts, note that it was not known if users of the patch system ran the same risk of stroke, heart attack and venous blood clots as users of oral contraceptives. They point out that the FDA changed the labelling for the patch contraceptive system in 2005 to warn of a possible increased risk of socalled "thrombotic events," because of a higher average circulating estrogen levels with the product.

A guitar that Paul McCartney threw into a crowd decades ago during a Beatles concert in Britain has tuned up at a school in Montenegro. McCartney had tossed the Hofner violin bass guitar into the audience after its neck broke, said the "Vesti"newspaper without mentioning the year of the concert. Milan Dobrilovic, a Montenegrin cameraman, said he had received the guitar from his cousin Dario Persi, who was the fan who cought the instrument. Dobrilovic recently donated the guitar to a music school in Herceg Novi, a tiny town on the country's Adriatic coast.

A German man, who spent 10 days in a self-made box atop a 72-foot-tall pole to protest a looming jail term,was lured off his perch by his wife-who lured off his perch by his wife-who sent up a topless picture of herself in his lunch box. Fred Gregor,45, was bidding to have his 15-month conviction for fraud overturned by squatting in his tiny cubicle atop a converted television mast.He told reporters in a telephone interview last week that he wanted a new trial. His wife Susanne backed his protest until the former stripper and mother of their five children decided she had had enough.

Canadian researchers have found that a hormone generated during pregnancy may be a potent tool in fighting multiple sclerosis,the crippling disease of the central nervous system, according to a new report.Taking note that MS often goes into remission in pregnant women, scientists at the university of calgary studied the way that the hormone prolactin, generated during pregnancy, acts to protect myelin, the all-important substance which coats nerve cells and helps conduct messages through the central nervous system. Studying mice, the scientists showed that prolactin helps the formation of new myelin, according toa summary of their research. In people with MS,myelin is attacked and damaged by the body's own immune system.

A researcher from the University of Newcastle has been working on a new treatment that only affects cancer cells and not the normal body cells. Kathryn Skelding's work may be an improvement on conventional chemotherapy and radiation treatment, which leave their impact on normal body cells too. "In theory, the viurs is able to selectively target and destroy many different types of cancer cells, including breast cancers, whilst leaving normal cells unaffected,"she said. Debilitating symptoms associated with conventional treatments-nuasea,vomiting and hair loss-could also be avoided by using the Coxsackie virus. "If this research is successful we could have something that produces side effects as harmless as a mild, common cold-like infection yet it could successfully treat breast cancer,"she said.

Breast feeding,which helps build a baby's immune system, may be the best option for HIV-infected mothers in developing countries, despite the risk of transmitting the virus that causes AIDS to their babies, according to new studies presented some days ago. HIV-positive mothes generally are counselled to feed their babies formula to limit the risk of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus, but that has caused problems in nations where clean water and other needs may not be met. Hoosen Coovadia a pediatrician at South Africa's University of KwaZuluNatal said that instructing HIV-infected mothers in developing nations to breast-feed would result in about 300000 children becoming infected with HIV, but would save 1.5 million from dying of other diseases.