Sleep and Memory
In a study that will be published in the December issue of Nature Neuroscience,
Harvard Medical School researchers found that people who slept after learning
and practicing a new task remembered more about it the next day than people
who stayed up all night after learning the same thing. Participants
were trained to identify the orientation of three diagonal bars flashed
for one-sixtieth of a second on a horizontal-striped computer screen. Half
of the participants went to sleep that night. The others were kept awake
until the second night of the study. Both groups were allowed to sleep
on the second and third nights. On the fourth day, both groups were tested
on how proficient they had become at identifying the orientation of the
diagonal bars. Those who slept on the first night performed better than
they had the first day.
Optimism is Good
How a woman views her life can keep her healthy or put her at risk
for health problems. Two new studies that examine the effects of
stress on women's health during their reproductive years are reported in
the November issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) journal
of Health Psychology. The first study explores how optimism can reduce
the chance of delivering low birth weight or pre-term babies for medically
high-risk pregnant women. The second study shows that the perception of
stress can affect a woman's overall health as much as already known stressors
like poverty.
Dietary Supplement Warning
The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers that such supplements,
often marketed as fat burners,
could cause serious health problems. Tiratricol is another name
for TRIAC, a powerful thyroid hormone. Using products that
contain it can cause symptoms of hyperthyroidism including insomnia, nervousness,
sweating and diarrhea. Very high levels of the thyroid hormone can
also increase the risk for heart attack or stroke. AP
KidsSafe
Here is an interesting web site on safety tips:
http://www.kidssafe.com/p15.htm
Some tips: Keep all hard candy and nuts off low coffee tables or end
tables. Almost 3,000 people choke to death every year - most of them children.
Nearly two-thirds of the children who die are 3 years old or younger.
Make a place in high cabinets for any medications. Almost 70
percent of poisonings involve children. Of those under 6 years old, 41
percent of poisonings involve pharmaceutical products.
Lock up all silver cleaners and similar household products. Of the
poisonings of children, the two top categories involve cosmetics (11.9
percent) and household products (11.4 percent). Plants were involved in
7.7 percent of the cases. Post in an accessible place the numbers of the
local poison control center or children's hospital help line. To reduce
the risk of electrocution, put plastic inserts or covers on exposed, easy-to-find
electrical outlets and move hair dryers and curling irons away from bathtubs
and sinks that might be filled with water. Every year, more than 3,000
children under age 10 are treated for electrical shock.
Visit also: http://www.careguide.com/news/0011a/c/coch.htm
Food before Flight
Having a quick snack and a non-alcoholic drink before boarding a plane
can lower your chances of becoming sick (fainting, heart attack etc.) in
flight, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's
Scientific Sessions 2000.
Good Laugh-Good Heart.
A team of Maryland medical researchers found that people with heart
disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in humorous situations than
those with healthy hearts.
Gap between Pregnancies
Researchers for the Pan American Health Organisation in Uruguay examined
the effects of interpregnancy intervals for over 400,000 women in Latin
America and the Caribbean and found women with gaps between pregnancies
of less than six months or longer than 59 months are at increased risk
of complications during pregnancy, finds a study in BMJ.
Guidelines for Pregnancy
Usually it is assumed an average woman is fertile between days 10 and
17 of her menstrual cycle. But researchers at the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences have demonstrated that only about 30 percent
of women actually have their fertile window entirely within that timespan.
The researchers found, there is hardly a day in the menstrual cycle during
which some women are not potentially fertile, from the data from nearly
700 menstrual cycles of 213 healthy North Carolina women.
Dangers of Sporadic Exercise
According to a study reported at the American Heart Association's Scientific
Sessions 2000, people who only exercise irregularly and once in a while
have a small but definite increase in their risk of an exercise-related
fatal heart attack or cardiac arrest compared to those who work out more
regularly. In a 12-year study of thousands of male physicians it
was showed that men who exercised at least five times a week had a much
lower risk of sudden death - about sevenfold less - than those who only
exercised once a week. Sudden cardiac arrest kills an estimated 225,000
Americans each year. There's a good way to prevent cardiac arrest
during vigorous exercise- get plenty of regular vigorous exercise.
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