LONDON – A respected international panel of experts says cellphones are possible cancer-causing agents, putting them in the same category as the pesticide DDT, gasoline engine exhaust and coffee.

The classification was issued Tuesday in Lyon, France, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer after a review of dozens of publishe
d studies. The agency is an arm of the World Health Organization and its assessment now goes to WHO and national health agen
cies for possible guidance on cellphone use.
Classifying agents a
s “p
ossibly carcinogenic” doesn’t… Continue Reading

March 14, 2011 — Eating fatty fish one or more times a week may reduce your risk for developing age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision loss in people aged 60 and older. 
The new findings appear online in the Archives of Opthalmology.
About 9 million Americans aged 40 and older show signs of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and 7.3 million more people have an early form of this potentially vision-robbing disease.
AMD targets the part of the eye that allows you to focus in on details… Continue Reading

Regular consumption of green tea may offer protection against Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and may also slow growth of cancer cells, new research indicates.
Green tea, an ancient Chinese remedy, has been shown to have protective properties in undigested, freshly brewed forms. But a research team at Newcastle University in the U.K. set out to determine whether the protective substances remained active after digestion. And in the study, they did.
“What was really exciting about this study was that we found when green tea is digested by enzymes in the… Continue Reading

If you have a health problem, and you treat the symptom and not the underlying cause, you will likely experience only a temporary relief. But the symptom will likely return again and again. This is what often happens with trying to lose those extra pounds. The pounds who’ve lost and regained, again, and again…
Obesity refers to a weight condition which is defined as being 20 percent over the prescribed weight for a particular age, build or height. Obesity is an excessive amount of body fat. In a recent study,… Continue Reading

What you eat may help reduce the risk of diabetes, says a newly released report from Harvard Medical School. Among its findings:
Coffee: One cup a day is linked to a 13% reduction in diabetes risk. Two to three cups a day is linked to a 42% reduction in risk.
Alcohol: Men who have two to four drinks a week had a 26% lower risk of diabetes, compared with abstainers. Those who have one or more drinks a day had a 43% lower risk.
Nuts: Women who ate nuts or… Continue Reading

Boost Good Cholesterol
HDL is often called “good cholesterol” but really it’s great. For every point you add to your score, you get a 2 to 3 drop in your risk of heart disease. Cholesterol cutting statins aren’t very effective at raising HDL. But, new research shows you can raise levels by eating the following foods:
Berries. HDL levels rose 5 percent when adults ate about a cup of frozen berries a day for eight weeks.
Salmon. HDL rose 4 percent in adults who ate two 4-ounce servings of this… Continue Reading

… Continue Reading

Is organic produce healthier for my kids?

There’s good reason to suspect so. The virtue of organic produce is that it’s grown with far fewer toxic chemicals than is conventional produce. And there’s no doubt that direct exposure to some of the pesticides and herbicides used in conventional farming can pose a danger to children. Certain chemicals can harm the immune system or central nervous system. Others may raise the risk of cancer.
There’s also no doubt that residues from some of these chemicals are left behind on fruit, vegetables,… Continue Reading

‘Female Viagra’ Pill Has Little Effect on Libido: FDA
A new pill created to increase a woman’s sex drive didn’t have much impact on libido but did appear to slightly boost sexual satisfaction, according to two studies reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The drug, called flibanserin, is related to the antidepressant family and affects serotonin and a number of other brain chemicals. Drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim is seeking FDA approval of the drug, the Associated Press reported.
On Friday, an FDA advisory panel of outside experts will meet… Continue Reading

Using existing technology, researchers are hopeful that a simple blood test that can detect fetal DNA in expectant mothers will be able to diagnose Down’s syndrome as early as 8 weeks after conception. Unlike invasive procedures such as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS), the test poses no risk to the fetus.
Down syndrome occurs when a child has three, rather than two, copies of the 21st chromosome. The condition causes mild to moderate impairment of cognitive ability. Common physical traits of Down syndrome are low muscle tone, small stature,… Continue Reading