Health Briefing

A round-up of this week's news in brief

Vitamin pills may harm your health

PEOPLE SEEKING to improve their health with vitamin supplements could be wasting their money or even jeopardising their wellbeing, because too many products are labelled with misleading or insufficient information, UK consumer watchdog Which? has found.

Which? conducted an online survey of 1,263 supplement-takers and visited key retail outlets. It found numerous examples of unsubstantiated claims on supplements, with the worst culprits those which claimed to maintain healthy bones and joints, chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said.

Trad musicians at risk of hearing loss, study finds

REPEATED EXPOSURE to amplified sound by Irish musicians will have an adverse effect on hearing, a postgraduate research project at NUI Galway (NUIG) has found. The study by physics MSc student Helena O’Sullivan shows that even traditional musicians run the risk of noise-induced hearing loss, if using amplification.

Some of the results recorded by Ms O’Sullivan exceed the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007 on control of noise. The findings support a case for increased awareness training of the issue among musicians, the author has found.

Data collected by Ms O’Sullivan shows that personal noise exposures experienced by all of the rock/pop musicians sampled exceeded the 87dB(A) exposure limit value in the 2007 safety regulations. Half of the traditional Irish musicians sampled also exceeded the exposure limit value, she found.

She measured noise levels at static monitoring points on the stage during the performance. These ranged from 85 to 90dB(A) during traditional music performances, and 101-107dB(A) during rock/pop music performances. She also measured the personal noise exposure level of one member of the groups surveyed – the singer or the drummer. The levels were 100-102dB(A) for rock/pop band members and 88-95dB(A) for members of traditional music groups.

A questionnaire survey of musicians on noise exposure conducted as part of the research project indicated that 52 per cent of respondents regularly experience a ringing sensation in their ears after a performance.

Dairy food acid could  help prevent diabetes

A NATURAL substance found in dairy foods could help prevent diabetes, research published yesterday suggests.

The trans-palmitoleic acid compound occurs in the dairy fat of milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter but cannot be made by the body. Now researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in the US have found the compound could help combat type 2 diabetes.

The latest research, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, involved more than 3,700 people. They were followed for 20 years by researchers looking at the risks of developing cardiovascular disease as people get older.

Measurements included blood glucose and insulin levels, and levels of fatty acids (including trans-palmitoleic acid) in the blood.

The results showed that higher levels of trans-palmitoleic acid were associated with healthier levels of blood cholesterol, insulin levels and insulin sensitivity, even when other factors were taken into account.

Overall, people with the highest levels of trans-palmitoleic acid had about a 60 per cent reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared with those with the lowest levels.

Lead author of the study, associate professor Dariush Mozaffarian, said, “The magnitude of this association is striking”.

He added: “This represents an almost three-fold difference in risk of developing diabetes among individuals with the highest blood levels of this fatty acid.”

The study also appears to confirm previous research showing that a diet rich in dairy foods is linked to lower risk of type 2 diabetes and related metabolic abnormalities.