A round-up of other health news in brief
Making plans for children's largest survey
Planning for the largest survey to date of children and young people’s health will be carried out by a panel of international experts in Galway this week.
About 100 scientists will gather at NUI Galway to map out the next round of the study which takes place next year in more than 40 countries.
Known as the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study, it will involve interviews with more than 230,000 children, aged 11-15 years. The study is carried out every four years and will involve at least 10,000 children in Ireland, says Dr Saoirse Nic Gabhainn, of the health promotion research centre in NUI Galway and principal investigator for the study in the Republic.
The HBSC survey aims for greater understanding of health among young people, both physical and emotional, and includes information on the context of young people’s lives including families, school, communities and peer groups, according to a statement issued yesterday.
Acupuncture aids indigestion
Acupuncture can help relieve the symptoms of indigestion in pregnancy, research out today suggests.
A small study involving 36 women found “significant improvements” among those treated with acupuncture.
Digestive disorders are one of the most frequent complaints in pregnancy, with 45-80 per cent of women reporting things like heartburn, discomfort or pain, regurgitation, belching and bloating. Such symptoms tend to get worse as a pregnancy progresses, said researchers from Sao Paulo University in Brazil.
Their study, published in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine, found that average heartburn intensity fell by at least a half in 15 out of 20 (75 per cent) women receiving acupuncture compared with seven out of 16 (44 per cent) women not receiving it.
The authors said: “In our cohort, acupuncture proved to exert a great influence in minimising the heartburn in pregnancy during treatment.”
They called for the research to be replicated in a larger study group.