The incidence of asthma has doubled over the past 15 years and affects 250,000 people in the Republic. An asthma awareness campaign, run by the Asthma Society of Ireland, is taking place this month, with opportunities to test asthma techniques and talk to asthma nurses on certain dates in Boots chemists. Contact your local Boots store for details and free information leaflets.
Cattle farmers in the US must be relieved this week after research they sponsored concluded red meat is no worse for your heart than white meat and fish - as long as it is lean. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Chicago Centre for Clinical Research and the University of Minnesota Hospital put 191 adults with elevated cholesterol on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. For nine months, half ate lean red meats (beef, veal, pork) while the others ate fish or poultry. Both groups showed nearly identical changes in cholesterol levels, all showing a reduction in "bad cholesterol" (low-density lipoproteins) and an increase in "good cholesterol" (high-density lipoproteins).
Craving tomatoes may mean you have iron-deficiency anaemia, which has been linked with pica, a phenomenon in which people crave unusual foods and other items, such as soil and clay. Pica occurs in up to 60 per cent of people with iron-deficiency anaemia, who crave crunchy or salty foods such as celery, carrots, peanuts, seeds and crackers. (Reuters)
Headaches may be caused by structural abnormalities in the brain, according to a report published in Nature Medicine. Cluster headaches, which are characterised by a sudden excruciating pain on one side of the head lasting between 15 minutes and three hours and recurring over a period of weeks or months, are likely to be caused by an excessive growth of grey cells in one part of the brain, scientists have discovered. This could revolutionise the treatment of headaches, as experts had previously thought all primary headaches (i.e. those without an obvious physical cause such as a brain tumour) and migraines were caused by chemical factors alone, and not by any changes in the structure of the brain.
Breast cancer, which is the number one cancer killer of women in the Republic, could be significantly reduced by the use of the oestrogen modulator drug, raloxifene, currently used to treat osteoporosis in menopausal women. A three-year US trial showed a 76 per cent lower risk of breast cancer among women taking raloxifene than among women taking a placebo. Although this designer oestrogen does not seem to increase the risk of uterine cancer, as tamoxifen does, the study showed it was linked to an increased risk of thrombosis. A further long-term study comparing the cancer-preventing effects of the raloxifene and tamoxifen began this month. (British Medical Journal)
Sufferers from Parkinson's disease may be able to grow replacement brain cells for the damaged tissue, according to scientists in Sweden. People with this condition lack the cells that release the chemical dopamine (which carries messages around the brain) but researchers have discovered how to clone basic brain cells and grow dopamine-secreting neurons. The advantage of this technique is that replacement tissue is derived from the patient, and there is less risk of rejection when it is implanted in the brain. (Nature Biotechnology)