News U Can Use

A forensic pathologist thinks some people's embarrassment about taking herbal medicines can leave them vulnerable to taking a lethal cocktail of drugs, the ABC reports.

Professor Roger Byard of Adelaide University has published a research paper on the dangers of herbal medicines when taken in large quantities, injected or combined with use of prescription drugs.

He has found it can lead to serious illnesses, worsen pre-existing conditions or cause death.

Professor Byard says people are often reluctant to tell their doctor they are taking herbal medicines for fear of ridicule, but it can be a fatal mistake.

"Although obviously a number of herbal substances are quite safe, you don't know what's in the package sometimes and there may be interactions, so it is important to talk to your doctor," he said.

After all the concern over possible damage to health from using mobile phones, scientists have found a potential benefit from radiation, the BBC reports.

Their work has been carried out on mice, but it suggests mobiles might protect against Alzheimer's.

Florida scientists found that phone radiation actually protected the memories of mice programmed to get Alzheimer's disease.

They are now testing more frequencies to see if they can get better results.

The study by the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre is published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Disinfectants could effectively train bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics, research suggests, as the BBC reports.

Scientists know bacteria can become inured to disinfectant, but research increasingly shows the same process may make them resistant to certain drugs.

This can occur even with an antibiotic the bacteria have not been exposed to.

Writing in Microbiology, the National University of Ireland team, who focused on a common hospital bacterium, urges a rethink of how infections are managed.

MUSIC can soothe the mind but it can also heal the body, says a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Studies into the restorative powers of Mozart, Beethoven and even Beyonce have found regular exposure to music, particularly live performance, can lower blood pressure, ease anxiety and alleviate pain. According to Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Australia - which conducts therapy, training and research at the Golden Stave Music Therapy Centre, at the University of Western Sydney - music can benefit children, teens and adults with a range of health issues.

Music can help treat autism spectrum disorders, dementia, intellectual and learning problems as well as people with limited verbal skills. Studies by the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London found that hospital patients who had regular exposure to visual art or music experienced a 48 per cent reduction in their stress levels, measured by the production of the stress hormone cortisol.

Live music in particular was found to be highly effective in combating anxiety, with a 32 per cent improvement reported in those patients.

Examining data obtained from a University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University psychology study, researchers at these universities and Northwestern University have reported the first placebo-controlled evidence that antidepressant medications - particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs - can substantially change patients' personalities. The personality changes also appeared to be linked to long-term improvements in mood.

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have discovered that restricting consumption of glucose, the most common dietary sugar, can extend the life of healthy human-lung cells and speed the death of precancerous human-lung cells, reducing cancer's spread and growth rate.

The research has wide-ranging potential in age-related science, including ways in which calorie-intake restriction can benefit longevity and help prevent diseases like cancer that have been linked to aging, said principal investigator Trygve Tollefsbol, Ph.D., D.O., a professor in the Department of Biology.

Researchers at New York University have developed a non-invasive technique to block the return of fear memories in humans. The technique, reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature, may change how we view the storage processes of memory and could lead to new ways to treat anxiety disorders.

Researchers have long sought to understand fear memories. These are expressed as the body's emotional reaction to objects or events previously linked to potential danger. It is known that, over time, such emotional responses could dissipate in a process called extinction in which the same event is experienced in a safe environment. After extinction, the fear memory is merely suppressed, not erased, and therefore these memories could resurface under certain conditions, such as unrelated stress. In some cases, the re-emergence of the emotional memory is maladaptive, leading to anxiety disorders. Because of this, researchers have sought to find ways to prevent the return of fear.

While researchers have traditionally seen long-term memory as fixed and resistant, it is now becoming clear that memory is, in fact, dynamic and flexible. As a result, the act of remembering makes the memory vulnerable until it is stored again—a process called reconsolidation. During this instability period, new information could be incorporated into the old memory. This was the phase during which the NYU researchers sought to employ a technique to block the return of fear memories.

Middle-aged men and women may be risking arthritis if they overdo their exercise regime, the BBC reports.

A US study of more than 200 people aged 45 to 55 and of "normal" weight found those doing the most exercise were the most likely to suffer knee damage. Running and jumping may also do more damage to cartilage and ligaments than swimming and cycling, researchers said.

One arthritis charity said it was important to keep fit and most people would not have any problems. Osteoarthritis - the most common form of arthritis - is a degenerative joint disease that causes pain, swelling and stiffness and affects 8m people in the UK.

It is more common in women, and the risk increases with age and weight.

Presenting the findings at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, the researchers said their study included people who had not reported any previous knee pain.

Alternative health remedies are increasingly important in the health care marketplace. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research explores how consumers choose among the many available remedies.

"Examples of the wide array of health remedy options available to consumers include drugs, supplements, acupuncture, massage therapy, Ayurveda, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (to name a few). Such medical pluralism is common in both developed and developing countries and raises the questions: How do consumers choose among health remedies, and what are the consequences for a healthy lifestyle?" write authors Wenbo Wang (New York University), Hean Tat Keh (Beijing University), and Lisa E. Bolton (Pennsylvania State University).

The authors use "lay theories of medicine" to explain how consumers choose between Western medicine and its Eastern counterparts, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine.

"Western Medicine is primarily concerned with the material aspect of the body and views all medical phenomena as cause-effect sequences, relying on rigorous scientific studies and research that seeks empirical proof to all phenomena," write the authors. "On the other hand, TCM and Ayurvedic Medicine favor a holistic approach, view the mind and body as a whole system, and rely upon inductive tools and methods for treatment."

Based on a series of experiments and surveys in the United States, China, and India, the authors found that consumers prefer TCM (over Western medicine) when uncertain about the cause of an illness (i.e., diagnosis uncertainty)—because a holistic medicine tolerates uncertainty better than Western Medicine. Similarly, consumers prefer TCM (over Western medicine) because of lay beliefs that TCM offers an underlying cure (versus symptom alleviation by Western Medicine).

Eating a diet high in processed food increases the risk of depression, research suggests.

What is more, people who ate plenty of vegetables, fruit and fish actually had a lower risk of depression, the University College London team found.

Data on diet among 3,500 middle-aged civil servants was compared with depression five years later, the British Journal of Psychiatry reported.

The team said the study was the first to look at the UK diet and depression.