Here is a selection of health-related news...
Want to lose weight? Drink water before meals
The key to losing weight could be as simple as drinking a pint of water before mealtimes.
A study in which obese adults consumed 500ml of water half an hour before eating their main meals found that they lost an average of 4.3kg over 12 weeks. Researchers at the University of Birmingham said the simple trick could be hugely beneficial, and that health professionals could easily promote it through public health campaigns.
The adults who took part in the trial were recruited from GP surgeries. The research is published in the journal Obesity.
The Independent
Coffee 'can boost bowel cancer survival rates'
Drinking coffee could be the key to boosting survival rates among bowel cancer patients, according to researchers.
Experts say it can help those suffering from the disease and cut the chances of it coming back after successful treatment.
A study found the disease was almost half as likely to return in men and women who drank at least four or five mugs of coffee a day.
It is thought the caffeine cuts the inflammation that tumours feed on.
The research, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, found that consuming around 460mg of caffeine a day cut the odds of bowel cancer coming back by 42 percent.
Smaller amounts of caffeine brought a smaller benefit. A mug of instant coffee contains around 100mg of caffeine, while an espresso - the base for many coffee drinks sold in high street chains - has 80mg. Writing in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researcher Dr Charles Fuchs said: “We found that coffee drinkers had a lower risk of the cancer coming back and a significantly greater survival and chance of a cure. If you are a coffee drinker and are being treated for colon cancer, don’t stop.”
Daily Mail
Cranberries help, too
Cranberrries could be key to combating bowel cancer, according to a study offering new hope to sufferers of a disease that kills almost 16 200 people in the UK each year.
Researchers generated three powdered cranberry extracts - a whole fruit powder, another containing only chemicals from the cranberry known as polyphenols, and a third with only the non-polyphenol components of the fruit.
The extracts, equivalent to a cup of cranberries a day, were mixed into the meals of mice with colon cancer. After 20 weeks the mice given the whole cranberry extract had about half the number of tumours as mice that received no cranberry in their food. The remaining tumours in the cranberry-fed mice were also smaller.
Researchers said the same benefits could not necessarily be drawn from cranberry juice which lacks some components in the skin. They hope to find out which individual components in the cranberry are responsible for its anti-cancer properties.
Study author Professor Catherine Neto, of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, said: “All preparations were effective to some degree, but the whole cranberry extract was the most effective.” The findings will be presented to a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Daily Mail
Vitamin D helps prevent falls among elderly
Giving the elderly vitamin D tablets with their meals-on-wheels helped to prevent serious falls, research shows.
Housebound patients who received daily supplements with their hot dinners were half as likely to fall over. Experts think the tablets strengthen the bones and muscles and also boost the immune system, meaning the elderly are overall less frail.
The main source of vitamin D is through a chemical reaction of sunlight on the skin and many elderly people are deficient because they spend little time outdoors.
Researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in North Carolina set up a programme whereby 68 elderly residents received vitamin D tablets or a placebo with their meals-on-wheels.
The findings, published in the Journal of the Geriatrics Society, show that half of the residents had insufficient concentrations beforehand. But by the end of the study, the vitamin D levels in 33 out of 34 patients receiving the genuine supplements were either normal or very good. Furthermore, they had suffered an average of half as many falls as the residents taking the placebos.
Researcher Dr Denise Houston said: “These initial findings are encouraging, but we need to confirm the results in a larger trial.”
Daily Mail
Saliva test for dementia risk
A simple saliva test could reveal the risk of dementia in otherwise healthy pensioners, say researchers.
The test would look for the stress hormone cortisol, which has been linked to brain function. Those with high levels would be offered screening for dementia.
A US study found that elderly people with raised cortisol levels were more likely to have a smaller total brain volume and to perform worse in thinking and memory tests.
Study author Doctor Lenore Launer, of the National Institute on Ageing, said: “High levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been found in people with depression, and the theory is that cortisol has a toxic effect on the hippocampus area of the brain, which plays an important role in memory.”
The study, involving 4 244 people with an average age of 76 who did not have dementia, was published online in the journal Neurology.
Daily Mail
Women more likely to ditch cigarettes for vaping
Research has found that more women than men switch from smoking to vaping.
The findings come days after Public Health England concluded that, on “the best estimate so far”, e-cigarettes were about 95 percent less harmful than traditional tobacco cigarettes.
The official body added that one day e-cigs could be dispensed as a licensed medicine in an alternative to anti-smoking products such as nicotine patches.
Previously, the e-cigarette market had been dominated by men, but a survey of 36 000 customers in spring 2015 by the vaping brand VIP showed that 53 percent of users were female. Although some experts fear that the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes could glamorise the act of smoking, others believe that it could hold the key to helping to reduce smoking-related illnesses for future generations.
According to the Statistics on Smoking 2015, an estimated 2.1 million adults in Britain use e-cigarettes. Of those, 1.3 million use both tobacco and electronic cigarettes. The key users are smokers and ex-smokers.
Only 0.14 percent of users are non-smokers, according to the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey from the Office for National Statistics.
Daily Mail