Tongue piercings May Cause Damage to Teeth
I have (and had) plenty of friends with tongue studs, so I guess this news goes out to them 
Apparently, people with tongue piercings risk developing gaps between their front teeth as a result of playing with the stud, US researchers have found.
The University of Buffalo team says that, as well as potentially requiring cosmetic work, people can develop infections and chipped teeth. The researchers said that people with tongue piercings were likely to push the metal stud up against their teeth and consequently cause gaps and other problems to arise.
Sawsan Tabbaa, professor of orthodontics at the University of Buffalo, detailed the 26-year-old’s case. She had had no space between her teeth before wearing a barbell-shaped tongue stud. However, a space had appeared between her upper front teeth over the course of the seven years she had worn it for, because the metal bar was pushed against and between the teeth.
Extracted from BBC News
Tags: tongue piercing, tongue stud
Craving for Chocolate? We have a suggestion!
Filed under Foods, Health, People, Tech
Meet the Le Whif inhalers.
A lipstick-shaped aerosol that sprays particles of dark chocolate into the mouth is being hailed as providing all the pleasure of the real thing but with no need to feel guilty. Dieters may also find that the mere taste of one of their favourite treats curbs their appetite.
Cool right?
David Edwards, a Harvard professor who invented the spray, says that it only takes a touch of chocolate to satisfy our tastebuds. He said: ‘When you breathe the chocolate into your mouth, it dissolves immediately and coats the tongue and taste buds.
‘Le Whif is a new approach to eating, by breathing.
Additionally, Le Whif comes in three different chocolate flavours: plain, raspberry and mint.
Source: Daily Mail UK
Tags: Le Whif, spray chocolate
Want to get Heart Disease? Just work Overtime!
Filed under Health
People who regularly put in overtime and work 10 or 11-hour days increase their heart disease risk by nearly two-thirds, research suggests.
The findings come from a study of 6,000 British civil servants, published online in the European Heart Journal.
After accounting for known heart risk factors such as smoking, doctors found those who worked three to four hours of overtime a day ran a 60% higher risk.
The researchers said there could be a number of explanations for this:
People who spend more time at work have less time to exercise, relax and unwind. They may also be more stressed, anxious, or have depression. A career-minded person will also tend to be a “Type A” personality who is highly driven, aggressive or irritable, they say. “Employees who work overtime may also be likely to work while ill – that is, be reluctant to be absent from work despite illness,” they add.
Extracted from BBC news.
Tags: heart risks, overtime risks
Funny: The Danger of body Building!
Filed under Health, Jokes, People
This is seriously funny. A picture paints a thousand words indeed.
Tags: bodybuilding, funny, humour, joke
Flu and Infections: Vitamin D Deficiency
Filed under Foods, Health, Science
A new study led by researchers at the University of Copenhagen has confirmed that vitamin D plays an important role in activating immune defenses against infectious diseases like flu.
Vitamin D deficiency has already been linked to a wide spectrum of diseases including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, autoimmune disease and many others.
In the case of flu fighting, Dr. John Cannell and his colleagues have reported that vitamin D helps produce antibacterial peptides that help protect against flu. That is why in winter people are prone to becoming vitamin D deficiency and getting infected with flu viruses.
Dr. Cannell, a vitamin D expert and director of Vitamin D Council, says in his newsletter sent last year that two physicians, one in Wisconsin and the other in Georgia reported to him that few of their patients/residents who maintained a high level of serum vitamin d acquired swine flu last year while many of other patients and medical workers who did not take vitamin D to maintain high vitamin D levels got swine flu and other flu viruses.
Sleeping for less than Six Hours = Early Death?
Filed under Health, People, Science
Sleeping consistently for less than six hours a night may cause an early death, but too much sleep could also mean problems, according to a study that claims to have found unequivocal evidence of the potential harm from abnormal sleep patterns.
The research, by academics in the UK and Italy, analysed data from 16 separate studies across Europe, the US and Asia over 25 years, covering more than 1.3m people and more than 100,000 deaths.
It found that those who generally slept for less than six hours a night were 12% more likely to experience a premature death over a period of 25 years than those who consistently got six to eight hours’ sleep. Evidence for the link was unequivocal, the researchers concluded.
It also concluded that those who consistently sleep more than nine hours a night can be more likely to die early. Oversleeping itself is not seen as a risk but as a potential indicator of underlying ailments.
“Whilst short sleep may represent a cause of ill health, long sleep is believed to represent more an indicator of ill health,” said Professor Francesco Cappuccio, who led the study and is head of the Sleep, Health and Society programme at the University of Warwick.
“Consistently sleeping six to eight hours per night may be optimal for health. The duration of sleep should be regarded as an additional behavioural risk factor, or risk marker, influenced by the environment and possibly amenable to change through both education and counselling as well as through measures of public health aimed at favourable modifications of the physical and working environments.”
The study noted that previous research into lack of sleep had shown it was associated with ailments including heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
Tags: sleeping less than 6 hours
Study: Internet addiction linked to depression
Filed under Computers, Health, Internet
There is a strong link between heavy internet use and depression, UK psychologists have said.
The study, reported in the journal Psychopathology, found 1.2% of people surveyed were “internet addicts”, and many of these were depressed.
The authors found that a small number of users had developed a compulsive internet habit, replacing real life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites.
They classed 18 respondents – 1.2% of the total – as “internet addicts”. This group spent proportionately more time on sex, gambling and online community websites.
The internet addicts were significantly more depressed than the non-addicted group, with a depression score five times higher.
Lead author Dr Catriona Morrison said: “The internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side. While many of us use the internet to pay bills, shop and send e-mails, there is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities.”
Sophie Corlett, of the mental health charity Mind, said: “Evidence suggests that active pursuits such as exercise and socialising with people face-to-face are among the factors that help us stay in good mental health. Although excessive internet use can’t be said to cause mental health problems, if a web addict is substituting meaningful friendships and socialising with virtual contact on the internet, this might have an adverse affect on their mental wellbeing.”
Are you one of them?
Loneliness is Not Only Contagious, but also Cancerous!
I’m sure by now you’ve read everywhere that loneliness is quite contagious and that it can spread from one person to another like a virus. Well that’s old news for now; because another team of researchers have found that loneliness makes cancer both more likely and deadly.
Previously, scientists believed that loneliness is a social phenomenon that exists within a society and can spread through it, from person to person, like a disease. And while everyone feels lonely once in a while, for some it becomes a persistent condition, one that has been associated with more serious psychological ills like depression, sleep dysfunction, high blood pressure and even an increased risk of dementia in older age. Series of studies showed that emotional states and behaviors — including happiness, obesity and quitting smoking — can propagate like a wave throughout a network of people.
If one person reported feeling lonely at one evaluation, his closest connections (either family or close friends) were 52% more likely to also report feeling lonely two years later. The effect was strongest among those in close relationships, waning as the connections became more distant, but remained significant up to three degrees of separation — in other words, one lonely person could influence whether his friend’s friend’s friend felt lonely.
Having said that, now; Work in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows social isolation tips the odds in favour of aggressive cancer growth.
Rodents kept alone developed more tumours – and tumours of a more deadly type – than rats living as a group. The researchers put it down to stress and say the same may well be true in humans.
Good news is: cancer experts say more work is needed to prove such a link in people!
Traditionally however, doctors already know that cancer patients who are depressed tend to fare worse in terms of survival. And previous research has suggested that social support can improve health outcomes for patients with breast cancer. And now in this latest study, the researchers found that isolation and stress trebled the risk of breast cancer in the naturally sociable Norway rats.
Source: Time and BBC
Mother Can Pass On Cancer in Womb
Scientists have proved that it is possible for a mother’s cancer cells to be passed to her unborn child.
There are very rare cases where a mother and child appear to share the same cancer, but in theory the child’s immune system should block the cancer.
However, an analysis by a British-led team of one such case shows the cells which caused leukaemia in the child could only have come from the mother. Whether it is possible for a mother to “infect” her unborn child with cancer has puzzled scientists for 100 years.
In theory any cancer cells that manage to cross the placenta into the baby’s bloodstream should be targeted for destruction by the child’s immune system. But there are records of 17 cases of a mother and baby appearing to share the same cancer – usually leukaemia or melanoma.
The researchers used an advanced genetic fingerprinting technique to prove that the leukaemia cells found in the baby had originated from the mother. Next, the researchers examined how the cancer cells could have neutralised the baby’s immune system. They found that the cancer cells lacked some DNA which played a crucial role in giving them their own specific molecular identity. Without this telltale molecular sign, the child’s immune system was unable to recognise the cells as foreign, and thus was not mobilised to attack them.
Source: BBC
Cellphone Radiation; How much are you getting?
Researchers are divided on whether radiation from cellphones pose health risks or not. Now, one nonprofit organization adds some hard data to the argument: the radiation emission profiles of more than 1,200 cell phone models. The data won’t resolve the debate, but does give concrete information to consumers to help them make their buying decisions.
Indeed, this interesting database contains up to some 1,200 phone models from all makers and the radiation amount emitted. Check it out yourself, and you might just be shocked to know how strong your phone’s radiation emission could be.
Head over to EWG’s site to know more.
Source: Wired
