Drink wine to prevent Alzheimer’s

widespread evidence that red meat drastically increases the likelihood of major health problems including heart disease, strokes and some types of cancer.

The Department of Health has issued guidelines saying adults should eat no more than 500g of red meat a week. This amounts to three sausages, one small steak, one quarter-pounder and three slices of lamb.

Until now, however, there was little evidence that relatively small amounts of processed red meat could increase the chance of diabetes. - Daily Mail

The heart protection hormone

The sex hormone oestrogen protects women from heart attacks and may explain why they are far less likely to be struck down than men, scientists claim.

They have discovered that the naturally-occurring chemical helps stop blood cells sticking to the walls of arteries and forming blockages.

Researchers think this may explain why women are more likely to suffer heart attacks after the menopause, when oestrogen levels decline.

Around one in five men in Britain die from a heart attack, compared with just one in seven women.

But the risk increases after the menopause when they are just as likely to be struck down as men. The researchers warn that their findings do not necessarily mean that oestrogen could ever be used in drugs to prevent heart disease as the hormone is known to increase the risk of certain types of cancer.

Dr Suchita Nadkarni, from the University of London, said: “Our results suggest that oestrogen helps maintain the delicate balance between fighting infections and protecting arteries from damage that can lead to cardiovascular disease.

“Understanding how the body fights heart disease naturally is vital for developing new treatments.” - Daily Mail

Music therapy may ease anxiety in cancer patients

New York - Music therapy may help lower anxiety and improve moods in people with cancer, although it's not clear what treatment - listening to pre-recorded CDs during hospital visits, or sessions with a music therapist - helps most, a study said.

An analysis of 30 past studies, published in the Cochrane Library, looked at the effect of music therapy or music listening in close to 2,000 cancer patients.

Compared to patients who only received standard cancer treatment, the combined data from the studies, reviewed by creative arts therapist Joke Bradt from Drexel University in Philadelphia, suggested that patients who also had music treatment rated their anxiety and pain lower, and had higher mood scores.

In addition, their heart rates were lower by about four beats per minute, on average.

“Music interventions may have beneficial effects on anxiety, pain, mood and quality of life in people with cancer,” wrote Bradt and her colleagues.

“Furthermore, music may have a small effect on heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.”

There was no effect, however, on how patients rated their depression or fatigue - probably because most of the studies only tested the effect of listening to music in the hospital for a single session, and didn't give patients much choice about what type of music they listened to, Bradt said.

“If someone's really depressed, one music listening session is not going to reverse that,” she told Reuters Health.

Music therapist Debra Burns, from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said therapists especially can help patients relax during stressful treatments and think through their tension.

“We can use the different music interventions to target the in-the-moment-symptoms - pain, anxiety. But we can also look at longer-term interventions” such as improving communication with family members, added Burns, who was not involved in the study.

In addition, therapists can adapt treatment as they need to according to the patient's needs, she said, adding that further research may be needed to see what type of music works best, and at what stage of the treatment.

Burns said there were other, intangible benefits.

“We cannot forget that making music is a lot of fun as well,” she added. - Reuters

No evidence aspirin boosts IVF success: study

New York - Women undergoing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) are often told that a daily aspirin will help boost the odds of success, but a research review has found no evidence that it works.

The review, reported in the Cochrane Library, combined the results of 13 international studies and discovered that a low daily dose of aspirin had no clear effect on an either an IVF pregnancy or birth rates.

Three of the studies looked at birth rates. Of 525 women who used aspirin during their IVF treatment cycle, 108 gave birth. But of 528 women not given aspirin, 119 gave birth.

“Couples undergoing IVF often feel so desperate that they are prepared to try anything that may improve their chances of conceiving,” said Charalambos Siristatidis, of the University of Athens in Greece, who led the research.

“But given the current evidence, there is still no basis to recommend that women take aspirin to help them become pregnant,” he said in a statement. . - Reuters

Shift work may have little impact on pregnancy

New York - Some studies have suggested that working the night shift may raise a pregnant woman's risks of preterm delivery or having an underweight baby, but a review says that if those effects exist, they are likely to be small.

After looking at 23 studies involving thousands of women, researchers led by Matteo Bonzini of the University of Insubria in Italy found that overall, shift work was not strongly linked to the risk of preterm delivery versus a standard nine-to-five job.

Women working night or rotating shifts did have a slightly higher chance of having a baby who was small for gestational age, but the evidence was not strong enough to make “confident conclusions,” the researchers reported in the journal BJOG.

“On balance, the evidence currently available about the investigated birth outcomes does not make a compelling case for mandatory restrictions on shift-working in pregnancy,” they wrote.

In theory, irregular work hours could affect a woman's reproductive function by throwing off the body's natural clock and disrupting normal hormone activity.