More than 3 million people died as a result of harmful use of alcohol in 2016, according a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO). This represents 1 in 20 deaths. More than three quarters of these deaths were among men. Overall, the harmful use of alcohol causes more …
numbers phobia: Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) have particular difficulty understanding numbers and sequences, a University of Alberta study shows. An assessment of 50 Canadian children diagnosed with FASD, a condition caused by the mother's alcohol consumption while a foetus is still in the womb, revealed that the …
Assam is the highest tea producer state in the country. There is scarcity of reliable information on health and nutritional status among tea garden population of Assam to enable initiating public health response to their health needs.
Alcohol advertising A recent study in the us reports that magazines popular with teenagers such as Rolling Stone and People tend to carry more alcohol advertisements. The study hints that the alcohol industry may be indirectly targeting underage drinkers by advertising in such magazines. The research, funded by the Robert …
A recent survey on the psychological health of Kathmandu residents highlights the deleterious impact of rapid urbanisation on the human mind. The study reveals that 30 per cent of the residents of Nepal's capital face psychological problems of some sort, which makes them resort to harmful activities such as alcohol …
One drink of beer a day can prevent cataracts. Scientists in Canada carried out tests on rat lenses and found that antioxidants, like those in beers, protected cells in the eye which, if damaged, lead to an increase in cataracts. They say that high glucose levels damage key elements of …
Alcohol is responsible for a liver disorder that affects around one in four people in developed countries. Though the causes are not clear, but livers of alcoholics have identical symptoms. Ann Mae Diehl of the Johns Hopkins University, USA, believes that food stays in the intestines of obese people longer …
It is a familiar experience for the tippler. You have one too many drinks, which include strong beers, and every thing turns fuzzy, the room begins to spin and soon you are flat on the floor. Though this is not unusual, there has not been a credible scientific explanation for …
officially recognised as one of the poorest regions of Nepal, the people of Kanchanpur, a district in the country's far-west, have had to survive with whatever little returns they got from their lands. And these were not enough. The district was being afflicted by a bigger, more formidable problem
DRUG addiction: every parent's nightmare. What incites their otherwise-normal, teenage children to use drugs? Is it peer-induced, or do genes play an important role? There are several theories on the issue, but none can answer the question satisfactorily. Unable to find any answers, researchers in the UK are now adopting …
some people get drunk after consuming a small quantity of alcohol, whereas others stay calm. A team of researchers led by Hiroaki Niki at the riken Brain Science Institute, Wako city, Japan, says the variation could be linked to an enzyme that modifies brain receptors for alcohol. According to them, …
alcoholism in Russia is rising at an unparalleled rate. The average life expectancy for Russian men fell by 6.2 years and for women by 3.4 years between 1990 and 1994. A major reason for that was a high consumption of alcohol. According to David Leon of the London School of …
ABORIGINES in Australia live 15 to 20 years less than the white population, says a recently published report citing data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. They are 15 to 18 times more likely to die of infectious diseases and their babies …
It is very well known that alcohol and cigarettes are ancient companions, but the reason for the link is not well understood. Scientists recently discovered that both these chemicals affect the same protein in the brain, explaining why alcoholics are seven times as likely to also be heavy smokers when …
studies over the past eight decades have shown that an individual's inherited characters play a strong role in suggesting whether he or she will become an alcoholic or not. This suggests that a person's genes have a role to play in the onset of alcoholism. However, genes by themselves cannot …
Alcoholics are often heavy smokers too. The link has its roots in the brain, say researchers. Neuroscientists at the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, US, have found that alcohol and nicotine, the chemical in tobacco, affect the same protein, the acetylcholine receptor molecule, on a brain cell. Experiments conducted …
What if the nurturer herself turns into a polluter? Smoking and / or drinking mothers poison the foetus. Alcohol consumers expose the foetus to alcohol syndrome, which engenders congenital malformations and low birth weight in newborns. Smoking during pregnancy passes cancer-causing chemicals to their foetus' blood where these linger for …
being a barfly is most of the times associated to bad upbringing or other social reasons. A few years back, some scientists had taken up the task of associating alcoholism to a gene. The scientists had to confront disappointment day after day when they read the news: a gene found …
CATCHING sloshed people on the roads has always been tricky for the police. Mild drinkers are often experts at pretending that they are sober. But the next time you get caught for driving in an inebriated state, the cops may simply ask you to speak in a microphone linked to …
