Is obesity contagious? The surprising news that some obese children are more apt to carry a common cold virus than slimmer children has many people wondering. If the potential link between the adenovirus 36 and childhood obesity turns out to be real, then someday new obesity treatments might be tailored to attack the virus to treat or prevent childhood obesity, an epidemic that affects 17 percent of American children and teenagers.

There have been other unexpected discoveries of microbes causing disease, the most famous being the bacterium Heliobactor pylori, which turned out to be the major cause of stomach ulcers.

via US News

Scientists from Virginia found that slimmers can lose an average of 5lb extra if they drink two cups of water three times a day before meals.

They tested the theory on 48 older adults, split into two groups, over 12 weeks.

While drinking water can make you feel full on zero calories, say researchers, too much water can also lead to serious health problems.

According to a new study, a growing number of them actually have trouble hearing. 6.5 million Americans between the ages of 12 and 19 suffer from hearing loss. That’s up more than 30 percent from just the early 1990s.

Between iPods, Concerts and Sirens, the volume is turned way up for kids today, but they’re hearing less, reports CBS News chief medical correspondent, Dr. Jon LaPook

… While the study did not conclude what’s behind the increase, here’s how loud noise can cause harm:

Sound waves travel through the ear canal to the inner ear. There, tiny hair cells convert the sound into nerve impulses that travel to hearing centers in the brain. Excessive noise can damage those cells and cause permanent hearing loss.

So how loud is too loud? Prolonged exposure to 85 and above can cause gradual hearing loss. A few miles north of Times Square is 80. With sirens, it’s 88. Music players like iPods can top 100 decibels when turned all the way up.

Make sure your baby is exlusively breastfed for at least six month too.

via AsiaOne

CHILDREN who have been exclusively breastfed for two years from birth will grow up to possess intelligent minds and become responsible citizens and can help raise the quality of life in Brunei.

From the year 2000 to 2009, there has been a significant increase in the number of mothers providing their breastmilk to the infants since birth until they turned six weeks old.

Doctors could one day use a blood test to predict decades in advance when women will go into menopause, scientists say. In research to be presented on Monday at a European fertility conference in Rome, Iranian experts say their preliminary study could be a first step toward developing a tool to help women decide when they want to have children.

The test does not predict when women will lose their fertility — which typically occurs about a decade before menopause — but if doctors know when women will go into menopause, they can calculate roughly when they will run out of eggs. Scientists say the test could be especially helpful in identifying women who might go into menopause early — in their late 40s or earlier instead of their mid-50s.

At the moment, there are few clues for doctors to tell which young women may be headed for early menopause. Blood tests and ovary scans only give women a few years’ advance notice.

A University of Arizona report warns that reusable grocery bags are great for the environment, but could make users sick.

The food safety report says 97 percent of consumers do not wash their reusable bags.

Health experts said the bags can be a breeding ground for dangerous germs, including deadly E. coli bacteria, especially when different kinds of raw meats come into contact with other foods in the bag.

“If you put your raw chicken, your ground beef — the juices off of that that we all are concerned about — it’s in your bag,” said Top Foods Store Manger Robyn Tickner.

Top Foods is so concerned about it, they offer a reusable bag that’s made using an antibacterial agent derived from crushed crab shells. Even those bags need to be washed every couple of weeks.

Many sufferers’ fear that lovemaking will get them over excited and put them back in hospital, or even kill them, was misguided, experts said.

The American Heart Association’s conference, in Washington DC, was told that it was safe to resume sex as soon as the patient feels better and can handle moderate exercise.

Doctors, the conference heard, should encourage heart attack patients that sex after an attack was minimal.

A study presented at the conference found men and women were 1.3 to 1.4 times more likely to cut down on sex after a heart attack.

A county in California is halting restaurants from using toys to get children hooked on unhealthy food such as Kids Club Meals offered by Burger King and Happy Meals offered by McDonalds.

Officials in Santa Clara county, in the heart of Silicon Valley, voted Tuesday to ban restaurants from offering toys to lure kids in, in an attempt to fight the growing “obesity epidemic” throughout California and the United States.

America is at war with children obesity.  Just as Indonesia is at war with children malnutrition.

Beware of giving candy to your kids. Many candies are hazardous. I don’t know if this tobacco-candy is already available in Indonesia.  The thing is don’t let your children learn how to be addictive to nicotine. It’s very hard to quit I can tell you.  Once you’ve entered to smokers area, you’ll be there forever. It’s a miracle that I am able to quit smoking and now enter the second year. Just to let you know, I started smoking when I was a 10-year old kid. I regretted those unhealthy years, but I’m happy that I can deal with it finally.

And now the monster has come in the form of candy, to tease your children. Apart from being hazardous to kids’ health in itself, it’s just one step away from being a true smoker and nicotine addict. Be careful.

CNN reports,

.. Greg N. Connolly, D.M.D., the director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, Massachusetts. led a research team that found that smokeless tobacco products are the second most common cause of nicotine poisoning in children, after cigarettes. The researchers reviewed data from 61 poison control centers and identified 13,705 cases of tobacco ingestion between 2006 and 2008, the vast majority of which were in infants. Smokeless tobacco was involved in 1,768 of the cases.

The new products — currently being test-marketed in three cities — include Camel Orbs, which resemble breath mints; Camel Sticks, which are about the size of a toothpick and dissolve in the mouth; and Camel Strips, which are similar to breath-freshening strips. Small, teabag-like “snus” — pouches filled with tobacco that are placed between the upper lip and gum — are also a potential hazard, according to the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.

The fatwa also drives controversies among Indonesian Muslim scholars especially from Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) scholars, the largest Muslim organisation in Indonesia. The division of opinion among Muslim scholars are understood because the reasoning of the unlawfulness of smoking is not clearly mentioned in the Quran and/or Hadith.

Now, there is a surprising and shocking finding which if proven right will have a global affect. A new study reveals cigarettes may contain traces of pig’s blood. Here’s the report:

University of Sydney Professor Simon Chapman referred to a “recent Dutch research which identified 185 different industrial uses of a pig – including the use of its haemoglobin in cigarette filters,” The Australian said.

Muslims and Jews both ban the consumption of pork and strict vegetarians and vegans refuse to use any animal products or bi-products.

“I think that there would be some particularly devout groups who would find the idea that there were pig products in cigarettes to be very offensive,” Chapman.

“The Jewish community certainly takes these matters extremely seriously and the Islamic community certainly do as well, as would many vegetarians.

According to the recent study, pig haemoglobin, a blood protein, is used in cigarettes to make filters more effective at trapping harmful chemicals before they could enter a smoker’s lungs.

Chapman said that there is no way of knowing for sure which brands use pig haemoglobin. When listing the content of their products, tobacco companies say that there are “processing aids … that are not significantly present in, and do not functionally affect, the finished product. “Pig haemoglobin falls in that category and therefore would not be clearly stated on the list.

So, if you’re a Muslim and a smoker, make sure that you smoke something without a pig blood in it.

If it’s certain that all cigarettes contain traces of pig blood, Muhammadiyah and NU will certainly unite in declaring that smoking is haram as it’s clearly stated in the Quran about the unlawfulness of swine (pork, pig) (Al An’am 6:145) thus:

Say (O Muhammad SAW): “I find not in that which has been inspired to me anything forbidden to be eaten by one who wishes to eat it, unless it be Maytatah (a dead animal) or blood poured forth (by slaughtering or the like), or the flesh of swine (pork, etc.) for that surely is impure[1]

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Note:

[1] Quran English version based on Muhammad Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan translation.