Month: January 2014

Study: Diet Beverages Are Not Solution For Weight Loss … Health who examined national patterns in adult diet beverage consumption and calorie … diet beverages consume more calories from food than obese or overweight adults …

"It's just as hard to maintain it as it is to lose weight," she said. … She suggested learning to cook simple, low-cost, healthy meals as a viable skill …

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – British scientists have applied for permission to run an open-air field trial of a genetically modified (GM) crop they hope may one day become a sustainable and environmentally friendly source of healthy Omega-3 fats. The proposed trial – likely to generate controversy in a nation where GM foods have little public support – could start as early as May and will use Camelina plants engineered to produce seeds high in Omega-3 long chain fatty acids. No GM crops are currently grown commercially in Britain and only two – a pest-resistant type of maize and a potato with enhanced starch content – are licensed for cultivation in the European Union (EU). But scientists at Britain’s agricultural lab Rothamsted Research have developed Camelina plants to produce Omega-3 fats that are known to be beneficial to health but normally found only in oils in increasingly limited fish stocks.

By Jared Ferrie YANGON (Reuters) – Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Friday it had treated 22 people in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state who had apparently been wounded last week around the time of a reported massacre of Rohingya Muslims, an incident the government denies. The United Nations and human rights groups say at least 40 Rohingya were killed by security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist civilians in mid-January in a restricted area of the conflict-ridden western state. On Friday, government spokesman Ye Htut denied there had been any mass killing, in line with statements over the past week. But information provided by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) further erodes the position of the government, which is facing international pressure to investigate the incident.

By Toni Clarke and Sumeet Chatterjee WASHINGTON/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd faces long delays and high costs in launching big-selling generic drugs in the United States after products from a fourth plant were banned from entering its main market due to manufacturing violations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's sanction is the latest in a series of regulatory rebukes for India's largest drugmaker by revenue since Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd took control of the company in 2008, and deals a further blow to the $12 billion Indian drug industry. The FDA said Ranbaxy is prohibited from making and selling pharmaceutical ingredients from its facility in Toansa in the northern state of Punjab, "to prevent substandard quality products from reaching U.S. consumers." The FDA ban on Ranbaxy's Toansa plant followed an inspection completed on January 11.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After 20 years, the nutrition facts label on the back of food packages is getting a makeover.