Year: 2014

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) – Increasing similarity in diets worldwide is a threat to health and food security with many people forsaking traditional crops such as cassava, sorghum or millet, an international study showed on Monday. “More people are consuming more calories, protein and fat, and they rely increasingly on a shortlist of major food crops … along with meat and dairy products,” Colin Khoury, leader of the study at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, said in a statement. Such diets have been linked to risks of heart disease, cancers and diabetes, the study said. Reliance on a narrower group of food crops also raises vulnerability to pests and diseases that might gain because of climate change.

A man died today after suffering a heart attack during an American Heart Association charity walk  in upstate New York on Saturday, despite efforts by two fellow charity walkers to save his life, authorities said. Michael Wofford, 66, collapsed during the America’s Greatest Heart Run…

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Young smokers who have smoked more cigarettes have clear differences in their brains compared to lighter smokers, according to a new study. “Earlier studies of older participants showed that the smokers had structural differences in various brain regions,” said senior author Edythe D. London. And in studies of adolescent animals, nicotine damaged and killed brain cells, added London, from the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles. “While the results do not prove causation, they suggest that there are effects of cigarette exposure on brain structure in young smokers, with a relatively short smoking history,” London said.

LONDON (AP) — A Swedish doctor says four women who received transplanted wombs have had embryos transferred into them in an attempt to get pregnant.