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Top stories
HIV/AIDS
 ASA order follows complaints around claims by the proprietor of Christ Embassy, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, of false faith-healing claims. Read more >> Who said Valentine's Day is all about receiving gifts and having a partner to share it with? This Valentine's Day, loveLife - South Africa's largest HIV/Aids prevention programme for young people - together with some of the country's much-loved celebrities are starting a revolution. Their message to the youth is simple: love yourself this Valentine's Day - be your own Valentine! Read more >> A recent flurry of news reports on fraud in grants made by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria has thrown the spotlight on the extent to which graft in recipient countries plagues the funding body. Read more >> Serious concerns are being raised over the government's proposal to introduce "voluntary" HIV/Aids testing in schools, with teachers' unions, legal experts and child's rights organisations saying they need to know exactly how it will work. Read more >>Infectious diseases
 Offering the morning-after pill free over the counter has not reduced the number of teenage pregnancies and may be associated with a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases (STIs), according to a report by experts at The University of Nottingham. Read more >>Boys predominantly pass on flu to other boys and girls to girls, according to a new study of how swine flu spread in a primary school during the 2009 pandemic, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The results also suggest that flu transmission is most intensive between children of the same class, but that sitting next to an infected person does not significantly increase a child's risk of catching flu. The data will help researchers to model how epidemics spread and how interventions such as school closures can help contain an outbreak. Read more >>Medical Aid
 Profmed, the medical scheme for graduate professionals, has taken the view that prevention is better than cure, and covers the cervical cancer vaccine for women out of their day-to-day benefits. Read more >>Medical Research
 Australian scientists have successfully cleared a HIV-like infection from mice by boosting the function of cells vital to the immune response. Read more >> The worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled since 1980, according to a major study on how three important heart disease risk factors have changed across the world over the last three decades. The study, published in three papers in the Lancet, looked at all available global data to assess how body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and cholesterol changed between 1980 and 2008. Read more >> In a discovery that may lead to a new treatment for breast cancer that has spread to the bone, a Princeton University research team has unravelled a mystery about how these tumours take root. Read more >> Food scientists at the University of British Columbia have been able to pinpoint more of the complex chemistry behind coffee's much touted antioxidant benefits, tracing valuable compounds to the roasting process. Read more >>While policy makers in Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand debate whether alcohol advertising and sponsorship should be banned from sport, new research provides evidence that alcohol industry sponsorship is associated with more hazardous drinking in sportspeople compared to non-alcohol sponsorship. Read more >> Sustained high vaccination coverage is key to preventing deaths from measles. Despite the availability of a vaccine, measles remains an important killer of children worldwide, particularly in less-developed regions where vaccination coverage is limited. Read more >>Medical Technology
 [Dr Ananya Mandal, MD] A new study showed that a Labrador retriever that was trained to sniff out cancer was able to detect colon cancer nearly as accurately as a colonoscopy. Read more >>Mental health
Counselling shows that learners need more information and guidance to help them prepare for life beyond matric. Read more >>Nutrition
 [Dr Ananya Mandal, MD] New federal dietary guidelines, released Monday by the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services lays down some new rules in healthy eating that include consuming less empty calories, less salt and at least half a plate full of fruits and vegetables a day. Read more >>Obstetrics and Gynaecology
[Dr Ananya Mandal, MD] A Lancashire couple, Andrew and Louise Riley, have been blessed with a "miracle baby boy" thanks to a pioneering new genetic screening process. Elliott Riley was born just after Christmas after the Rileys opted for a relatively new technique called array comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH) after 10 years of infertility treatments. Mrs Riley, 37, and her husband, 39, said they were delighted to welcome Elliott on December 30. Read more >> Paediatrics
Ritalin may help improve brain function in adolescent rats that were iron deficient during infancy, according to a team of Penn State neuroscientists. This may have implications for iron-deficient human infants as well. Read more >>Obesity among women of childbearing age is increasing worldwide. Because babies of obese mothers are themselves predisposed to obesity, society can reasonably expect the epidemic of obese and overweight people to continue through future generations. Read more >>Women's health
 Pregnant women eating baked clay could be exposing themselves and their unborn child to toxic chemicals, according to research by De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester, UK. Read more >> A widely held belief is that African women tend to have a higher bone mineral density (BMD) than females of other cultures and backgrounds. This unconfirmed statistic is rapidly changing, however, as figure conscious females keep an increasingly watchful eye on their weight, impacting negatively on the density of their bones and increasing their risk of contracting bone diseases. 1 Read more >>Print - Print any item in this newsletter.
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