Paris, France | AFP | Sugar may be bad not only for your teeth and your waistline, but also your mental health, claimed a study Thursday that was met with scepticism by other experts. Researchers at University College London (UCL) compared the reported sugar intake of more than 8,000 people in …
Read More »Finish your antibiotics course? Maybe not, experts say
Paris, France | AFP | British disease experts on Thursday suggested doing away with the “incorrect” advice to always finish a course of antibiotics, saying the approach was fuelling the spread of drug resistance. Rather than stopping antibiotics too early, the cause of resistance was “unnecessary” drug use, a team wrote …
Read More »Murdered NY cop’s baby born 2.5 years after his death
New York, United States | AFP | New York police detective WenJian Liu was ambushed and killed two and a half years ago in a murder that shocked the city. This week, his widow gave birth to his baby daughter. Angelina was born Tuesday at Weill Cornell Hospital. Her mother, …
Read More »OBAMACARE: Double blow convulses Republican bid to reform US health care
Washington, United States | AFP | US Senate Republicans suffered a second stinging setback in as many days Wednesday in their efforts to uproot Obamacare, when a plan to repeal the health care law — with no replacement at the ready — failed to advance in the chamber. The washout …
Read More »Love hotels targeted to fight HIV among Cameroon’s teens
GUIDER, Cameroon | AFP | The two big maps show the districts of the northern Cameroonian town of Guider along with its brothels, nightclubs and other seedy spots to identify places from where AIDS could spread among adolescents. Cameroon, a country of 23 million that hugs Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, …
Read More »Candidate AIDS vaccine passes early test in Uganda, Rwanda
Paris, France | AFP | The three-decade-old quest for an AIDS vaccine received a shot of hope Monday when developers announced that a prototype triggered the immune system in an early phase of human trials. Tested in 393 people in the United States, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa and Thailand, the …
Read More »COFFEE: Want to live longer?
Drinking coffee could be your secret elixir, scientist says Here’s another reason to start the day with a cup of coffee: Scientists have found that people who drink coffee appear to live longer. Drinking coffee was associated with a lower risk of death due to heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, …
Read More »SCIENCE: AIDS in 10 dates
Paris, France | AFP | From the start of the AIDS epidemic in 1981, here are 10 dates in the history of the disease. – 1981: First alert – On June 5, 1981, US epidemiologists report the first deaths among young homosexuals from a mysterious immune-wrecking disease later named acquired …
Read More »Five key numbers on AIDS
Paris, France | AFP | Someone is infected with the AIDS virus every 17 seconds in the world, and the disease has killed the equivalent of the population of Canada, figures released Thursday by UNAIDS show. Here is a numerical snapshot of the disease. – 17 seconds – Roughly 1.8 …
Read More »Israeli ‘mental first-aid’ method offered to attack victims abroad
Tel Aviv, Israel | AFP | An Israeli who developed an unorthodox model for treating mental trauma and preventing post-traumatic stress disorder during his years in the military is now sharing it with first responders in other countries. Moshe Farchi says Israel’s decades of conflict have afforded it “lots of experience” …
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