Healthy Nation

Everything about autism spectrum disorder conspires to make it hard to understand. It takes diverse forms, from profound communication and behavioural problems to social difficulties coupled with normal language and even precocious talents. (Here, Nature will refer to them all as autism.) The prevalence of autism is rising — by some counts, steeply — but the reasons for that are unclear. Causes of the condition include a complicated mixture of genetic and environmental factors, most unknown (see page 5). Its roots lie in the development of the human brain, a process that, despite huge leaps in neuroscience, remains mysterious. So as awareness rises and parents clamour for answers, scientists can offer few certainties. Hearsay and unsubstantiated theories sometimes fill the void.

This week, Nature searches for some truths about autism. Som

Read full post…

Researchers used data from the Nurses’ Health Study, a long-term, large-scale project investigating a broad array of women’s health issues. Since its inception in 1976, the Nurses’ Health Study has collected information from more than 200,000 female nurses. For this study, researchers used information from women who provided blood and urine samples in 2000. First, researchers selected the women without diabetes, and monitored their health for the next 12 years. During the period of 2000-2012, 370 of the women developed diabetes. Using this sub-group, researchers analyzed melatonin levels. In their analysis, they controlled for other risk factors for type 2 diabetes, including body mass index, family history, high blood pressure, and lifestyle habits. They

Read full post…

Its decades long ethnic conflict over, Sri Lanka is steadily emerging as a major competitor to Keralas ayurvedic system of medicine, a leading industry expert says.

But officials are quick to point out that as long as Kerala sticks to its pristine form of ayurveda school, no challenge from anywhere can upset what is clearly the biggest tourist draw to the southern state.

Sri Lanka has slowly come up as a threat to our market, said Sanjeev Kurup V., Secretary of the influential Kerala Travel Mart Society who also runs the Paithrukam Hospitality Group.

I was in Sri Lanka only last week, and I estimate they have taken away 30-40 percent of our business, Kurup told IANS at the Perumbayil Ayurveda Mana, an idyllic centre located near the famed Guruvayoor temple.

Ayurveda plays a key role in attracting close to one million foreign and over one crore domestic tourists every year to Kerala.

Read full post…

David Amaral wanted to watch the young brain take shape. He thought that studying post-mortem brains under the microscope would help him to work out why children with autism often have abnormalities in the key structures that drive emotion and behaviour. But he soon found that existing brain banks couldn’t give him what he needed. “It’s just too hard to get high-quality tissue,” he says. The banks may contain hundreds or even thousands of brains — but not from children, and not necessarily in the best condition.

Amaral, who is director of research at the MIND (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute at the University of California, Davis, is not the only scientist eager for access to brains from children. T

Read full post…

The issue of sports-related drug use—particularly the performance-enhancing kind—is of course widespread in professional sports these days, and has been for some time. For many years, rightly or wrongly, hockey has been thought of as s sport less riddled with performance-enhancing drugs. But steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are only part of the drug problem in sports. Prescription drug use—including excessive or inadvisable use of sleep medications—is also a problem in the world of competitive athletics. 

And the NHL is no exception. The death of NHL player Derek Boogaard is a sad and sobering example: the 27-year-old died of a drug and alcohol overdose in 2011. Investig

Read full post…

This month brought news that could alter the landscape of American pregnancy.

Tests using DNA to determine a fetuss sex were shown to be remarkably accurate, able to tell with 95 percent certainty as early as seven weeks into pregnancy, if a woman is carrying a boy or girl. The tests, which detect the fetuss DNA in a mothers blood or urine, are available in drugstores and online, and reports about their accuracy are likely to increase their popularity.

But the tests also raise ethical questions: whether couples will abort fetuses of an unwanted sex as has happened in China and India, where boys now outnumber girls. The possibility discomfits many, and is also providing fuel for anti-abortion politics.

The test is the first of an expected raft of DNA tests likely to detect disorders like Down syndrome and other genetic traits early enough in pregnancy that more women may consider abortion.

Read full post…