Healthy Nation

Social media is leading consumers to have a more self-critical eye, according to a new survey by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS). The annual poll of 752 of the organizations board-certified facial plastic surgeons found that there was a 31% increase in requests for surgery as a result of social media photo sharing.

The study shows that a growing number of procedures are cosmetic versus reconstructive in nature, accounting for 73% of all procedures in 2012, up from 62% in 2011. Of the procedures requested as a result of social media influence, rhinoplasty, BOTOX, and facelifts topped the list.

While social media continues to play an increasingly large role in how consumers view themselves, its influence as a trusted informational resource for plastic surgery is diminishing.

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Research suggests ladies don’t need to wear a bra.Photo / Thinkstock

Women don’t need to wear a bra, a new French study suggests, saying the under-garment is a “false necessity.”

According to the results of a 15 year study bras do nothing to help support a woman’s breasts and could even be doing damage.

“Medically, physiologically, anatomically, the breast does not benefit from being deprived of gravity,” Jean-Denis Rouillon, a professor at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, told France Info.

Conducting the study at the university’s hospital, Rouillon measured and examined the breasts of more than 300 women, aged 18 and 35, taking note of how the additional support provided by bras affects the body over time. (

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The Centers for Disease Control and prevention is rolling out the second part of an ad campaign to help smokers kick the habit.

The government is hoping the second round of graphic anti-smoking ads will encourage more smokers to quit.

The 48 million dollar ad campaign uses several different types of media to get its message across, from television, online, and radio spots to print and billboard ads.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The loud, insistent calls in Washington to rein in the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare ignore a major and expensive entitlement program – the military’s health care system.

Despite dire warnings from three defense secretaries about the uncontrollable cost, Congress has repeatedly rebuffed Pentagon efforts to establish higher out-of-pocket fees and enrollment costs for military family and retiree health care as an initial step in addressing a harsh fiscal reality. The cost of military health care has almost tripled since 2001, from $19 billion to $53 billion in 2012, and stands at 10 percent of the entire defense budget.

First we had European cancer experts deliberating on the shores of a Swiss lake in Lugano. Now the premier cancer research organisations in the world, led by the National Cancer Institute in the US and Cancer Research UK, are speaking out. They are saying much the same things: it is time to take what we know about basic cancer prevention and care into the poorest countries. It is also time to rethink the way ahead for cancer research, so everybody benefits and money is not wasted on hugely expensive but ineffective treatments.

Wednesday’s statement is published in the Science Translational Medicine journal and is authored by Harold Varmus, Nobel prize-winning director of the National Cancer Institute in the US and by Harpal Kumar, CEO of Cancer Research UK on behalf of leading institutions from Australia to Argentina and Taiwan to Turkey.

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The Indonesian government hopes to implement one of the largest ever examples of “compulsory licensing”, which will enable the generic manufacture of drugs still under patent.

Advocates of the move say the reduced drug costs achieved through compulsory licensing have been instrumental in reducing HIV mortality rates in Indonesia.

“One of the major reasons for decreased HIV mortality rates is the provision of anti-retroviral [ARV] treatment, and if [Indonesia] can’t afford the anti-retroviral treatment, the mortality rate will return” to the higher levels of previous years, Samsuridjal Djauzi, chairman of the Indonesian Association of Physicians in AIDS Care, told IRIN.

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