A glass of juice in the morning is believed to be the healthy way to start a day, but Australian scientists have claimed that some fruit juices contain so much sugar that they actually increase the risk of certain cancers, rather than preventing them.

They said, in fact, by the time the drink has been processed and packaged, many of the ingredients in fruit that protect against tumours have been lost, the Daily Mail reported.

The researchers wanted to establish how effective different fruits, vegetables and juices were at preventing the development of bowel cancer. [Read more...]

Everyone knows that junk food is injurious to health, but still, who among us can resist that juicy burger or that refreshing cola? The ads make them look so tempting too. But it is those same ads that might actually be the problem. German researchers at the Max Planck Institute say those glossy pictures of junk food trigger hormones that make the viewer hungry and this may be the cause of increasing obesity.

This once again puts the focus on what health specialists in many countries have been trying to do: restrict certain kinds of junk food ads. In Canada, recent surveys have shown support for an outright ban on ads of products with high sugar, high fat or high salt content. A bit drastic, perhaps, but with child obesity becoming a growing problem, the day may not be far off when burger packets will carry warnings saying “Junk food can be injurious to your health”. Europe has imposed heavy taxes on such products and have even stopped their sale in schools. [Read more...]

THE statistics tell a story of a divided city – where geography can determine your waistline.

The NSW Ministry of Health’s new Health Statistics website reveals residents of Sydney’s west and south-west are far more likely to be overweight than their wealthier counterparts in the city centre or the north.

The proportion of women from northern Sydney who are overweight or obese is 38.8 per cent, compared with 50.4 per cent in the Nepean Blue Mountains area, for example.

Local government areas that have ”significantly higher” hospital admissions than the state average – owing to obesity – include Bankstown, Wollongong, Campbelltown, Wyong, Liverpool Plains and Queanbeyan, according to the website. [Read more...]

Oily fish such as sardines are a rich source of Vitamin D. New research from the Children of the 90s study at the University of Bristol, which has been charting the health of 14,500 children since their birth in the early 1990s, shows that the link between low levels of vitamin D and depression is established in childhood and that ensuring children have a good intake of vitamin D could help reduce depression in adolescence and adulthood.

The link between depression and vitamin D (which we get from exposure to sunlight and from certain foods, like oily fish and fortified breakfast cereals) has already been established in adults but this is the first study to look at the vitamin’s effect in children. [Read more...]