Mi Choza De Nipa

This seems like an irony, in my opinion... China losing out on reproduction? ----- By Kristine Lim Posted: 15 November 2011 SHANGHAI, China: China faces a shortage of sperm donors , and the quality of sperm adds to the infertility problem as more couples seek out sperm banks. Only about five to 10 per cent of sperm donations make the mark. The hectic pace of life, stress at work, as well as a changing environment with more pollution and exposure to elements such as radiation affect fertility. In Shanghai, about 2,500 couples seek out the sperm bank each year. They can wait up to three years for a donor. Shanghai Human Sperm Bank head Li Zheng said: "If you come to the hospital and take a look at the men without sperm or who are infertile, you will see how much stress they have. "For me, it is really difficult to break the news that he cannot have children at the end of the treatment. "It is a huge blow to the men. They face a lot of pressure a...

Posted: 28 October 2011 WASHINGTON: Some birth control products, including contraceptive pills , rings and patches for women, carry a significantly higher risk of blood clot than low-dose medications, US regulators said Thursday. The US Food and Drug Administration said in its review of studies that have included more than 800,000 women that the higher risks are posed by products such as the pill Yaz , the transdermal Ortho Evra patch, and the NuvaRing vaginal insert. All three methods are "associated with an increased risk of VTE (deep venous thrombosis) relative to the standard low-dose" pills, the FDA said. Featured in the study were pills that contain drospirenone, as opposed to another type of progestin known as levonorgestrel. Some brand names include Yaz, Yasmin, Beyaz, Ocella , Loryna, Gianvi, Safyral, Syeda and Zarah. Yaz is the second biggest selling product made by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, with 1.56 billion in global sales. NuvaRing is...

Now this is really an eye-opener; we've known this for some time, but i think many more don't know this. So how about the iPad ? I've heard parents say that it is a 'boost' to their child's learning the alphabets and numbers. Maybe it is just the videos after all. Think so? ----- Posted: 18 October 2011 WASHINGTON: Watching television or videos is discouraged for babies under age two because studies suggest it could harm their development, a US paediatricians ' group said on Tuesday. Instead of allowing infants to watch videos or screens, parents should talk to them and encourage independent play, said the first guidelines issued in more than a decade by the American Academy of Paediatrics. The advice is the same as that issued in 1999 by United States' largest association of paediatricians, but this time it also warns parents of how their own screen-watching habits may delay their children's ability to talk. "This updated policy ...

Posted: 17 October 2011 WASHINGTON : Babies who are born early and small are five times as likely as normal infants to develop autism , according to a two-decade-long US study released Monday. Premature babies have long been known to risk a host of health problems and cognitive delays, but the study in the journal Pediatrics is the first to establish a link between low birth weight and autism. US researchers tracked 862 children from birth to young adulthood. Those in the study were born between 1984 and 1987 in three counties in New Jersey . The children weighed between 500 and 2,000 grams (1.1 to 4.4 pounds) at birth. Over time, five percent of the low-birth weight babies were diagnosed with autism, compared to the one percent prevalence in the general population. "As survival of the smallest and most immature babies improves, impaired survivors represent an increasing public health challenge," said lead author Jennifer Pinto-Martin, director of the Center f...

English: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I'm not sure if I would be glad with this kind of story... I mean, I find this simply a workaround to the root cause, rather than stopping the issue from the source. Just my 2 cents worth... ----- Posted: 11 October 2011 PARIS: A scheme in six Indian states that concentrated safe-sex campaigns on a few niche groups prevented 100,000 HIV infections over five years, according to estimates published in The Lancet on Tuesday. The so-called Avahan project was launched in 2003 in Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu , along with the northeastern states of Manipur and Nagaland , using a massive grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation . These states, with a total population of 300 million, had the highest prevalences of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in India at the time. Avahan's goal was to boost prevention among prostitutes and their customers, gays, i...

Posted: 10 October 2011 PARIS: If you are always seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, be warned -- it could be an oncoming train. So says a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience which concludes that our well-known penchant for donning rose-tinted glasses may be a failure to store risk awareness in a key part of the brain. Tali Sharot, a professor at University College London , was intrigued as to why so many people -- even when facing long odds or bleak prospects -- remain stubbornly, even pathologically, optimistic. To learn more, 19 volunteers were asked to take part in an experiment. Sharot and colleagues monitored subjects in a functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ) scanner as they were confronted with life situations ranging from unpleasant to catastrophic. Having their car stolen, getting fired from their job, developing Parkinson's disease or cancer were among 80 scenarios evoked. After each hypothetical disaster , the volunteers were...

Posted: 04 October 2011 PARIS: Women who use hormonal birth control are roughly twice as likely to become infected with HIV or pass on the AIDS virus to their partner, according to a study published on Tuesday. The research was carried out among 3,790 heterosexual couples in Africa where one partner had the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while the other was uninfected. The findings, if confirmed, could have huge repercussions for policies on contraception and HIV prevention. The authors say it strengthens the need for safe-sex messages, in which the condom is promoted as a shield against the AIDS pathogen. The couples were monitored for an average of 18 months during which 167 individuals became infected, 73 of them women, according to the paper appearing in The Lancet Infectious Diseases . Transcribed into a benchmark of prevalence, HIV transmissions were 6.61 per 100 person-years in couples where women used hormonal contraception, compared to 3.78 per 100 person-...

Posted: 14 September 2011 PARIS: A rattling good laugh with friends will help you deal with pain thanks to opiate-like chemicals that flood the brain, according to a British study released on Wednesday. Researchers carried out lab experiments in which volunteers watched either comedy clips from " Mr Bean " or "Friends," or non-humorous items such as golf or wildlife programmes, while their resistance to mild pain was monitored. Another test was conducted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival , where the volunteers watched either a stand-up comedy show or a theatrical drama. In lab conditions, the pain came from a deep-frozen wine-cooler sleeve which was slipped onto the arm or from a blood-pressure cuff that was pumped to the threshold of tolerance. For the Fringe Festival , the volunteers were asked to do a tough exercise - leaning against the wall with their legs at right angles, as if sitting on a straight-backed chair - before and immediately after the per...

This is just sad... ----- Posted: 08 September 2011 PARIS: Parents who lose a new baby run a high risk themselves of dying prematurely, according to a British study published on Thursday. Investigators delved into a random sample of national death registrations for the years 1971 to 2006. They compared deaths among parents who had been bereaved in the first year of a child's life or whose child had been stillborn, against deaths among parents whose baby had survived beyond the first year. Bereaved parents were between two and four times likelier to die or become widowed in the first 10 years of the child's death compared with non-bereaved counterparts. Mothers in particular were at threat. Bereaved mothers in England and Wales were four times likelier to die prematurely, and bereaved mothers in Scotland six times likelier, than women whose child had survived beyond the first year of life. The risk for mothers lessened slightly over time, but was still si...

Image via Wikipedia October 17, 2011 (AP)   WASHINGTON — Does your teen show normal nerves about the weekend party, or always stay home? Nearly half of teenagers say they're shy, perhaps a bit surprising in our say-anything society. But a government study finds a small fraction of those teens show signs of a troubling anxiety disorder that can be mistaken for extreme shyness. The report challenges criticism that the terms "social phobia" or " social anxiety disorder " medicalize normal shyness. "Shyness is a normal human temperament," says lead researcher Dr. Kathleen Merikangas of the National Institute of Mental Health , whose teachers always noted her own childhood shyness on her report cards. But just as it can be hard to tell when feeling sad turns into depression, "there is a blurred boundary between people who describe themselves as shy and clinically significant impairment," Merikangas adds. The difference: The shy can be...

Image via Wikipedia (TERRA HAUTE, Ind.) -- Natalie Hayhurst looks like your average adorable 3-year-old. She plays with makeup, loves Justin Bieber , and loves playing with her big brother on their farm outside Terre Haute , Ind.  But when it comes to food , she's anything but average. Most kids her age are a little picky. Natalie likes everything -- literally.   "Well, I first noticed it was a problem...[when] she had actually eaten my vinyl blinds that hang out to cover your sliding door . She took two bites out of them," said Natalie's mother, Colleen Hayhurst.   Natalie suffers from a rare condition called Pica that creates a compulsion to eat things that aren't food.   "She prefers the wood, paper products, cardboard, sticks," said Colleen. "She'll eat rocks, dirt; she's had a bite out of a Diet Coke can; she's eaten the little magnet out of the shower curtain , plastic bottles, toys."   "You can't take your eye off o...