Kids with stressed out moms more prone to asthma

CHICAGO, Jan 16: Children whose mothers are stressed are at higher risk for asthma, Canadian researchers said.

They said persistent distress such as a mother's depression or anxiety can increase the risk that her child will develop asthma by an average of 25 per cent, even after accounting for known environmental triggers.

''It is increasingly clear that traditional environmental risk factors do not fully explain the origins of asthma,'' said Anita Kozyrskyj of the University of Manitoba in Canada.

Kozyrskyj's team analysed the medical records of nearly 14,000 children born in Manitoba in 1995 who were continuously registered with Manitoba Health Services until 2003.

They checked to see whether the children had asthma at age 7 by analysing doctor visits, hospitalisations and medications in the year of their 7th birthday.

They cross-checked this with the mother's medical records, including doctor visits, hospitalizations and medication for depression and anxiety. And they ranked the mother's distress by the duration of treatment: no distress, postpartum distress only, short-term distress and long-term distress.

''We found that maternal distress which persists beyond the postpartum period is associated with an increased risk of asthma at school-age,'' Kozyrskyj, whose study appears in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, said in a statement.

This effect persisted even after factoring in income, gender, number of siblings, heredity and whether the child lived in an urban or rural setting.

The risk appeared to intensify for children in high-income households or who had more than one sibling.

While the reason these children are at higher risk is not clear, Kozyrskyj said it may be that mothers who are distressed are less likely to breast-feed and more likely to smoke.

''Depressed mothers are also less likely to interact with their infants,'' Kozyrskyj said in an e-mail. ''Animal studies tell us that decreased attentiveness from the mother affects the infant's stress and immune response, but we are a ways from knowing whether this is true in humans.''

Kozyrskyj said the study was unique because it characterised the effects of persistent stress on children of normal risk for asthma over a period of several years.

But she cautioned that stress is one of several risk factors for childhood asthma, which include genetics and environmental factors, such as maternal smoking.

More than 300 million people worldwide suffer from asthma, 22 million in the United States. Symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing and chest tightness. (AGENCIES)

Brazil's Lula meets Fidel Castro, offers credit

HAVANA, Jan 16: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro as Brazil offered Cuba millions of dollars in credit and help in its search for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Two pictures of the more than two hours long meeting were released to Brazilian journalists yesterday evening at the airport as Lula prepared to leave Cuba.

The pictures showed Castro in relatively good condition, similar to the last pictures released of him in October.

In one, Castro is shown in an track suit sitting in an arm chair chatting with Lula and in a second smiling broadly as he poses for the Brazilian president to take a snap shot.

Castro received Lula, a former labor leader and admirer of Cuba's leftist revolution, at the end of a 24-hour visit, his second to Cuba as president of Latin America's largest nation.

Castro, 81, has not appeared in public since undergoing stomach surgery that forced him to hand over the running of Cuba to his brother Raul in July 2006.

Rather than a farewell visit by an admirer, Brazilian officials said Lula's trip was an opportunity to deepen ties with Cuba and increase Brazilian investments and economic presence in the communist-run Caribbean nation.

Brasilia has the economic resources, technology and diplomatic clout to help Cuba as it approaches a crucial moment of its history without Fidel at the helm and under pressure from the United States to open up to multiparty democracy, a Brazilian foreign ministry official said.

Lula met earlier with acting President Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution government house in Havana where the two countries signed agreements to bolster economic ties.

Brazil's export financing agency COFIG announced approval of credit for food purchases and for the expansion and overhaul of the Che Guevara nickel mine, one of three that produce Cuba's main export commodity.

Brazil is offering Cuba up to 1 billion dollars in credit lines to pay for Brazilian goods and services in road and hotel building and the sugar, biotechnology and drug industries. That includes 600 million dollars for roads.

PETROBRAS COMMITS ITSELF

Cuba secured the commitment of Brazil's state oil company Petrobras <PBR.N> <PETR4.SA> to explore for oil in the deep-sea Cuban water of the Gulf of Mexico where six foreign oil firms have already contracted 24 of 59 blocks.

Petrobras president Jose Sergio Gabrielli told reporters the Brazilian giant, a world leader in off-shore drilling, was acquiring and analysing seismological data and had yet to identify which blocks it would sign risk contracts for.

Petrobras had been reluctant to return to Cuba after sinking $16 million in a north-coast well that proved dry in 2001.

Petrobras and the Cuban state oil company CUPET agreed to study the formation of a joint venture to build a lubricants plant in Cuba, a project that has been discussed for years.

The one concrete agreement to emerge from Lula's visit was the licensing of Cuban interferon to Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation for tropical medicine research.

The influential Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper praised the credit splurge for Cuba in a editorial, saying it would pave the way for Brazilian companies to take part in Cuba's necessary modernization and reform process.

The Brazilian official said Brazil, Mexico and Canada -- countries with good ties to the United States yet critical of its trade embargo against Havana -- could ease a painful process of change expected in Cuba.

''We want to see Cuba back in the fold and can provide the Cubans with a level of comfort in the transition ahead by not being confrontational like the United States,'' he said. (AGENCIES)

Big cut in Afghan TB cases shows aid works:Canada

OTTAWA, Jan 16: The number of Afghans dying from tuberculosis has fallen by half in recent months, a statistic that shows Canada's efforts to help fight the disease are working, officials said yesterday.

Ottawa is keen to show signs of progress in Afghanistan, particularly since critics accuse Canada of focusing too much effort on fighting the Taliban and not enough on development and reconstruction.

The World Health Organisation and Afghanistan's public health ministry said last week that people were dying from tuberculosis at the rate of 10,000 a year, down from 20,000 a year a few months earlier.

Canada is working with the WHO and the World Food Program on a campaign to combat the disease.

''You are starting to see far more people now benefiting from treatment early on,'' a government official told a news conference.

The full course of treatment to fight tuberculosis lasts eight months and the WFP is offering patients food and heating oil in a bid to ensure they do not back out.

''(This campaign) takes the partnership and support of a whole range of players ... We're starting to see real payoffs in this specific area,'' the official said.

More than 80 per cent of Afghans now have access to basic medical services, compared with 9 per cent after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, he added.

Canada has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. A soldier died in a mine blast yesterday, the 77th member of the armed forces to die in the country since 2002.

(AGENCIES)

Padilla acted with terrorist aim, US Judge says

MIAMI, Jan 16: Al- Qaeda conspirator Jose Padilla deserves to serve at least 30 years in prison because he intended to influence foreign government actions, a US judge has ruled.

US District Judge Marcia Cooke said the one-time ''dirty bomb'' suspect met the criteria for sentencing under a ''terrorism enhancement'' provision that stiffens the penalty if a crime was committed with the intent to retaliate against, coerce or intimidate a Government.

Padilla, a 37-year-old US citizen, now faces 30 years to life in prison in a case the US government has said was a crucial reminder of the terrorist threat America faces.

A former street gang member, Padilla was arrested in May 2002 and held for three-and-a-half years without charge as an ''enemy combatant'' but was later charged with unrelated crimes and turned over to civilian authorities.

Padilla and two co-defendants were convicted in August on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people abroad, conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism, and providing material support for terrorism.

They were not accused of committing violence, but the jury found they provided money and recruits for Islamist fighters who waged war for years in Kosovo, Somalia, Chechnya and Afghanistan with the aim of ousting existing governments and installing strict Muslim rule.

Yesterday's ruling came in a sentencing hearing that lasted over a week.

'BIT PLAYER'

Padilla's lawyers, who declined to comment on the ruling, had argued that even if Padilla was guilty, he was at most a bit player who deserved less than 10 years in prison.

The government's main evidence against him was an application to attend an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

Cooke ruled that in convicting Padilla, the jury rejected defense claims that he had gone to peacefully study Islam and found him to be an al Qaeda recruit.

''He was an instrument of the scheme itself ... He responded to the call to go overseas,'' the judge said.

Prosecutors had argued that Padilla deserves life in prison because al Qaeda could not commit atrocities without the foot soldiers it trained as killers.

The judge also found that two co-defendants, Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi, were eligible for tougher sentences under the terrorism enhancement provision, so they too could be sentenced to life in prison.

Hassoun, a 45-year-old Lebanese-born Palestinian computer programmer was accused of recruiting jihadists, or holy warriors -- including Padilla -- at a Florida mosque. Jayyousi, a 46-year-old naturalized US citizen from Jordan and US Navy veteran, wrote a newsletter that denounced atrocities against Muslims.

Both said they supported legitimate charities that aided Muslims who were under attack.

Padilla, a Muslim convert, moved to Egypt in 1998 and was arrested in Chicago upon his return. He was accused of plotting to set off a radioactive ''dirty bomb'' and U.S. President George W Bush ordered him held in a military prison as an ''enemy combatant.''

Amid court challenges to the president's authority to imprison Padilla without charge, the Government added him to the terrorism case in Miami. He was never was charged in any bomb plot. (AGENCIES)

Poor sanitation kills 5,000 children a day:Report

LONDON, Jan 16: Five thousand children die every day globally because they do not have access to clean toilets, health experts said.

Wealthy governments and donors could make a huge impact on global health by making sanitation a priority, representatives from a coalition of 60 health groups said yesterday.

They estimated that 40 per cent of the world's people do not have access to clean and safe toilets.

''It is about generating political will, and we also want to see is a real mobilisation around sanitation in the aid system,'' said Henry Northover of WaterAid, which founded the coalition End Water Poverty.

''We want to see the G8 (group of industrialised nations) prioritise it this year.''

This would also go a long way toward meeting global targets aimed at sharply reducing world poverty by 2015, the experts said.

WaterAid says 1.8 million children are dying each year before their fifth birthday from diarrhoea.

''There is a global crisis in sanitation,'' said Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association. ''Governments must take action now on this vital area of international development.''

(AGENCIES)

Millions seek shots in Brazil yellow fever scare

BRASILIA, Jan 16: Brazilian officials today confirmed that a third person had died of yellow fever this year as millions of people, fearing a resurgence of the deadly disease, lined up at hospitals and clinics to get vaccinated.

The latest death, in the southern state of Parana, followed the death of a man in the capital Brasilia last week that prompted concerns yellow fever could swamp urban centers, from which it has been eradicated since the 1940s the officials said yesterday.

Authorities are looking into more than 20 other possible cases, including that of a Spaniard who died in the central state of Goias over the weekend.

Last year, five people died of yellow fever in Brazil.

The government has denied the country faces an epidemic of the mosquito-borne disease. But authorities are warning tourists travelling to Brazilian forests, national parks and rural areas to get vaccinated at least ten days before their trips.

More than half of Brazil's 27 states are partially or entirely yellow fever risk areas, including the Amazon and Brasilia. Most of the coast, which attracts the bulk of tourists, is considered free of the disease.

As fears of an outbreak mounted, the Health Ministry gave states more than 3.2 million doses of yellow fever vaccines this month, more than three times the average monthly distribution in 2007.

On Sunday, people in Sao Paulo stood in line for more than four hours at an airport health station to get shots, according to local media. In Brasilia, hospitals temporarily ran out of vaccines last week as demand surged.

Health Minister Jose Temporao said on Sunday that all suspected cases involved people with no vaccination who were in forest areas. ''There is no risk of an epidemic,'' he said.

Symptoms of the disease include high fever, headache, vomiting and muscle pain.

(AGENCIES)

Moms-to-be, switch to Mediterranean diet

LONDON, Jan 16: A piece of advice for all those moms-to-be who are worried about what to eat-- switch to the Mediterranean diet, as it can ward off asthma and allergies in babies.

A study said if pregnant women ate a diet rich in olive oil, fruit, vegetables and fish, their unborn children were healthier.

The Greek-based research showed children whose mothers had a high-quality Mediterranean diet during pregnancy were up to 50 per cent less likely to suffer from complaints such as wheeze and allergic skin problems.

The researchers said eating vegetables more than eight times a week, fish more than three times a week and legumes, such as beans, more than once a week seemed to offer the best protection.

However, eating red meat more than three or four times a week appeared to increase the risks, the Daily Mail reported.

The researchers said exposing kids to a high level of antioxidants before birth, may improve their lung function.

The Daily Mail quoted them as saying, ''Cereals, particularly wholegrains, are rich in antioxidant compounds of vitamin E, phenolic acids and phytic acid and they have all been shown to have a protective effect against asthma in children.''

''Similarly, fruits, vegetables and legumes are known to be high sources of antioxidants and may therefore help to protect the airways against oxidative damage,'' they added. (UNI)

Bird flu strikes in another district in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Jan 16: Bird flu has spread to another district in Bangladesh, forcing authorities to cull more than 1,500 birds, officials said today.

The H5N1 bird flu virus was reported in backyard poultry in the southern coastal district Barishal, a livestock department official said.

''After the confirmation of bird flu, authorities culled more than 1,531 chickens, ducks and birds in a one-kilometre area around the affected backyard poultry,'' the official said.

Suspected outbreaks were also reported at a farm in northwestern Rajshahi district and another farm in northern Rangpur district, where the virus has been confirmed in fowl previously.

''The preliminary tests showed some birds at the farm have died from bird flu, but we still don't know whether it is the deadly H5N1 strain,'' the official told Reuters, referring to the farm in Rajshahi.

The H5N1 avian flu virus was first reported near the capital in March last year and has since spread mainly to northern districts, forcing authorities to kill more than 300,000 chickens.

With the latest outbreak, 72 farms in 23 of Bangladesh's 64 districts have been infected with the deadly virus.

There are around 150,000 poultry farms in Bangladesh, with an annual turnover of 750 million dollars, officials say.

So far there have been no cases of human infection in the densely populated country, government officials say.

Experts fear the bird flu virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic that could kill millions of people.

There have been 217 human deaths globally from the H5N1 strain and 350 confirmed cases of infection since 2003, World Health Organisation figures show.

(AGENCIES)

Long study led to US cloned food safety decision........

WASHINGTON, Jan 16: Cloned animals may often be born deformed and die young but scientists, who have looked at every aspect of their biology to try to explain why, can find no evidence that it would be dangerous to eat them.

None of the more than 700 studies reviewed in detail showed any evidence to suggest that milk or organ or muscle tissue from cloned animals could harm someone who ate it, the US Food and Drug Administration said in its final report on the subject yesterday.

''We have actually done a more in-depth analysis of the meat from cloned animals than has been done ever,'' said Mark Walton, president of Texas-based farm animal cloning firm ViaGen.

In 2002, a National Academy of Sciences panel said there was no reason to believe that meat or milk from cloned animals may be unsafe. But it said the FDA should do a review, and because of the outpouring of opinions and fears about the subject, the agency extended its review for more than a year.

Cloned calves have died from respiratory, digestive, circulatory, nervous, muscular and skeletal abnormalities, as well as because they had abnormal placentas, the FDA noted.

And researchers have looked at all the possible causes of these abnormalities -- changes in the genes, in other parts of DNA that affect what genes do and the process of cloning itself.

They have looked at whether the surviving animals have unusual levels of hormones such as the stress hormone cortisol or growth hormones. They have looked at whether their milk contains altered levels of fat or fatty acids, and they have fed animal products from clones to mice and other animals to see if there are any health effects.

TRICKING AN EGG

Animals are cloned using somatic cell nuclear transfer -- a process in which an egg cell is hollowed out and the nucleus from an ordinary cell from the animal to be copied is put inside. An electric or chemical charge is used to start the egg growing and dividing as if it had been fertilised by a sperm.

This process itself can cause changes in the development of the embryo, fetus and young animal. Not all the same genes are turned on as are active during normal sexual reproduction, studies have found.

But if the animal survives more than a few months, it appears normal in most ways, the studies indicate.

''As part of the process of evaluating meat and milk from cloned animals, we and USDA (the US Department of Agriculture) looked at a group of cloned animals and we looked at more components of muscle tissue and of meat than normally is looked at,'' Walton said in a telephone interview.

''This is one of the most rigorous food safety reviews ever conducted,'' added Dr Jerome Baker, chief executive officer of the Federation of Animal Science Societies.

As the FDA ruled yesterday that food from cloned animals was safe, the Agriculture Department asked the cloning industry to extend a voluntary ban on marketing food from the animals ban during a transition period.

Even so, it is unlikely that people would eat food directly from a cloned animal -- they are more likely to be used as breeding stock, with cloning used to reproduce animals with desired characteristics, animal cloners said.

And any sexually produced offspring would be even more normal than their parents, the FDA and the scientists agreed.

Margaret Mellon, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a critic of the approval, agreed that the food itself was unlikely to be dangerous.

''It seems to me that the food safety risks are very remote,'' Mellon said in a telephone interview. ''The question is how sure you have to be about the safety of the technology when you are moving it into society against a tidal wave of consumer as well as trade concern.''

(AGENCIES)

At-home walking regimen boosts fitness..........

NEW YORK, Jan 16: An at-home, unsupervised exercise program can improve fitness and well being, Japanese researchers report.

Adults instructed to walk aerobically for at least 20 minutes at least twice a week and to increase the total number of steps they walked daily showed significant gains in stamina, vitality and mental health after 32 weeks, Dr. Nozomi Okamoto of Nara Medical University School of Medicine in Kashihara and colleagues report.

While the health benefits of exercise are clear, most studies investigating these benefits have involved supervised workouts, which can be costly and inconvenient in real life, the researchers point out. In the current study, published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, they tested whether an at-home, unsupervised 32-week programme would also be beneficial.

The researchers randomly assigned 200 adults 42 to 75 years old to the exercise group or to a control group. In addition to walking, the exercisers were asked to attend a two-hour exercise class every four weeks.

At the end of the program, people in the exercise group showed significant improvements in a test of walking stamina and another test that required them to sit on a chair, stand, and sit again as many times as possible for 30 seconds. Male exercisers showed a greater increase in general and mental health than their counterparts in the control group, while women reported better physical functioning, general health and vitality.

The benefits of the programme were ''comparable'' to those that would be seen with a standard supervised exercise program, Okamoto and colleagues write.

''The present method can be recommended as feasible for application in the community because many opportunities to perform home-based walking exist in daily life,'' they conclude. (AGENCIES)

Don't panic over heart drug news, US group advises ....

WASHINGTON, Jan 16: News that the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin may not work to protect arteries and may in fact worsen clogging should not cause patients to panic, the American College of Cardiology said.

They said yesterday the study -- which was carried on newspaper front pages and which depressed the shares of one of the makers, Schering-Plough -- was not the last word on the drug's efficacy.

Merck & Co and Schering-Plough said on Monday that in a study known as ENHANCE, Vytorin failed to significantly halt clogging of arteries better than an older generic drug.

Members of Congress said they planned to investigate the companies' handling of the study results, which were delayed for what many people considered to be a suspiciously long time.

In the meantime, patients should not suddenly stop taking the drug, the cardiology group said.

''There is no reason for patients to panic,'' the ACC said in a statement.

''This is not an urgent situation and patients should never stop taking any prescribed medications without first discussing the issue with their health care professional,'' the statement added.

Vytorin combines two cholesterol-lowering drugs -- ezetimibe, sold under the brand name Zetia, and simvastatin, sold generically and under the Zocor brand name.

720 PATIENTS

The study involved 720 patients with very high levels of cholesterol from an inherited form of heart disease. Doctors made images of their arteries to see if the drugs slowed the buildup of plaque, but the results showed that Zocor alone in fact worked better than Vytorin.

''According to the American College of Cardiology, this study deserves serious thought and follow-up,'' the group said.

''The overall incidence rates of cardiac events were nearly identical between both treatment groups, and both medicines were generally well tolerated.''

It said more studies to be published later would shed more light on the matter.

Michigan Democratic Reps John Dingell, chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak, chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said they were investigating the way Merck and Schering-Plough handled the study.

''Additionally, Merck and Schering-Plough's delay in releasing study results, as well as their attempt to manipulate the data is, quite frankly, suspicious,'' Dingell said in a statement.

''American consumers and their doctors should not have had to wait nearly two years for this information. Why did Merck and Schering-Plough go to great lengths to delay the study results? Why did they attempt to manipulate the data? We will continue our investigation until these questions are answered.'' (AGENCIES)

F-16 gets super cruise capability..........

FORT WORTH, TEXAS, Jan 16: As the deadline for India’s biggest ever defence deal for purchase of 126 new fighter planes nears, US aviation giant Lockheed Martin today unveiled a new upgraded version of its F-16 fighter planes with ‘super cruise’ capability and Active Electronic Scanned Array (AESA) radars.

So far, the ‘super cruise’ capability is only seen in 5th generation fighters F-22 Raptors and its just unrolling F-35 joint strike fighters.

This capability would impart the fighter with extended range, as it can zoom from take-off to breaking the sound barrier without the use of fuel guzzling after-burners.

The export version of the fighters, for the first time, has also been equipped with AESA radars, as reportedly specified in the Indian Air Force’s USD 10-billion tender for the acquisition of 126 fighters.

Top company official Chuck Artymovich told a group of Indian newsmen that the AESA radar, which gives the capability to simultaneously track and destroy ground and air threats, has been cleared by the US government for installation in 80 F-16s ordered by the United Arab Emirates.

"We are confident that similar green signal would be given for installation of such radars in the case of export to India also," he said.

Speaking while unveiling an India-specific Fighting Falcons (F-16 IN), the Lockheed Martin executive said that the proposed fighter planes would also be armed with infra-red search and track pods as well as, counter-electronic warfare pods.

"The F-16 IN is a complete new aircraft and totally caters to India’s requirements and there could be no comparison with Block 50 and 60 fighters, being made for other countries," he said.

The US company officials said that there were fair chances of India increasing its fighter intake by 50 more planes. Artymovich’s comment assumes significance, as the international tenders for the deal are expected to be opened on March 2.

Besides the F-16, other major contenders for the contract include Boeing’s F-18, Eurofighter, Gripen of Sweden, Rafale of France and Russia’s MIG 35.

At the ceremony, Lockheed Martin executives said they had met all requirements proposed in the Indian Request For Proposals (RFP) without giving out any details of the contents, citing confidentiality.

They said that the company was prepared to meet the RFP requirements of offsets, and would do so in the field of aeronautics or for co-development of an Indian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

Fighting Falcons have proved to be the world’s largest selling fighters with sales touching a figure of 4,300. It also holds a record of 400,000 hours of combat flying and being the safest multi-role fighter in the US history.

Asked why the company did not offer its 5th generation fighter F-35, Lockheed officials said that the deal time-frame ruled out the possibility for the same.

On the occasion, Indian newsmen, were for the first time, shown the futuristic joint strike fighter. (PTI)