IN BRIEF (Page 19)

Mediterranean 'magic' diet

Foods commonly eaten in the Mediterranean region can prevent asthma and chronic bronchitis, experts say.

Vegetables, fruits, whole grain products, nuts, fish and olive oil - foods common in the diets of Italians, Greeks and people living throughout the Mediterranean region - lower the risk of developing a chronic respiratory condition by about half, says the German association of pulmonologists in Heidenheim.

The association cited two studies. One collected data from 43,000 people in the United States between 40 and 75 years of age, and the other examined 690 children in Greece between the ages of 7 and 18.

"The cause of many chronic respiratory diseases is a metabolic imbalance, but this can be influenced by eating healthy, well-balanced foods," says Michael Barczok of the association's board of directors.

Highly recommended are the type of red grapes used in making wine, which contain polyphenole, which Barczok says can block the inflammation process in the lungs.

Key diabetes gene

Scientists have pinpointed an important gene involved in increasing a child's risk for type 1 diabetes - a discovery they said may lead to a way to prevent the development of the disease.

The researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and McGill University in Montreal said the new gene appears to be active almost exclusively in the body's immune cells.

Writing on Sunday in the journal Nature, the researchers said they scanned the genomes of about 6,000 people, half of whom had type 1 diabetes, also called juvenile diabetes.

They confirmed the role of four genes previously implicated in raising risk for the disease, and identified a fifth gene, called KIAA0350, that they believe plays the biggest part of any of them in type 1 diabetes susceptibility.

Clobbering cholesterol

For elderly patients with coronary disease, treatment with high doses of cholesterol-lowering Lipitor (known generically as atorvastatin) reduces the risk of heart-related events more than low doses, according to a new report.

Aggressive lowering of LDL ("bad") cholesterol with high doses of atorvastatin, compared with routine cholesterol lowering with low doses, produces additional clinical benefit in elderly heart patients, said Dr Nanette K. Wenger.

Wenger, of Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, and colleagues came to this conclusion after analyzing data on some 3,800 subjects aged 65 years or more who formed part of a group of 10,000 people with coronary disease.

When antibiotics don't work

Young children treated for urinary tract infections are not likely to benefit from continued antibiotic treatment after the infection clears, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week. The use of prophylactic antibiotics, which involves daily administration of antibiotics to children after an initial urinary tract infection, or UTI, does not prevent recurrence, and it increases the risk of infection caused by antibiotic-resistant bugs, researchers found.

Males help babies bloom

Men can improve the outcome of a woman's pregnancy and childbirth if they become informed partners in maternal health, the United Nations said last week.

"The support of an informed husband improves pregnancy and childbirth outcomes and can mean the difference between life and death in case of complications, when women need immediate medical care," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

"Supportive fathers can play an important role in the love, care and nurturance of their children," the statement said.

Agencies

(China Daily 07/18/2007 page19)