IN BRIEF (Page 19)

Backpacks and back strains

With a new school year underway, the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is reminding parents that wearing backpacks improperly or ones that are too heavy put children at increased risk for back injuries and muscle strain.

A recent study of backpack-carrying pre-K through 9th graders showed that unhealthy changes in posture are magnified if the backpack weighs more than 10 to 15 percent of the student's body weight. The APTA recommends that backpack loads be kept to this limit.

Bouncing back after heart attack

Elderly people who maintain higher levels of physical activity have better survival rates after a heart attack and subsequent angiography to clear the coronary arteries, researchers in Italy and the United States suggest.

Dr Dario Leosco, Federico II University, Naples, and colleagues assessed the daily physical activity levels maintained by 168 men and women, aged 70 years and older, after 30 days and 1 year, researchers report in the American Heart Journal.

Wine keeps cancer away

Drinking a glass or two of red wine could help reduce the risk of men developing prostate cancer, a study published in the United States showed Friday.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) found that feeding male mice a compound found in red wine, called resveratrol, made them 87 percent less likely to develop the most deadly type of prostate cancer.

In addition, the researchers found that mice which were fed resveratrol, but still got cancer, developed less serious tumors, and were 48 percent more likely to have tumor growth halted or slowed when compared to mice not given resveratrol.

"The study adds to a growing body of evidence that resveratrol consumption through red wine has powerful chemoprevention properties, in addition to its apparent heart-health benefits," the leader of the study, Coral Lamartiniere of UAB's Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, said in a statement.

Blood pressure, infertility link

The risk of developing high blood pressure during pregnancy (gestational hypertension) is higher in pregnancies resulting from infertility treatments compared with those resulting from spontaneous conceptions. The risk of preeclampsia is also elevated in assisted pregnancies, according to a study published in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

It's not the antidepressants fault

It cannot be assumed that an antidepressant has lost its effectiveness if a patient relapses while continuing on the medication, because the medication may never have been effective in the first place, according to study findings reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. In the study, the majority of relapses occurred in patients who had never been true responders, Dr. Mark Zimmerman, director of outpatient psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital, said.

AIDS weapon may fight cancer

A drug used to treat people infected with the AIDS virus has shown promise as a possible future weapon against cancer, researchers said on Friday. Scientists at the US National Cancer Institute examined how drugs called protease inhibitors, usually given in combination with other drugs to fight the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, performed against several types of cancer including non-small cell lung cancer.

Agencies

(China Daily 09/05/2007 page19)