The number of college students with severe mental illness, including those on psychiatric medications, is rising. Shari Roan – Los Angeles Times The number of college students who are afflicted with a serious mental illness is rising, according to data presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Assn. in San Diego The findings came from an analysis of 3,265 college students who used campus counseling services between September 1997 and August 2009. The students were screened for mental disorders, suicidal thoughts and self-injurious behavior. In 1998, 93% of the...

Links with pharmaceutical companies declared for 5 of 15 advisors on pandemic The World Health Organization has released the names of experts with ties to the pharmaceutical industry who advised the UN agency about the swine flu pandemic. Of the 15 experts the WHO used when deciding to designate the H1N1 outbreak a pandemic, six declared potential conflicts of interest, including receiving support from the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine manufacturers. The experts were from the fields of epidemiology, public health, international air travel and health and came from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin...

Alzheimer’s specialists might soon have a new set of tools for diagnosing the brain-wasting disease well before symptoms appear, but so far no effective treatments have been found, raising questions about how the tests should be used. Radioactive imaging agents that can light up Alzheimer’s proteins on brain scans are already in late-stage clinical trials. And a Belgian team this week said it was able to accurately spot early signs of Alzheimer’s disease by measuring levels of disease-related proteins in spinal fluid. Alzheimer’s experts largely agree the disease can be...

CHENNAI: A day after the Lancet report on a drug-resistant superbug NDM-1 created a global scare, India hit out at the study, which it said was funded by pharma companies that make antibiotics to treat such cases. While the Union health ministry issued a statement on Thursday, which took offence to the naming of the bug after the national capital, the report’s Chennai-based lead authorKarthikeyan Kumarasamy dissociated himself from parts of it. “The study was funded by the European Union and two pharmaceutical companies, Wellcome Trust and Wyeth, which produce antibiotics for treatment...

By Andrew Whitley Fresh bread – you can’t beat it. House-sellers let its aroma do the talking. Supermarkets waft baking smells through their stores to whet appetites and loosen purse strings. But a recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority suggests that what you smell is not necessarily what you get. Tesco’s claim in a full page Sunday paper advert that ‘every single loaf’ of ‘fresh bread, baked from scratch in our in-store bakery… is genuinely British’, has been judged to be misleading. Read more…

By Claire Bates Scientists have developed a new pain-relief pill from a chemical used by sea snails to catch their prey. It was found to be as effective as morphine for relieving the most severe forms of pain but without the added risk of addiction. Marine cone snails produce a saliva that contains a deadly dose of peptide toxins to help the slow-moving creatures catch prey. They inject passing victims with needle-like teeth that shoot out of their mouths. (Researchers said the peptide could potentially revolutionise the treatment of the most severe forms of pain) Scientists have already transformed...

By Daily Mail Reporter Kicking and lashing out while asleep could mean you’re more likely to develop dementia or Parkinson’s disease, scientists warn. They say it could signal a higher risk up to 50 years before diagnosis. Researchers found a link between people with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorders and brain conditions many years later. Read more…

By Luke Salkeld and Hannah Roberts A cash-strapped NHS hospital paid £2,557 a day for an interim boss, it emerged yesterday. For working just 97 days during his ten-month stint in charge, Derek Smith earned a staggering £248,041. The 61-year-old also claimed just under £20,000 in expenses to cover travel, food and subsistence during that time, in which he worked an average of three or four days a week. His daily rate is significantly more than a nurse would expect to earn in an entire month. Dorset County Hospital, which is £5.1million in the red, also hired three other interim directors to...

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The Web, it sometimes seems, is a siren specter that lures us into sitting around like some species of houseplant while our trunk grows abnormally wide. Its abundant enticements keep us from doing what we know we should, like, say, making any movement whatsoever or consuming foods that do not come packaged in styrofoam. But according to new research, the Internet can also be something else: a place for helping people keep weight off. The new study, conducted over a two-and-a-half-year period, found that the more often people logged on to a website, the more likely they were to maintain weight...