A study released on Tuesday has revealed surprising facts on the sky-rocketing videogame sales in the United States and Britain last quarter. In gadget-crazy Japan however, sales have dropped 21 percent.

In a sign that the industry is prospering despite global financial woes, the NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Ltd. and Enterbrain Inc. report said that videogame sales grew by 15 percent in Britain during the period and eight percent in the United States.

Overall, sales of vide…

Cutting back on sleep could increase the risk of heart disease, a study published Monday found.

Sleeping less than 7.5 hours a night was associated with a 33 percent higher rate of cardiovascular incidents such as strokes and heart attacks, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Archives of Internal Medicine.

Japanese researchers monitored the sleep of 1,255 people with hypertension for an average of 50 months. They tracked daytime and n…

Researchers have developed a tiny generator which can harvest the excess energy of a beating heart and help power a pacemaker or defibrillator, said a study released Monday.

“What this might mean is that in the next era of pacemakers, you’d get devices that lasted significantly longer and we could add more functions to help monitor the heart,” said lead author Paul Roberts of Southampton University Hospital in Britain.

“It’s possible they could be efficient enough to allo…

The world’s biggest computer chip maker on Monday dove into the medical market with technology that lets doctors make house calls on patients without being there.

Intel Health Guide uses gadgetry and Internet connections to enable medical personnel to monitor the health of chronically ill people from afar.

Doctors and nurses can keep tabs on heart functions, blood sugar levels and other health factors of at-home patients and then manage their care remotely, according to C…

Following the recent and numerous military activities of the United States, the country’s war veterans have turned out to be causalities of several psychological wounds. And so, major US mental health organizations have pledged to offer volunteer help for a non-profit group that hopes to provide free counseling to such US soldiers.

The growing number of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan facing mental disorders represents a “national crisis,” said Elizabeth Clark, head of the Nation…

Fresh grants amounting to 2.75 billion dollars have been approved of by the multilateral Global Fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria over the next 2 years.

With the latest injection, total grants approved by the Geneva-based fund have increased to 14.4 billion dollars in 140 countries, the body said.

“This is the highest amount of new financing approved by the Global Fund ever,” Rajat Gupta, chairman of the fund’s board said in a statement issued at the end of a …

One of the easiest and best ways to lose body weight and maintain good health is walking.

A brisk 30 minutes walk every day takes you a long way in building your health and balancing your weight.

Huge benefits can be reaped when walking is woven into our lifestyle.

Tips from diehard walkers

1) Climb the stairs instead of taking the lift, this is akin to taking your heart for a walk and it is unbeatable!

2) Walk to the nearest grocery store or restaurant and avoid taking your car or bike.

What’s the best method?

Brisk walks works wonders and maintaining a steady pace while walking is very important.

Fitness experts emphasize that it is important to do a few minutes of warming up exercises so that you do not end up straining your muscles and suffer pain.

The five important benefits of walking:

• A good brisk walk stimulates your thinking.

• Anxiety, stress and depression take a back walk when you walk as it releases endorphins, the body’s natural tranquillizers.

• By walking, you can boost your energy level as it burns a higher percentage of body fat and increases your overall health and fitness.

• Walking gives a feeling of overall well being as it improves blood circulation to the arms and legs.

• Walking also reduces the risk of getting a heart attack.

• Walking improves cardiovascular fitness by stimulating the heart to beat faster and results in blood rich in oxygen from the lungs to flow to the muscles. The functioning of the heart and lungs become more efficient, blood pressure is reduced and even helps one recover from a heart attack.

If you are over 40 years old and have heart problems, and you are overweight with respiratory, blood pressure, or cholesterol problems, take your doctor’s advice and plan to walk. Be fit for life!

Don’t wait for the right season or reason. Seize the moment and walk out now.!

A newly-discovered genetic flaw may lay the nervous system open to assault from the body’s own immune system, leading to multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study published Sunday.

In MS, the immune system attacks myelin, the fatty sheath that protects the cells of the central nervous system.

As a result, nerve signals get slowed or blocked, causing difficulties in movement and coordination, muscle weakness, cognitive impairment, slurred speech and vision problems. Th…

MP3 player headphones placed within an inch of pacemakers or implantable defibrillators may interfere with the operation of the lifesaving cardiac devices, according to a study released Sunday.

Research found that neodymium, a magnetic substance contained in the MP3 player headphones, appears to impede proper functioning of the technology, posing a potential grave risk to patients who rely on the devices.

“Exposure of a defibrillator to the headphones can temporarily deac…

A new study has claimed that the world’s most popular anti-cholesterol drug Crestor, could be of use in more ways than one. Among patients who currently don’t face a high risk of getting a heart disease, Crestor could reduce their risk further by nearly 44 percent.

The results of the study named JUPITER were presented at an annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans and were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study of 17,802 …

 Low carb snacks are easily digestible and will cause tryptophan in your blood to enter the brain, where it is metabolized into serotonin. Elevated serotonin will improve your mood within 20 to 30 minutes.

Whole wheat bread sandwich

A slice of whole wheat bread smeared with mint chutney(optional) and topped with a slice of cucumber, tomato and onion is the best bet to pep up your mood on a dull afternoon.

Easy to make ‘Chick pea sundal’

1. Soak 2 cups of chickpeas over night.

2. Wash and drain carefully, then cook for about an half an hour to 40 minutes in adequate water until the chick peas become soft enough for you to squash between two fingers.

3. Add necessary salt and freshly ground pepper. Serve yourself in a small 50ml cup.

Make sure that your stomach is empty and that you eat no protein between meals. These snacks can be had about 3 or 4 hours after each meal and about 1 hour before your next one.

Zimbabwe’s government will release millions of dollars in unspent foreign aid given to the country last year to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, state media reported Thursday.

“We have never refused to acknowledge the liability,” Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono told the Herald newspaper, saying the money would be cleared in seven days.

The Global Fund calculates that the inflation-battered central bank has not released 7.3 million dollars (5.7 million euros) held i…

The World Health Organization on Thursday praised the United Nations General Assembly for taking the lead in banning smoking and tobacco sales at the UN headquarters in New York.

“The General Assembly deserves congratulations for protecting the health of delegates, employees and visitors,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, praising member states for having “set a tremendous example.”

The General Assembly on Monday passed a resolution imposing a blanket ban on indoo…

The rich live longer than the poor but the gap narrows substantially in cities where there are plentiful parks, woods and playing fields, according to a study that appears in Saturday’s issue of The Lancet.

Researchers looked at mortality records and income data for 366,000 people in England who were below retirement age in the first half of this decade, and matched these figures to location.

In the least “green” areas, the difference in the death rate between rich and po…

Crimes by the elderly in Japan have surged to a record high, with many committed because of money worries, loneliness and difficulty caring for sick relatives, a government report said Friday.

Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, but an increasing number of them are committed by older people, the report revealed.

Last year 48,605 elderly people were arrested or investigated for crimes other than traffic offences, a four-fold jump from a decade ago and the…

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday his fast-rising social networking website is focused on spreading around the world, not pumping cash into its coffers.

Zuckerberg dismissed any notion that Facebook is under pressure to justify a 15 billion dollar market valuation resulting from software giant Microsoft last year paying 240 million dollars for a 1.6 percent stake in the young California company.

“We don’t feel any pressure,” Zuckerberg said during an on-stage…

At least 50 people have died of cholera and more than 100 have been taken to hospital since the disease broke out last week in northern Manica province, a medical officer said Wenesday.

“The number of deaths has gone up to 50 but the situation is under control,” Evelia Marole, a government doctor in Guru, a district in Manica, told AFP.

“More than 100 others are in hospital due to the disease. We have isolated the district…nobody can go in or out of it until the cholera…

Malawi, one of Africa’s poorest nations, has received 20 million dollars (15.4 million euros) from the Global Fund to boost its AIDS and HIV treatment programme, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The funds will be used to buy anti-retroviral drugs and HIV testing kits, said Washington Kaimvi, of Malawi’s National AIDS Commission.

“As of June, we had 184,405 patients on anti-retroviral therapy (ART), but we hope to reach over 200,000 soon,” Kaimvi said.

“We …

Pakistan’s cabinet on Wednesday approved a bill aiming to protect women against workplace harassment and provide them with a safe working environment, the information minister said.

Under the proposed legislation, the government plans to set up a special federal ombudsman to handle complaints from women who face harassment at work, minister Sherry Rehman told a press briefing.

“Safe environment will be provided to all working women,” she said.

The minister sai…

A ban on gay marriages in California has been approved in a referendum only months after the practice was legalized prompting thousands of same-sex couples to tie the knot, officials said Wednesday.

The secretary of state said that with 95 percent of precincts reporting the proposal to limit marriage to members of the opposite sex had been approved by 52.1 percent of voters, compared with 47.9 percent who voted against.

The referendum called for the California constitutio…

The deadly H5N1 flu virus disarms the human immune system by hiding bits of genetic material that would normally trigger an infection alarm, according to a study published Thursday.

Pieces of protein inside the virus form tube-like structures that obscure strands of RNA formed as host cells are attacked, according to the study.

The finding may explain why this strain of bird flu is so deadly in people, and could lead to drugs that will unmask the virus and let our natural…

Laboratories have for the first time sequenced the full genetic code of an African and an Asian in what amounts to a major step towards the goal of a tailor-made profile of one’s DNA.

Until now, the genomes of only two individuals — James Watson, who co-determined DNA’s double-helix structure, and maverick biotech entrepreneur Craig Venter — have been unravelled.

Both men are of European descent, which leaves gaps in knowledge about how people of different ethnic backgr…

Japanese researchers said Thursday they had created functioning human brain tissues from stem cells, a world first that has raised new hopes for the treatment of disease.

Stem cells taken from human embryos have been used to form tissues of the cerebral cortex, the supreme control tower of the brain, according to researchers at the government-backed research institute Riken.

The tissues self-organised into four distinct zones very similar to the structure seen in human fo…

Angelina Jolie showed off her new tattoos during her much-hyped visit to New York, at the New York Film Festival screening of her new film, Changeling as reported by The Telegraph. To commemorate the birth of Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline Angelina Jolie has decided to change by getting two more tattoos etched onto her left arm.

The two lines of blue script on her upper left arm detail the longitudinal and latitudinal location of Nice, where Knox and Vivienne were born in July.

They’re not the only coordinate tattoos Angelina Jolie has – in fact; she’s a long-time proponent of them. Angelina Jolie’s arm also bears the coordinates of the birthplace of Maddox, the birthplace of Zahara, the birthplace of Shiloh Nouvel, the birthplace of Pax Thien and the exact location of where Angelina Jolie decided to steal Brad Pitt away from Jennifer Aniston forever.

This may be a sweet gesture but you shouldn’t be fooled.! Angelina Jolie basically uses the tattoos as proof of purchase for her adopted kids. This way it’s much easier for her to return them if one of them goes defective.

But if Angelina Jolie keeps collecting babies at the rate she’s going, and if she insists on having their birth locations tattooed on her arms after each one, the poor woman’s going to need an arm extension put in before Christmas.

Tired of those bland tiny-sized “healthy-diet” foods that leave your taste buds numb? Now, chefs have come up with what could be called “every dieter’s delight”- delicious gourmet dishes with not more than 400 calories per serving!

Heirs of the light diet cuisine of the 1970s, the new “spa cuisine” chefs spawned in Asia boast menus as colorful as those of top gastronomy guides: scallop carpaccio with artichokes and roast pumpkin seeds, pan-fried kidney in beer with crunchy buckwheat,…

A new study has shockingly revealed that the second-stage trial of the experimental HIV vaccine was cut short in 2007 because the drug raised the likelihood of HIV infection among the vaccine recipients.

The HIV-1 vaccine, which raised hopes in the fight against AIDS as it was being developed by US pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co., was undergoing second stage trials when the problem was discovered in September 2007, said researchers at the Montpellier Institute of Molecular Genetic…

A new study has given hard facts to prove increased child medical prescriptions for chronic illnesses, especially diabetes, between 2002-2005. In fact, diabetes rates have doubled in recent years.

The research, published in the US journal Pediatrics, found that medication for type 2 diabetes for five to 19 year-olds increased by 103 percent over the period, with the increase most marked among girls (up 147 percent) compared with boys (up 38.7 percent).

Prescriptions for a…

A study published Monday claimed it had established for the first time a link between TV programs with sexual content and teenage pregnancies.

Researchers interviewed 2,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17 three times between 2001 and 2004 and found that those with the highest exposure to sex on television were twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy than those with the least exposure.

“Adolescents receive a considerable amount of information about sex through television a…

One child in Burkina Faso has died from yellow fever while another infant has recovered, the WHO said on Monday, as it announced a mass vaccination for the region where both cases were reported.

In northern Burkina Faso’s Ouahigouya district 366,052 people will be vaccinated against the disease after the two confirmed yellow fever cases, the World Health Organization said in a statement.

The first case involved a seven-month-old infant who recovered from the disease, whil…

Parties to a treaty aimed at controlling trade in toxic products have failed to put white asbestos, a known carcinogen, on its watch list, the Rotterdam Convention’s secretariat reported Monday.

More than 120 representatives of states parties to the treaty were unable to reach consensus on the widely used building material also known as chrysotile asbestos, it said in a statement.

The convention’s Prior Informed Consent (PIC) list currently includes 39 hazardous substance…