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Eating easily digestible foods and chewing thoroughly before swallowing helps prevent heartburn, according to the Professional Association of German Internists (BDI) The BDI states that hectic meals and fatty, heavily spiced or fried foods can trigger heartburn.

Other risk factors include sweet and sour foods, alcoholic drinks, coffee, black tea and smoking. Exercise immediately after a meal could also result in heartburn. Heartburn is caused by improper functioning of the lower oesophageal sphincter, a circular band of muscle around the bottom part of the oesophagus, allowing stomach acid to back up into the oesophagus and irritate the mucous membrane there.

To help prevent stomach-acid reflux, the BDI advises heartburn sufferers to keep their upper body raised when in a lying position, for example by inserting a wedge between the bed’s mattress and box spring or by using an extra pillow. Loose-fitting clothing, proper body weight and regular exercise are also beneficial.

Washington: Younger children will need two doses of the vaccine against the new pandemic of A(H1N1) influenza, US officials said on Monday.

They said tests of Sanofi -Pasteur’s A(H1N1) flu vaccine showed children respond to it just as they do to seasonal flu vaccine, with children over 10 needing only a single dose but children under 9 needing two. Separately, Sanofi said it had won a US government order for 27.3 million more doses of its vaccine and AstraZeneca’s MedImmune unit said the US government has ordered 29 million more doses of its needle-free vaccine.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said young children will likely need to have their doses 21 days apart. But he said they could receive seasonal flu shots and A(H1N1) shots on the same day – something that could ease the logistics of vaccinating children multiple times. “As we had hoped, in children the 2009 A(H1N1) vaccine is acting just like the seasonal flu vaccine,” Fauci told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Children aged 10 to 17 mounted an immune response that should protect them from A(H1N1) within 8 to 10 days, Fauci said. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said 46 US children have died from A(H1N1), which appears to have first emerged in Mexico in March and which spread around the world to cause a pandemic in only six weeks.

A(H1N1) is now the dominant strain of influenza circulating globally and Fauci said it is possible it may replace the seasonal form of A(H1N1) also circulating. “If you look at the history of where new viruses come in, frequently what they do is come back the next year and displace one or even more than one of the circulating strains,” he said. “It is a distinct possibility that this might ultimately be incorporated into a seasonal flu vaccine.” – Reuters

Adolescents suffering from migraine headaches are more likely to get poor grades and less likely to finish high school or go to college than those who don’t get the headaches, a new study has concluded.

Researchers studying the statistical impact of migraine headache and academic performance presented their findings at the 84th Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International in Vancouver, British Columbia recently. The researchers analyzed data on sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as well as reports from parents identifying siblings in the same household with different experiences of migraine – ruling out the possibility that socioeconomic factors could affect migraine headache and academic performance.

Migraine headache was associated with 5% lower GPAs, a 5% less chance of graduating from high school and a 15% less chance of attending college, the study found. “We know that migraine headaches can profoundly impact quality of life. Our study offers evidence that they are an important obstacle to long-term academic success,” said Joseph Sabia, professor of public policy at American University’s School of Public Affairs and one of the authors of the study. “Our results show that migraine sufferers have trouble attending school and have trouble concentrating on the days they do make it to school.”

Absences from school, difficulty paying attention in class, and difficulty completing homework were attributed to 30-40% of the reduction in academic performance. Sufferers of typical headaches or tension headaches showed no difference in academic performance, the researchers noted.

High impact sports such as running appear to improve bone mineral density more than cycling, swimming, or rowing, according to a study conducted by the University of Missouri.

“Only the skeletal sites that experience increased stress from exercise will become stronger,” said Pam Hinton, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at the university’s College of Human Environmental Sciences.

Although previous studies on the effects of resistance training on men had produced varied results, the latest study revealed that such sports as running might have a greater positive effect on bone density.

The researchers, therefore, advise multi-directional activities, including structured jump-training and playing basketball, volleyball, or soccer.