American Urological Association (AUA) finds that Cranberries may prove quite helpful to avoid urinary tract infections (UTIs). So don’t forget to consume a good amount of cranberry sauce on this Thanksgiving.

Cranberries have been used as a natural remedy for some UTIs, as they have acidic contents which can be helpful to hold back the growth of bacteria in the urinary tract, the AUA says.

In urinary tract infections bacteria go through the urinary tract and begin to grow in the urethra and make urethra lining irritated and red. If they are not checked, they can move to bladder and kidneys. Infections in Kidneys are considered quite dangerous as they can become the cause of a life-threatening condition known as bacteremia.

Researchers report that people, who attend at least one religious service (regardless of their religion) in a week, have almost 20% lower risk of death than those who don’t do so.

Eliezer Schanll, the lead author of the study, says: “Religion has always been a hot topic, but now many people are under the shadows of financial uncertainties and terrorism fears and they are seeking stability in their lives. Religion is the thing that can bring this stability in their lives.”

The study has been published in the recent issue of the journal Psychology and Health.

The participants of that study come from a large observational study of Women’s Health Initiative that included almost 95,000 women from all parts of the US. The participants of the study were 50 to 79 years old at the beginning of this study.

When it’s about losing fat, many think that different diet pills are the best answer to the never-ending question of how to lose fat. But you must keep this in mind that these diet pills bring about a lot of side-effects aside from their wonderful results and secondly, they often fail to provide long lasting results as you often begin to gain weight again when you off these pills. The same happens with many other surgical procedures that are quite popular these days for losing excess fat of the body, as they can’t give you a permanent solution and you may begin to gain fat quite soon.

The smartest way to lose body fat is to burn this fat, but for the majority of the people burning body fat is a real effort. It requires taking a lot of exercise or a low calorie diet or both. But most of the time a nice combination of some good exercises and proper healthy diet can do wonder and make you feel about your shape the way you want to.

A new study that included 287,000 women and noticed their mammogram habits, says that increasing weight can boost the risk of developing breast cancer in older women.

Dr. Karla Kerlikowske, who led the study, says: “There are higher levels of circulating estrogens in women have increased body weight that leads to promote tumor growth in them.”

In another study, Kerlikowske and team have examined postmenopausal women with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and they have found higher risk of breast cancer in them.

In this new study, they looked at postmenopausal women who didn’t receive HRT. The study is to be published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dec.3 issue.

According to drug maker Merck & Co claims, Telcagepant has proved more effective drug to treat migraine with least side effects. Zolmitriptan (Zomig) that is often used for migraine treatment is also quite well-known for its different side effects.

A news release about the study says: “Though Zolmitriptan and some new tripants can prove effective to treat migraine, they have many side effects including throat tightness, dizziness, numbness and chest discomfort. Furthermore, they can’t be prescribed for the patients with cardiovascular disease as they become the cause of narrowing blood vessel. Triptans are also not recommended to patients with some migraine subtypes and high blood pressure.

While Telcagepant belongs to a different class known as CGRP or calcitonin gene-related peptide antagonists, experts believe that brain concentrations of CGRP are quite prominent in a migraine and they don’t appear to have blood vessel narrowing qualities and that’s why they may not have the same cardiovascular-related risks like triptans.

A new study suggests that baby’s birth season may be helpful to predict the child’s risk for asthma.

The study is expected to be issued in the first December issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and it shows that babies born in autumn have almost a 30% higher risk for developing asthma than the babies born at other times of the year.

Dr. Tina Hartert, senior author of the study, says: “our study finds that children born in the Northern hemisphere in the fall months have the highest rates of asthma and it indicates that winter viruses such as RSV cause asthma.”

“Now we need to prove that preventing these viruses can prevent asthma,” she added.

According to a new Dutch study, damage to the arteries of smokers’ children may detect in the early decades of their lives.

Dr. Cuno S.P.M Uiterwaal, who led the study, says: “many other studies have also found that smoking in families can harm children’s cardiovascular system, but our study adds that such effect may occur in very early life due to tobacco exposure.”

The finding has been reported in the December issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. The researchers used ultrasound to assess the thickness of the walls of carotid arteries (the major blood vessels to the brain) in 732 young adults with 28 year average age. The records unveiled that more than 60 percent of the fathers and 29 percent of the mothers used to smoke during the pregnancies.

D’Zhana Simmons felt like a living corpse, without heart in her body for four months.

“But I know that I really was here,” the 14-year-old said, and she did survive without a heart.” She looked scared of what she had suffered while being released from Miami hospital.

Since July, she had underdone two heart transplant surgeries and survived with artificial heart pumps, without heart for 118 days between the transplants.

Last spring D’Zhana’s parents came to know that she had cardiac hypertrophy (enlarged heart) that was too weak to perform function. They took her to Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami for heart transplantation. But unfortunately her new heart didn’t perform well and could have chances to rupture, so surgeons decide to replace it.

They surgeons performed unusual act and replaced her heart with artificial pumping devices that kept the process of circulation running, till her second transplant.

Gleevac, which is considered a wonder drug to treat leukemia and other cancers, may also prove helpful to reverse type1 diabetes, researchers from University of California San Francisco find.

While noticing effects on mice, the researchers also found that Gleevec and another similar cancer drug Sutent helped to avoid the development of type1 diabetes. Type1 diabetes occurs because of the body’s inability to produce insulin and more often it is diagnosed in children and young adults.

Jeffrey Bluestone, who led the study, says: “ Gleevec seems to affect related kinases even platelet-derived growth factor that are possibly involved in different cell types  grave to the progression and development of autoimmune disease like type1 diabetes”.

If you have tried every diet and exercise to get rid of your excessive lard and couldn’t get the desired results, restrictive surgery like adjustable gastric banding or lapband system may serve as the right option for you. Many people want to know how adjustable gastric banding works and the answer is simple that the surgeons reduce the size of the stomach by utilizing a variety of techniques. Following restrictive surgery, a person eats less, feels faster and thus loses weight.

Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding and vertical banded gastroplasty are two common kinds of restrictive surgery.

Laparoscopic gastric banding is also known as gastric banding or lap banding and it is considered the second most common weight loss surgery following gastric bypass.