The smokers who participated in the study gained an average of 9 pounds, but still their arteries showed that problem leaning towards heart disease was avoided. The study also showed the improvement of “good cholesterol.”

People who smoke are scared to quit because of the weight gain that lies ahead. But Dr. James Stein, the study’s leader and a cardiologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that while it is true that people who stop smoking gain weight, a better health benefit can also be achieved. Besides, they can still shed the weight once they get used to not smoking.

One third of the deaths in the U.S. related to smoking are caused by heart disease. Oftentimes, a heart attack forces smokers to quit.

Quitting has been known to lessen the chance of getting or dying of lung cancer. But the clinical trial is the first to show that quitting can also give a better artery health.

The study involved 1,500 smokers divided into six groups. The first five groups were made to take methods that would hep them quit: nicotine lozenges, nicotine patches, bupropion sold as Wellbutrin and Zyban; a combination of lozenges and patches, and a combination of lozenges and bupropion. The sixth group was given a dummy treatment.

Thirty-six percent of the participants quit after one year of the study, Stein said.

Before the start of the study and a year after the smokers quit, doctors tested the health of the participants’ arteries by performing ultrasound tests on them to see how blood vessel linings relaxed and coped with the blood flow. They also stopped the blood flow in the forearm and measured the response of the artery when the flow was restored.

Only 1 percent of the quitters had an improved artery function. But according to Stein, this number could translate to 14 percent less risk in developing heart disease. The study will continue for another two years to give a more accurate answer.

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline PLC provided the medicines used in the study as well as funding for several of the study authors. The entire study is funded by federal government grants.

The findings were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and were also presented during the conference of the group on Monday.

There are four major ligaments in the knee and ACL is one of them. Meniscus cartilage, on the other hand, serves as a shock absorber in the knee joint.

In the study, the researchers observed 99 patients who were 18 and younger during the time of the study and had meniscus repair while undergoing ACL reconstruction.

The overall success was recorded at 74 percent. For simple tears, 84 percent of the repairs were successful; 59 percent for displaced bucket-handle tears; and 57 percent for complex tears.

The study also showed that the rate of freedom-from-failure was 90.9 percent in the course of two years and 76.8 percent after eight years. It also showed improvement in knee function and sporting activity among the patients.

According to Dr. Aaron Krych, chief resident in the orthopaedic surgery department at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, information about adult knee meniscus repair at the time of ACL reconstruction is already in abundance, but the new study has given them a clearer perspective of the same procedure in children.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine on Saturday where another group of researchers also presented a study detailing the success rate of “Tommy John” elbow reconstruction in teenage baseball pitchers.

Scientists from University College London said that they were able to identify thought patterns using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) by differentiating brain activity linked to different memories.

That means that the scientists were able to tell what the person is remembering simply by analyzing the brain activity.

According to Eleanor Maguire, lead author of the study, they have found that human memories are represented in the hippocampus. The findings also present an opportunity how memories are stored and alter through time.

The same group of researchers have had a successful experiment wherein they could pinpoint the exact location of a person standing in a virtual reality room.

The previous experiment focused on spatial memory while the new results looked at episodic memories or recollections of everyday events which are thought to be more complex.

Maguire and her colleagues showed three short films to each of the 10 people who participated in the study. Each of the movies had a different actress and a relatively similar scenario.

The participants were then asked to remember the films. Afterwards, the researchers ran the imaging data from the scan through a computer algorithm that helps identify patterns in the brain activity.

The researchers then found that they can accurately identify the movie that the person was thinking by just looking at the patterns.

The researchers concluded with this study that episodic memories are found in the brain and can be identified even after many re-activations.

In 2008, a similar study was also conducted that showed that the images people are seeing can be predicted just by observing the brain activity.

The findings are published in the March 11 online edition of Current Biology.

The researchers studied interviews done for the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions with LGB individuals in 2001-2002 and 2004-2005. The participants lived in states where there is at least one law that bans same-sex marriage following the 2004-2005 elections.

The number of lesbians, gays and bisexuals who suffered generalized anxiety disorders, mood disorders and alcohol use disorders was far greater after the constitutional amendments were instituted. The increase in general anxiety disorder sufferers even reached more than 200 percent.

According to Deborah Hasin, an epidemiologist from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, the new study gives light to the effects of discrimination in the legislative branch of the government on the well-being and mental health of LGB people.

In the study, institutional discrimination was defined as “societal-level conditions that limit the opportunities and access to resources by socially disadvantaged groups.”

The findings are published online and in print for the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Nam Dang, a researcher from the University of Florida, along with his colleagues in Japan studied the cancer-fighting properties of papaya against tumors in the breast, lung, liver, pancreas and the cervix.

The researchers introduced extract from dried papaya leaves to cancer cells. They noticed stronger effects when they introduced larger doses of the papaya leaf tea.

The group found out that the extract from the papaya amplifies the production of Th1-type cytokines which are crucial in controlling the immune system.

The new study’s finding is helpful in devising new treatment methods in combating cancer by using the immune system.

Papaya has long been used by indigenous people in Asia and Australia as herbal medicine for various ailments. The study only confirmed this ancient medical belief.

Another good news in the study is that the papaya extract was found to have no effect on healthy and normal cells which can avoid side effects during cancer treatments.

In the study, Dang and the other scientists introduced papaya leaf extract of four different strengths to 10 different kinds of cancer cell cultures. In all cultures exposed to the extract, tumor growth slowed down.

Dang and one of his colleagues have already applied to patent for papaya extract distillation through the University of Tokyo.

The study was published on the February issue of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology released on Tuesday by the University of Florida.

However, this is only the first step of yet an extensive research that still has to be worked on further.

Researchers led by Dr. Kathleen Collins from the University of Michigan said in their report that the HIV virus can find their way into the old bone marrow cells that can convert into blood cells later.

The virus will remain dormant if it is still in the bone marrow cells; however, once the cells are converted into blood cells, the virus can reactivate itself causing new infection. It will first cause the fresh blood cells to die before moving on to infect other, the researchers said.

Drugs have been effective in combating AID during recent years, but patients need to take them regularly, otherwise, they will suffer if the infection is renewed. This served as a clue to Collins and her team that some of the virus are tucked away somewhere.

Hide-outs in blood cells called macrophages as well as those in memory T-cells have already been discovered earlier during the start of the study.

Finding the whereabouts of the virus can help doctors eliminate them and therefore, AIDS patients can stop taking drugs. This is very important especially to developing countries where people can hardly afford medications.

Collins acknowledged that more research has to be done because patients are still required to take drugs for their entire lifetime.

The research was commissioned and funded by the University of Michigan, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Bernard Maas Fellowship and Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship.

The vaccination campaign will be done by agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross and will start on March 6. Over 400,000 health workers and volunteers will participate in this massive campaign. The funds are largely provided by Rotary International.

According to WHO, a polio outbreak happened in Nigeria in 2008 which quickly spread to countries in western Africa even reaching as far as Mauritania. No vaccination program was able to stop the outbreak.

Polio is transmitted when an unvaccinated person comes into contact with the feces of a polio-infected person mostly through water. Symptoms of the disease include deformation, muscular atrophy, paralysis and at times, death.

The study followed 6,000 women with ages ranging from 20 to 69. The findings showed that those who took biphosphonate drugs such as Boniva, Fosamax and Zometa for not less than two years had a 40 percent less chance of getting breast cancer compared to the women who did not take the said drugs.

The results, however, were only seen among women who were not obese.

According to Polly Newcomb, lead author of the study and chair of the cancer prevention program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wa., women who  are considered obese may have higher estrogen levels which can affect the effect of biphosphonates to reduce breast cancer risk.

The study did not look into how the biphosphonate drugs work. The researchers could only name some possibilities.

Newcomb said that the drugs can cause the death of tumours by giving an effect to cell functions which may include cell growth and death.

There have been previous studies suggesting that biphosphonates indeed can kill tumor cells, prevent tumors from getting blood supply and make cancer cells stay away from each other.

The study is published in the March online and print issue of the British Journal of Cancer.

Researchers in New Zealand asked 3,043 teenagers between 14 and 15 years old about they spend their time when they do not have anything to do and how close they were to other people.

The study was able to show that for every hour a kid spends in front of the TV, there is a corresponding increase of 4 percent in the chance that the child will be detached from his or her parents while there is a 5 percent increase of the same chance for every hour that the child uses the computer.

In the report published in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, the researchers also pointed out that the children who spent most of their time studying and doing homework were more attached to their parents.

The researchers from the University of Otago in Dunedin also studied responses by 15-year-old kids to an interview in 1987 and 1988. The results were more staggering as there was a 13 percent increase chance of detachment from parents for every hour spent watching TV while 24 percent increase in the risk of detachment from peers for every hour on TV.

One example of a reason why watching TV can cause detachment from parents is that children may spend less time eating meals with their parents when a TV set is installed inside their bedroom.

The researchers also speculate that teens may use online activities such as social networking as substitute for real life relationships.

The researchers concluded in the report that it is important for children to spend more time with their parents so the amount of time children spend on screen-time can cause an alarm. They also suggest further research to study the effect of new technologies on adolescents.