The Blog of Harald

* “Black Tea May Help Get Blood Circulating”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040623/hl_nm/tea_circulation_dc

bq. The authors suspect that black tea improved the dilation of the men’s blood vessel, allowing better blood flow [to the heart].

* “Atkins-style diet could damage chances of having a baby”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/afp/20040628/hl_afp/health_women_fertility

bq. The research — conducted on mice — found that a diet containing 25 percent protein disrupted the normal genetic imprinting pattern in early embryos. It also had an impact on embryos that were transferred to other uteruses.

bq. Embryos receive copies of most genes from both parents, and imprinting causes a gene from just one parent — and not the other — to be switched on. If both gene sets are switched on, development can go haywire. Imprinting flaws are widely blamed for foetal malformations and the extremely high rate of spontaneous abortions among cloned farm animals.

* “Watching TV may speed up puberty”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3847505.stm

bq. Watching too much television may distort the hormonal balance of adolescents and push many of them into early puberty, say researchers. Italian researchers found children denied access to television for just one week experienced a 30% jump in their melatonin levels. The hormone is thought to prevent the early onset of puberty.

(All via “Teal Sunglasses”:http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/, apparently my best source of filtered health news :-)