# Other Health news 10th February 2010



## Northerner (Feb 10, 2010)

*Size zero diets 'ruining girls' health' warns watchdog over teenagers copying celebrity role models*
Teenage girls are wrecking their health with 'size zero' diets, according to an official report. 

They are shunning protein and dairy foods in an apparent effort to keep as thin as their celebrity role models. The study found that 46 per cent of teenage girls consume too little iron, putting them at risk of anaemia and the associated tiredness and lethargy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...-essential-nutrients-warns-food-watchdog.html 

*Decade of spending on health messages 'has had little effect'*
People are eating as badly as they were 10 years ago despite hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being spent on healthy-eating campaigns, the Government's food watchdog admitted yesterday. A nationwide nutrition survey for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) revealed that the majority of Britons are still eating too many processed foods and sweets and not enough fresh fruit and vegetables. Adults eat twice as much sausages as white fish, and boys almost equalled their consumption of salad and other raw vegetables with chocolate.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...h-messages-has-had-little-effect-1894551.html

*Hayfever season 'may start next month'*
The hayfever season start as early as next month triggered by the cold winter, experts have warned. A cold winter encourages birch trees to pollinate early, Prof Jean Emberlin, director of The National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit said. And for many people with hayfever symptoms tree pollen is the main problem.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7198423/Hayfever-season-may-start-next-month.html

*Obese teenagers 'should undergo lap-band surgery'*

Severely overweight teenagers should undergo lap-band surgery, scientists in Australia have said, after a study found the procedure helped them lose 80 per cent of their excess fat. The study, conducted at Monash University and the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, showed dramatically better results among adolescents who had the surgery, compared with those on a strict diet and exercise regime. It found that after two years, teens who underwent the appetite-reducing procedure lost an average of 79 per cent of their excess weight, while those who stuck to the rigorous lifestyle shed just 13 per cent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...eenagers-should-undergo-lap-band-surgery.html

*More than 2,000 claim they are too fat to work*

Around half of British adults are now estimated to be overweight Photo: PA The numbers claiming disability benefits on the grounds that they are incapacitated by obesity have nearly doubled from 1,100 when Labour came to power to 2,040 last year. The annual cost to the taxpayer of paying the ?89.80-a-week incapacity and severe disablement allowance to those with obesity as a "main disabling condition" now stands at nearly ?10 million a year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...2000-claim-that-they-are-too-fat-to-work.html

*Out-of-hours medical care 'not good enough'  *

Out-of-hours medical services are still "not good enough", the health minister has said in the wake of the unlawful killing of a patient. Mike O'Brien made the comment in the Commons following David Gray's death in Cambridgeshire in February 2008. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8507292.stm

*Frankincense: Could it be a cure for cancer?  *

The gift given by the wise men to the baby Jesus probably came across the deserts from Oman. The BBC's Jeremy Howell visits the country to ask whether a commodity that was once worth its weight in gold could be reborn as a treatment for cancer. Oman's Land of Frankincense is an 11-hour drive southwards from the capital, Muscat. Most of the journey is through Arabia's Empty Quarter - hundreds of kilometres of flat, dun-coloured desert. Just when you are starting to think this is the only scenery you will ever see again, the Dhofar mountains appear in the distance. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8505251.stm


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