A baby who is about the right age to start trying solid foods (6 months is the recommended age), source Facebook. Liquid-based nutritional supplements, originally formulated for malnourished or undernourished children, need more regulatory oversight as they are increasingly marketed to promote growth in children generally, warn researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, U.S. The jour...

Thomson Reuters Foundation / Sixty percent of the world's 5.9 million children who died before their fifth birthday last year were in 10 countries in Asia and Africa, said a study published on Friday, prompting calls for action to reduce the mortality. The study published in The Lancet medical journal said the latest data highlights the inequality in children's death among the 194 countries it ...

(Reuters) - Swiss scientists have helped monkeys with spinal cord injuries regain control of non-functioning limbs in research which might one day lead to paralyzed people being able to walk again. The scientists, who treated the monkeys with a neuroprosthetic interface that acted as a wireless bridge between the brain and spine, say they have started small feasibility studies in humans to tria...

By Wendy Anders Gardasil, the controversial human papilloma virus vaccine that was tested in Costa Rica. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG’s Central America and Caribbean subsidiary (Roche CAC) reported US$116 million in exports from January to October 2015, reported El Financiero (EF), Costa Rica’s business daily. As part of this growth, the company invested US$5.5 million last year in its distri...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — Eight Caribbean territories will receive financial assistance totaling US$8 million to combat exposure to toxic chemicals found in common household cleaning products, processed foods, and even clothing that can severely damage a person’s health. Examples of toxic household products, photo from Facebook. Dr. Ahmad Khan, director of the Basel Convention Regional Cent...

By Wendy Anders Glen Gaulton from University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine gives a talk. The University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine signed an academic cooperation agreement with Costa Rica’s Ministry of Health last week to lend their expertise to collaborative research projects, reported the Health Ministry. Areas of interest include oncology, neurological diseases...

(Reuters) - A study of mice infected with Zika showed the virus caused lasting damage to key cells in the male reproductive system, resulting in shrunken testicles, lower levels of sex hormones and reduced fertility, U.S. researchers said on Monday. So far, the findings are only in mice, but the result is worrisome enough to warrant further study because of possible implications for people, sai...

A new antibiotic with antifungal properties was discovered in Costa Rica by investigators of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), Harvard University and Wisconsin University. The investigation was conducted in the biological station La Selva in Sarapiquí, Heredia and the name given to this new molecule “Selvamicin” actually makes reference to this. La Selva receives close to 300 investigators ev...

Boosting muscle strength may boost brain function in people with mild memory and thinking problems, a new study finds. Source, Facebook. The research included 100 people aged 55 to 86. All had mild memory and thinking problems (mild cognitive impairment). The study volunteers who did weight training twice a week for six months to at least 80 percent of their maximum strength showed signi...

Cienfuegos, Cuba, Nov. 1 — Cuba is about to become the country with the oldest population in Latin America and the ninth-oldest in the world by 2050. It faces the double challenge of boosting the birth rate and caring for senior citizens, who account for more than 20 percent of the island's 11.1 million people. Elder care center in Cuba, from Facebook. Cienfuegos, one of the provinces most ...

Scientists in Brazil are preparing to release millions of factory-bred mosquitoes in an attempt to wipe out their distant cousins that carry tropical diseases. The insects' method: have sex and then die. British firm Oxitec says its genetically modified mosquitoes will swarm in among ordinary species such as Aedes aegypti, the insect that carries feared diseases such as Zika, dengue, yellow fev...

By Wendy Anders Youth in Costa Rica, photo for illustrative purposes. The most recent data for adolescent mental health in Costa Rica paint a troublesome picture. An April 2014 study of 3,372 students from 32 public and private high schools in the greater San José metropolitan area shows that one in ten reported having been a victim of violence, and 13 percent had had suicidal thoughts. ...

When we hear about bullying we think about kids and teenagers making fun of a peer due to a number of different reasons, perhaps the way they dress, or the way they look, weight problems, acne, or different social problems; rarely do we link dental problems with bullying. But the fact is according to a study published by the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics that unat...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Ombudswoman, Montserrat Solano Carboni, expressed her concerns regarding proposed changes in pesticide regulations saying they were a setback for human health and the environment, her office reported yesterday in a press statement. The Ministry of Agriculture came under fire for proposing the use of reference chemicals when registering pesticides. So, instead of ...

Costa Rican Alicia Chong Rodríguez is a graduate student at MIT in the program of Integrated Design and Management, she is a co-founder of the startup company named Bloomer Tech (named after women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer), which is developing a bra with built-in sensors that monitor heart activity and communicate to a smartphone application via Bluetooth. She came up with the idea as s...

By Wendy Anders 1 in 5 Canadians enjoy sex on the beach in Costa Rica, file photo. To create a realistic film for young people promoting condom use for safer sex, Coventry University in England is recruiting couples who are willing to be filmed having sex in ‘natural settings', reported England’s The Daily Mail last week. The university is offering £400 in compensation to three young cou...

Dental health is many times neglected and the reasons behind this are many, probably one of the most common reasons people don’t give the necessary importance to dental health is the fear of going to the dentist, many associate the dentist with pain and/or discomfort; and likely the second most common reason has to do with money, getting dental treatments depending on what you need can be pricey, ...

(Reuters) - The race to find protection against the Zika virus is fuelled by something often missing from tropical disease research: the potential for big profit. The prospect of a blockbuster vaccine against a mosquito-borne virus has accelerated the pace of development and attracted the interest of big drugmakers, including Sanofi SA, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Althoug...

By Wendy Anders Taxing sugary drinks can lower their consumption and reduce obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay, says a new World Health Organization (WHO) report released yesterday. Fiscal policies that lead to at least a 20 percent increase in the retail price of sugary drinks would result in proportional reductions in consumption of such products, according to the report titled “Fis...

(Reuters Health) - Women with early-stage breast cancer may have fewer treatment complications and lower costs when they don’t get a mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery, a U.S. study suggests. In recent years, reconstruction following a mastectomy has become more widely available, contributing to a sharp increase in the number of women who opt for this treatment even when less aggress...

(Reuters Health) - Men with prostate cancer may be more likely to have the most serious form of the disease if their diet contains a lot of fat from meat and dairy, a recent U.S. study suggests. The increased risk tied to saturated fat and cholesterol was greater for the prostate cancer patients who had not been taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, researchers report in the journal Prostat...

NOBEL MEDICINE  Tokyo, Oct. 3 — Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi, who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the mechanism of cellular autophagy, underlined Monday the importance of challenges. After hearing about his win, the 71-year-old scientist told media outlets the recognition by Stockholm's Karolinska Institute was an honor because his study was in basic m...

According to a research by the University of Pittsburgh, older women (46 and up) have less sex as they get older but they enjoy the sexual encounters more; this information was provided at the North American Menopause Society’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida. Women that volunteered for the study mentioned suffering from loss of libido in part related to hormonal changes as a product of m...

As October approaches the different events organized to raise cancer awareness and collect funds that go towards fighting breast cancer and other forms of this illness make an appearance. During this month of October three races will take place in Costa Rica:  Anna Ross Foundation Race, Cruzada Avon (Avon Crusade) and Las Mujeres Corremos (Women Run). These events have become a tradition in Cos...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s young, male, and informal workers are the most vulnerable to occupational injury, as reflected in the findings of the Labor Ministry’s 2015 occupational health research presented Monday. Nearly half of the over 115,000 workplace injuries that occurred last year were in the 20 - 35 age group, and 80 percent were in men, reported the Labor Ministry’s occupational h...

BRITAIN SCIENCE Photo for illustrative purposes only. London, Sept. 27 — The United Kingdom saw the birth of the first baby in the world conceived by an assisted reproduction technique which used DNA from three different parents, revealed the British science magazine New Scientist on Tuesday. The publication noted that Abrahim Hassan, a five-month-old baby, was the result of a controvers...

Reuters - In adults of all ages, chronic sleep problems were linked with a greater risk of trouble with activities of daily living later in life, in a recent study. Although disability rates have been falling, up to one in five seniors have at least one limitation in their ability to perform tasks, the researchers write in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. “Most people don’t g...

(EFE).- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced that they will donate more than $3 billion over the next ten years for research into the cure and prevention of diseases. "Can we all together work to cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime? We think it's possible and so do scientists,", they said in a message on Facebook, explaining that ...

According to a study carried out by Costa Rica's National Children Hospital from 2005 to 2014, 140 children are diagnosed with cancer every year; 43% of these correspond to Leukemia, followed by brain tumors 17% and lymphomas 13%, the good news is that 70% survive following adequate treatment. In the U.S.A Brain cancer has surpassed leukemia as the deadliest form of childhood cancer. Reuters...

Vacation time is supposed to be fun and worry-free, it's actually recommended for our wellness, but there are those times where unfortunately we are faced with an unforeseen health problem while traveling, whether that is something as common and simple as a cold or a flu or something more serious such as a broken limb due to an accident, or an appendicitis that couldn’t wait until we got home. ...

In Costa Rica according to studies by the Costa Rican Institute of Drugs (ICD in Spanish) and the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Institute (IAFA in Spanish), kids start using marijuana on average at the age of 11. The amount of male users remains steady if you compare 2014 to 2016 while the use by women has increased. According to this study part of the problem obeys to the misinformation of the po...

Pixabay Commons The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Friday, September 2, 2016, issued a final rule establishing that over-the-counter (OTC) consumer antiseptic wash products containing certain active ingredients can no longer be marketed. Companies will no longer be able to market antibacterial washes with these ingredients because manufacturers did not demonstrate that the ingredients are b...

MSU Today, Michigan State University Contact(s): Hui Liu and Andy Henion Having sex frequently – and enjoying it – puts older men at higher risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. For older women, however, good sex may actually lower the risk of hypertension. That’s according to the first large-scale study of how sex affects heart health in later life. The federally fund...

By Wendy Anders For the fifth year in a row the Universidad Latina (ULatina) has awarded five youth ages 18-29 for heading up projects that have a positive social impact, stated ULatina in a press statement. The Yo Creo Premio (I Believe Award) awarded five $2,500 grants on Friday to talented young people who have shown a demonstrated and measurable impact in addressing problems facing their...

By Wendy Anders Barva, a small coffee-growing town north of Heredia, inaugurated a spacious new clinic last week. The Costa Rican Social Security Board (CCSS), the country’s public health services agency, said at the opening that the new facility expands their capacity to meet with health needs of Barva’s 42,464 residents. Outfitted with previously unavailable services such as a clinical ...

Wikimedia Commons By Tânia Esteves for EFE No one knows for certain the reason why human beings need several hours of sleep every day, but a Portuguese neuroscientist has discovered the protein responsible for the mechanism regulating sleep. Diogo Pimentel, part of an Oxford University team studying the intricacies of sleep, is one of the lead authors of a paper recently published in "Na...

Wikimedia Commons By Igor G. Barbero for EFE He may not be able to close his fists perfectly yet, owing to a layer of warts that are still on his palms, but the "Tree Man" of Bangladesh is pleased with his new hands after a string of surgeries freed them of the burden of warts that resembled the bark of a tree. Now awaiting cosmetic touch-ups, 27-year-old Abul Bajandar, is thinking about...

Adding a sexy, healthy spin to our familiar breakfast menu of pancakes, eggs and cereal is now easier than ever with Costa Rica's "gallo pinto." A recent study published by Nutrition Journal found that the pairing of any type of beans with rice can help stop unhealthy blood sugar spikes in adults with type 2 diabetes. With 25.8 million people in the U.S. living with this condition, Costa Rican "ga...

By Wendy Anders La Carpio, an impoverished neighborhood in the San Jose metro area. (ICR-CRS Archive) The Ministry of Public Security and the Costa Rican Nutrition and Health Research and Teaching Institute (Inciensa) signed an agreement today to work together on projects in vulnerable areas of the country. The primary goal of the initiative, said ministry officials today at a press conf...

Affordable healthcare isn’t a myth. In fact, healthcare systems in other countries can be equally as good—if not better—than that in the U.S.—and charge far less for their services. As more and more U.S. retirees learn that better and faster healthcare is available abroad at a fraction of the cost they’re accustomed to paying at home, a growing number of them are opting to take advantage of what’...