Researchers under fire for abortion-depression link
CHRISTCHURCH — Women who've had abortions are significantly more likely to suffer from depression than the general public says a report out of New Zealand. Critics, including family planning advocates, savaged the study as being simplistic, misleading and ripe for demagogic misuse. The New Zealand School of Medicine and Health Sciences study followed 1,265 women from birth beginning in the 1970s. Fourteen percent of the women reported having abortions, of whom about half experienced bouts of depression. The Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a contradictory study last November claiming "there is mainly improvement in psychological well-being in the short term after termination of pregnancy."

BMJ scolds soaps for preposterous over-romanticizing of comas
PHILADEPHIA — A team of researchers has analyzed how soap operas affect people's perception of comas. The study, published in the December 24 BMJ, looked at how soaps like Days of Our Lives "contribute to unrealistic expectations of recovery." The researchers looked at nine of the top US soaps from 1995-2005. They identified 73 coma cases; 89% recovered fully, 8% died, and 3% remained in a vegetative state at the end of follow-up. Two patients who died were later revealed to be alive but the authors counted them as deaths because they reasoned that viewers would perceive them as having died.

Goodbye Bedlam, hello Hilton
LONDON — Mental health patients often just need a little time away from it all argues Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health CEO Angela Greatley, whose January 3 report suggested that within a decade "individuals needing time and space may be put up in a hotel rather than admitted to hospitals." The report also called for schools to add mental health — or rather "emotional literacy" — to their curriculums.

The Pill: no preggers ... or libido
BOSTON — Thirty to forty percent of women on birth control pills lose their mojo, and what's worse, this loss of libido can persist for up to a year after they stop taking them. The findings, from a team of researchers at the Lehey Clinic, were published in the January issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. They blamed pill-related frigidity on decreased levels of circulating testosterone.

Eating disorders start very early on
PADUA, ITALY — Diabetes, anemia and placental infarction — the death of part of the placenta — in the mother may lead to eating disorders in the child, according to a group of Italian researchers from the University of Padua. Using data from hospital records, investigators followed 114 women with anorexia, 73 with bulimia and 554 with neither disorder to see if birth complications could be linked to the development of eating disorders. The researchers also found that the number of complications affected the age at which the disorders developed. The study was published January 3 in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Whooping cough catches on in fickle teenage demographic
SACRAMENTO — More and more teens are presenting with pertussis, aka whooping cough, and passing the infection to highly vulnerable infants. Doctors had previously believed the vaccine administered in childhood was good for life, but the recent surge in cases in the US has prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to recommend a booster shot for all adolescents. "For the 10 to 19-year-old age group, there has been a 400% increase in the number of reported cases over the last 15 years or so," Dr Dean Blumberg, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UC Davis, told the New York Times.

Cranking the tunes might lead to non-cancerous tumours
COLUMBUS — Researchers have linked loud noise to the development of acoustic neuroma — a non-cancerous tumour that leads to hearing loss. Researchers from Ohio State University looked at 710 people — 146 with acoustic neuroma and 564 controls. They found that participants exposed to loud noise — 80 decibels or higher — were up to 2.25 times more likely to develop the tumour. The number of years a person was exposed to this kind of loud noise also upped the risk. The study will be published in the February 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Pond scum has brain-boosting power similar to Alzheimer's meds
ZURICH — A team of Swiss researchers have found that blue-green algae may be able to swamp Alzheimer's. The studies are still in preliminary stages. But the researchers found a compound in the algae called nostocarboline that attacks the enzyme cholinesterase. The Alzheimer's link? Cholinesterase is responsible for the breakdown of the brain chemical acetylcholine — something that's in short supply in the noggins of AD sufferers. Many of today's AD meds target cholinesterase in the same fashion. The results of the study appear in the December 26 issue of the Journal of Natural Products.

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