Health bulletin

Broccoli sprout extract protects skin from UV rays

Most people know eating broccoli is good for you, but it also can help skin cells fend off damage from harmful ultraviolet radiation, U.S. researchers said.

The extract derived from newly sprouted broccoli seeds reduced skin redness and damage by more than one-third compared with untreated skin, they said.

Unlike sunscreens, which provide a physical barrier against UV rays by absorbing, blocking or scattering the light, the extract helped boost the production of protective enzymes that defend against UV-related damage.

At the highest doses, the extract reduced redness and swelling by an average of 37 percent.

"This is a first demonstration that a human tissue can be protected directly against a known human carcinogen," said Dr. Paul Talalay of Johns Hopkins University, whose study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Test catches smokers who fib

A simple device for detecting carbon monoxide in the blood may help doctors get an honest answer out of patients who smoke, U.S. researchers said.

The device, called a pulse cooximeter, is typically used to test for carbon monoxide levels in firefighters, but it can also detect carbon monoxide levels in people who smoke, offering a powerful tool for educating patients about the effects of smoking.

Troops, docs to get first bird flu shots

Deployed military troops, emergency workers, pregnant women and children will be among the first to get scarce vaccinations if a pandemic strain of flu breaks out, U.S. officials said. A new report lays out who would be first in line to get vaccinated against H5N1 bird flu or any other strain of pandemic influenza.

Researchers track spread of HIV

People with moderate levels of HIV in their blood are the most likely to infect others, researchers said in a study that provides a better understanding of how the deadly virus spreads.

Looking at several groups of HIV-positive people in Europe, the United States and Africa, the researchers found that people with high levels of the AIDS virus were the most infectious but had only limited time to pass it on to others.

Those with moderate virus levels -- using a measure called viral load -- had plenty of virus circulating in their blood as well as the opportunity to infect others, the researchers said.

Obesity becoming a global problem

People are getting fatter in all parts of the world, with the possible exception of east Asia, doctors found in a one-day global snapshot of obesity.

Overall, 24 percent of men and 27 percent of women seeing their doctors that day were obese, and another 30 percent of men and 40 percent of women were overweight, the researchers found.

That puts the rest of the world close to par with the United States, long considered the country with the worst weight problem. An estimated two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and a third of these are obese.

"The study results show that excess body weight is pandemic," said Beverley Balkau, director of research at the French National health research institute INSERM in Villejuif, who led the study published in the journal Circulation.

Appendix is haven for 'good' bacteria

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the appendix may not be useless after all.

New research suggests that the structure helps beneficial bacteria survive and repopulate the colon after these organisms become depleted as a result of an infection or drug treatment.

Beneficial bacterial help maintain a proper balance in the intestine and may also kill dangerous microbes. For example, this is why patients frequently develop gastrointestinal problems during or after a course of antibiotics. Along with the pathogen causing the infection, the antibiotic may destroy beneficial bacteria as well.

Iron deficiency linked to cough

Instead of cough drops, some women may need to reach for an iron supplement to treat that pesky cough, Italian researchers said.

The study, presented at the scientific meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Chicago, suggests iron deficiency may help explain why some otherwise healthy, non-smoking women had persistent coughs.

Sleepy, grumpy and ... primitive?

A few nights without sleep can not only make people tired and emotional, but may actually put the brain into a primitive "fight or flight" state, researchers said. Brain images of otherwise healthy men and women showed two full days without sleep seemed to rewire their brains, re-directing activity from the calming and rational prefrontal cortex to the "fear center" -- the amygdala.

Susan Stevens