Entertainment News

Rising obesity prompts higher antibiotic doses call

2010-01-15T14:21:00.000+05:00

Patients may have to be prescribed higher doses of antibiotics because of rising rates of obesity, say doctors.

The standard "one-size fits all" dose may not clear infection in larger adults and increases the risk that resistance will develop, they argue.
More work is needed to guide GPs on how and when to alter doses, an editorial in The Lancet to accompany the study by doctors from Greece and the US says.

GPs said it was an interesting theory but may end up being expensive.

Around one in four adults in England is classified as obese - an increase from 15% in 1993.
Given the fact people are getting larger, use of standard doses of antibiotics in all adults, regardless of size, is outdated, argue two doctors from Greece and the US.

Size and even the proportion of body fat a person has, can effect the concentration of antibiotics in the body, potentially reducing how effective they are in larger patients, they say.

And failure to clear an infection because too small a dose is given may raise the risk of resistance - already an increasing problem for doctors.

Likewise, smaller than average patients may get too much drug, and suffer greater side-effects as a consequence.

Guidance

An accompanying editorial said dose adjustments could easily be made if research was done to guide doctors in treating obese patients.

Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of GPs said he would encourage "appropriate" antibiotic prescribing and lots of patients are given them unnecessarily.

But he added: "Patients are getting taller and larger and it does seem right that patients are given the appropriate strength of drug.

"However, this might cost a lot of money because pharmaceutical companies would have to provide different doses of medication.

"At the moment, most come in two strengths and we would not want to see an increase in costs."

He added that GPs will already use their judgment to alter medication doses where necessary.

Professor Hugh Pennington, an expert in antibiotics from the University of Aberdeen, said antibiotics would differ in how size altered their effectiveness.

"But studies on this would not be hard to do.

"If you have too little of a drug it's not going to be good for treating the infection but it also raises the possibility that the organism will become resistant.

"They're such powerful drugs, we want to make sure we are using them properly."

China gives first response to Google threat

2010-01-14T22:02:00.000+05:00

China has said that foreign internet firms are welcome to do business there "according to the law".

The statement, from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, is Beijing's first response to Google's threat to stop filtering content in China.

Google said cyber-attacks originating in China aimed at rights activists, and increased web censorship, might force it to end its China operations.

Ms Jiang insisted the internet was "open" in China.

Google announced late on Tuesday that it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine - google.cn.
The search engine said it would hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering have yet been made.

'Holding statement'
At a regular foreign ministry news briefing, Ms Jiang said: "China like other countries administers the internet according to law.

"China's internet is open, and the Chinese government encourages development of the internet."

She was responding to a reporter's question on Google and US concerns about the business environment in China in light of Google's reported cyber-attacks.

"Chinese law proscribes any form of hacking activity," she said.
When Google launched google.cn in 2006, it agreed to censor some search results - such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong - as required by the Chinese government.

The Chris Hogg in Shanghai says Ms Jiang's comments sound like a holding statement, until officials can have talks with Google.

Google currently holds about one-third of the Chinese search market, far behind Chinese rival Baidu, which has more than 60%.

China has more internet users - about 350 million - than any other country and provides a lucrative search engine market worth an estimated $1bn (£614m) last year.

It is difficult to see how the situation can be resolved, our correspondent says, with Google potentially losing its market share and the government reluctant to give up its right to control the internet.

'Don't be evil'

In a blog posted late on Tuesday, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond announced "A new approach to China".

He said the accounts of dozens of US, China and Europe-based users of its Gmail service who are advocates of human rights in China had been "routinely accessed by third parties".

At least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses were similarly targeted, it added.
Google's decision to concede to China's demands on censorship in 2006 led to accusations it had betrayed its company motto - "don't be evil" - but Google argued it would be more damaging for civil liberties if it pulled out of China entirely.

Google's stance has drawn mixed reaction from China's internet community. Some have applauded what they see as a bold stand against the country's internet guardians while others expressed fears they would lose a valued source of news, despite it being censored.

Others saw the Google statement as a Chinese victory, saying that Google's withdrawal from the country would be no great loss, with Baidu providing almost all the same services as google.cn.

The state-run China Daily described Google's statement as designed to put pressure on the Chinese government

US trade gap widens sharply as imports grow

2010-01-12T22:22:00.001+05:00

The US trade deficit widened sharply in November as the recovering economy boosted demand for imports to their highest level in almost a year.

The deficit grew to $36.4bn (£22.6bn), up 9.7% from an upwardly revised figure of $33.2bn in October. The increase was more than analysts had expected.

Imports totalled $174.6bn, up by 2.6% from the previous month, while exports totalled $138.2bn, up 0.9%.

The weak dollar helped to boost exports, particularly to China.

The US's closely-watched deficit with China narrowed to $20.2bn from $22.7bn in October.

The big jump in imports to the US reflected an increase in demand for industrial materials and consumer goods. This more than offset a fall in demand for foods and cars.

Economists were encouraged by the fact that both imports and exports increased.

"The big news is continued and sustained growth in trade volume, signalling recovery both in the US and among major US trading partners," said Christopher Cornell, at Moody's Economy.com.

Having a big bum, hips and thighs 'is healthy'

2010-01-12T22:15:00.000+05:00

Carrying extra weight on your hips, bum and thighs is good for your health, protecting against heart and metabolic problems, UK experts have said.

Hip fat mops up harmful fatty acids and contains an anti-inflammatory agent that stops arteries clogging, they say.
Big behinds are preferable to extra fat around the waistline, which gives no such protection, the Oxford team said.

Science could look to deliberately increase hip fat, they told the International Journal of Obesity.

And in the future, doctors might prescribe ways to redistribute body fat to the hips to protect against cardiovascular and metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

The researchers said having too little fat around the hips can lead to serious metabolic problems, as occurs in Cushing's syndrome.

Shape not weight
Evidence shows that fat around the thighs and backside is harder to shift than fat around the waist.

Although this may sound undesirable, it is actually beneficial because when fat is broken down quickly it releases a lot of cytokines which trigger inflammation in the body, say experts.

These cytokines have been linked to cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and diabetes.
The slower burning hip fat also makes more of the hormone adiponectin that protects the arteries and promotes better blood sugar control and fat burning.

In comparison, carrying excess fat around the stomach, being "apple shaped", raises the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Lead researcher Dr Konstantinos Manolopoulos, of Oxford University, said: "It is shape that matters and where the fat gathers.

"Fat around the hips and thighs is good for you but around the tummy is bad."

He said in an ideal world, the more fat around the thighs the better - as long as the tummy stays slim.

"Unfortunately, you tend not to get one without the other," he said.

Fotini Rozakeas of the British Heart Foundation said: "This research helps us better to understand how fat acts in the body in order to develop new approaches in reducing heart and circulatory disease.

"If you are overweight, obese, or if you have a waist size that is increased, it is important to make changes to your lifestyle, such as eating a healthy diet and doing regular physical activity, to reduce your risk of heart health problems."

Three US and one French soldiers killed in Afghanistan

2010-01-11T17:54:00.000+05:00

Three US soldiers have been killed while fighting insurgents in southern Afghanistan, Nato officials say.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) gave no further details about the incident.

In a separate attack, a French soldier was killed and another seriously injured north-east of Kabul, the French president's office said.

It said the soldiers were patrolling with Afghan troops in the Alasay valley, some 80km (50 miles) of Kabul.

France is among the top five contributors to Isaf operations and has almost 3,000 troops deployed, mainly in eastern Afghanistan.

Taliban militants often target Afghan and foreign troops in the south, where the insurgency is at its strongest.

On Sunday, an American service member and two Afghan road construction workers were killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, a suicide bomber killed seven CIA agents at America's Forward Operating Base Chapman near the eastern Afghan city of Khost.

President Barack Obama announced last month that an additional 30,000 US troops would be deployed quickly in Afghanistan to fight the insurgency.

The reinforcements will take the total number of US troops in Afghanistan to more than 100,000.

Sunk Australia WWII hospital ship Centaur

2010-01-10T19:01:00.000+05:00

An Australian World War II hospital ship, the Centaur, has been seen for the first time since it sank more than 60 years ago with a loss of 268 lives.

Images of the wreck, more than 2km (1.3 miles) below the sea, were captured by a remote-controlled underwater camera.

The ship's location was discovered last month following a hi-tech search.

Australia says the ship, which went down in May 1943, was torpedoed by the Japanese. Japan says the circumstances surrounding its sinking are unclear.

The search team found the ship on 20 December off the Queensland coast, about 30 miles due east of the southern tip of Moreton Island.

Favourable conditions allowed the crew to send down a camera on a remotely-operated submersible vehicle over the weekend. Further dives are planned.

Search director David Mearns told the news agency he hoped the images would "hopefully end a 66-year quest for unanswered questions and bring comfort to many families across Australia and beyond".

"The wreck was found leaning over towards its port side at an angle of approximately 25 degrees and the bow is almost completely severed from the rest of the hull in the area where the single torpedo hit," he said.

"Although the wreck is very badly damaged, characteristic markings and features that identify the wreck as the Centaur were clearly visible."

Among the identifying features revealed by the camera were the large red crosses marked on each side of the bow.

Images also showed the number 47, which designated the vessel as Australian Hospital Ship 47.
Announcing the search for the ship last year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the loss of the Centaur had struck deeply at the heart of the nation and become a symbol of determination in the fight against a brutal enemy.

The Australians believe the ship was attacked without warning, Nick Bryant in Sydney reports, which the acting premier of Queensland, Paul Lucas, has called barbaric and senseless.

He has demanded an apology from the Japanese government, but a statement from the country's embassy in Canberra said the details surrounding the sinking were inconclusive.

Of the 332 people on the ship, only 64 survived. Eleven of the 12 nurses on board died.

China 'overtakes Germany as world's largest exporter'

2010-01-10T18:46:00.000+05:00

China's exports rose 17.7% in December, state media has reported, suggesting the country has overtaken Germany as the world's largest exporter.
The rise, compared to a year earlier, breaks a 13-month decline in trade as a result of the global downturn.

Xinhua said total exports for 2009 were $1.2tn (£749bn), but total foreign trade over the year was down 13.9%.

Correspondents say the figures will lead to new demands from China's competitors that it devalue the yuan.

Last year saw a continuing decrease in China's trade as the global economic downturn led to a fall in demand for its products.

But in the last few weeks of the year, there was a far greater rise than forecasters had expected, with foreign exports reaching $130.7bn, up 17.7% on the previous December.

China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) said exports overall in the year were $1.2tn, down 16% from in 2008, while imports were 11.2% down from a year earlier at $1.01tn.

The politically sensitive total trade surplus was down 34.2% to $196.1bn, a fall of almost a third.

The figures suggests China will surpass Germany's export total for the whole of 2009, although this will not be confirmed until Germany's full-year data is published in February.

Yuan demand

A spokesman for GAC said the increase was "an important turning point" for the country.
It is safe to say now that Chinese exporters have come right through the period of weakness," Xinhua quoted statistician Huang Guohua as saying.

The Chris Hogg in Shanghai says many of China's producers are low-cost manufacturers who assemble equipment such as i-Pods using foreign components.

The latest figures are being seen as an indication that those manufacturers have proved resilient in the downturn and are benefitting as their customers restock, says our correspondent.
But the figures are likely to lead to renewed complaints from China's trading competitors that its currency is undervalued, he added.

Led by the US, they say it is unfair that China has been able to make its good cheaper by keeping the yuan weak, but Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has said China "will not yield" to foreign demands that it revalue the currency.

Beijing has long said that it will not allow the yuan to trade freely until its domestic economy was strong enough to pick up any resulting decline in exports.

The slowing decline in Chinese trade has also been taken as a sign that the country's stimulus package is working.

Beijing raised tax rebates on exports several times in 2009, increased tax refunds and improved export credit insurance.