Testosterone Linked to Weight Loss in Obese Men

May 9, 2012 -- Testosterone replacement may promote weight loss in obese older men who have low levels of the male sex hormone, a new study shows. But before men try to lose weight by bumping up their testosterone, experts agree that more studies are needed to show that the treatment is both safe and effective. Researchers followed a group of mostly older, overweight men receiving injections of the hormone for up to five years to treat erectile dysfunction and other symptoms associated with low testosterone. Their findings were...

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What does it mean to say that something causes 16% of cancers?

A few days ago, news reports claimed that 16 per cent of cancers around the world were caused by infections. This isn’t an especially new or controversial statement, as there’s clear evidence that some viruses, bacteria and parasites can cause cancer (think HPV, which we now have a vaccine against). It’s not inaccurate either. The paper that triggered the reports did indeed conclude that “of the 12.7 million new cancer cases that occurred in 2008, the population attributable fraction (PAF) for infectious agents was 16·1%”. But for me, the reports...

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Caffeine protects against brain degeneration in diabetes

Badly controlled diabetes is known to affect the brain, causing memory and learning problems and even increased incidence of dementia. How this occurs is not clear but a study in mice with type 2 diabetes has discovered how diabetes affects the hippocampus, causing memory loss, and also how caffeine can prevent this. Curiously, the neurodegeneration that Rodrigo Cunha, from the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, sees as result of diabetes is the same that occurs at the first stages of several neurodegenerative...

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The relationship between TV viewing and eating

Television viewing and unhealthy eating habits in US adolescents appear to be linked in a national survey of students in the fifth to tenth grades, according to a report published in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. The study is part of the Nutrition and the Health of Children and Adolescents theme issue.Television viewing (TVV) by young people has been associated with unhealthy eating and food choices that may track into early adulthood. Young people in the US fall short...

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Zambo declares dengue outbreak

ZAMBOANGA CITY -- The City Government, through the City Health Office, has declared a dengue outbreak in this southern port city. The declaration was made as the number of dengue cases from January 1 up to the first week of May this year has increased by 413, or more than 50 percent compared to the number of cases recorded in the same period of last year. Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.There were a total of 361 dengue cases recorded in the same period in 2011, but the cases reached 774 this year, said City Health Officer...

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Friend request: help pay my bill

ONCE Facebook was for social interaction, friendship and media-sharing; now it's morphing into a venue for serious pursuits such as paying bills. ...

This process took another step yesterday when Telstra released a Facebook application that lets customers top up pre-paid mobile accounts from their Facebook home page -- while they continue to interact with friends.

The app also makes use of the Facebook friends network -- some might say controversially -- by offering a button that lets a customer ask a friend to help pay their bill.

The plea for credit can appear on their wall. Telstra customers then use the Credit Me2U to transfer money from one pre-paid account to another.

Telstra Mobile executive director Warwick Bray said: "In just a few clicks, customers can use the app to check their balance information, recharge with a stored debit or credit card and view up to 180 days of usage and recharge history.

"And should a customer run out of credit, they can ask their mates for a top-up using the 'request credit from friends' feature, which provides the option to put a call out on their Facebook wall or via a direct message."

Users search for and download the application, install it, and verify their mobile phone account. The bill-paying facility then appears as a link on their Facebook homepage.

Telstra said the app pointed to "a future where all types of transactions are embedded in the world's most popular social network".

"This is part of Telstra's strategy to improve customer satisfaction by making it more convenient for people to manage their mobile services at a time and location that suites them," the telco said.

Its new app coincides with Facebook's revamping of its application network. In a developer's blog post yesterday, Facebook said it would open its own app centre, where users could download free and paid apps and run them from within their Facebook account. Apps could be accessed in a browser, or from apps on Apple/Android devices.

While apps have been part of Facebook for years, the difference is their organisation into a single online location and their categorisation into genres.