2 Billion Children Breathe Toxic Air Worldwide, UNICEF Says

As Indians wake Monday to smoke-filled skies from a weekend of festival fireworks, New Delhi’s worst season for air pollution begins — with dire consequences. A new report from UNICEF says about a third of the 2 billion children in the world who are breathing toxic air live in northern India and neighboring countries, risking serious health effects including damage to their lungs, brains and other organs. Of that global total, 300 million kids are exposed to pollution levels more than six times higher than standards set by the World…

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6 Indian Superfoods to Reduce Belly Fat

Wedding season is here! And you will all agree with me that there comes a moment when you want to lose stubborn fat around your belly just to wear that favorite sari or lehenga of yours. We keep running from pillar to post to find that one secret food or ingredient that melts our belly fat. We don’t believe in miracles but here is the list of superfoods that will actually help you shed those extra kilos. In order to lose weight, you need your calorie intake to be less…

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Cranberries Squashed as Folk Remedy for Urinary Infections

Another folk remedy bites the dust. Cranberry capsules didn’t prevent or cure urinary infections in nursing home residents in a study challenging persistent unproven claims to the contrary. The research adds to decades of conflicting evidence on whether cranberries in any form can prevent extremely common bacterial infections, especially in women. Many studies suggesting a benefit were based on weak science, but that hasn’t stopped marketers and even some health care providers from recommending cranberry juice or capsules as an inexpensive way to avoid these uncomfortable and potentially risky infections.…

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Facebook Posts May Offer Insight Into Mental Illness

Your Facebook status updates, ‘likes’ and even photos could help researchers better understand mental health disorders, a new study says. Social networks may even be used in future to treat mental illness, particularly among young people, the researchers said. “Facebook is hugely popular and could provide us with a wealth of data to improve our knowledge of mental health disorders such as depression and schizophrenia,” said the study’s lead-author Becky Inkster from University of Cambridge. Over a billion people worldwide use Facebook daily – one in seven of the global…

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Breathe at Your Peril: Delhi Sees Month’s Worst Air Quality

With continuous deterioration in its air quality, Delhi on Thursday breathed the most polluted air of the month as the Air Quality Index (AQI) dipped to the season’s threshold at 355 — labelled ‘very poor’. Unlike other two days, Ozone was for the first time in October found a decisive element in the worsening air quality. Beside Delhi, other cities that share the same air-shed or similar climate zone, including Agra, Kanpur and Faridabad, also inhaled an equally bad air quality or even worse. In Kanpur the AQI was 451,…

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Life Expectancy in Australia Hits New High: Report

Life expectancy in Australia has hit a new high, with babies born in 2015 expected to live two years longer than those born in 2005, according to a report issued on Friday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report showed that life expectancy had hit 84.5 years for females and 80.4 years for males, but demographics expert Peter McDonald of the University of Melbourne said that the statistics assume no improvements in healthcare and were therefore conservative estimates. “They are not any individual’s lifetime; they are just telling you the…

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