Would-be moms, breathe easy! Mobile phone use in pregnancy may not affect kids’ brains

Babies born to women who use a mobile phone during pregnancy are unlikely to have any adverse effects on their neurodevelopment skills such as language, communication and motor skills, according to new research which has challenged previous theories. According to researchers, the concern for harm to the foetus caused by radio frequency electromagnetic fields such as those emitted by mobile phones is mainly driven by reports from experimental animal studies with inconsistent results. Researchers found that children born to mobile phone users had an 18% lower risk of low motor…

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Can’t breathe after Chinese food? It might be the MSG

Can’t breathe after Chinese food? It mightbe the MSG A very satisfying feast of kung pao chicken, sweet-sour pork or just about any Chinese dish could, at times, be accompanied with a bout of headache, giddiness or rashes. It’s aptly called the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, but a doctor from Mahad, a four-hour drive from Mumbai, recently found out that the presence of ajinomoto salt -better known as mono sodium glutamate or MSG -in Chinese food could even lead to life-threatening swelling of tissues. A 23-year-old who had eaten triple fried…

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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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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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