Drinking plain water may help boost your mental performance, a new study has claimed.

According to the study published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, participants who drank about three cups of water (775 millilitres) before taking a battery of cognitive tests performed better on a test that measured reaction times compared with those who did not drink water.

This finding was particular true for thirsty people. The researchers speculate that the sensation of thirst may take some attention away from the task at hand, and thus impair response time.

For the reaction test, 34 adult participants had to press a button as soon as they saw an object on a computer screen. Reaction times were 14 percent faster among the water group than the no water group.

Water consumption did not significantly affect performance on other tests of cognition, such as memory of words, researchers found.

The study results suggest that a "freeing up of attention resources" occurs when people quench their thirst, the researchers wrote.

However, water consumption may not always improve cognition. In another test of rule-learning, participants actually fared better if they did not drink water before the test.

Future research should try to explain why drinking water appears to have beneficial effects on some cases, but negative effects in others, the researchers said.

"It might be that physiological processes [of drinking or not drinking water] affect performance on different tasks in different ways," said study researcher Caroline Edmonds, of the University of East London School of Psychology in England.

"Thirst might lead to better performance on some tasks, because the hormone vasopressin, which activates the thirst response, has also been linked to attention and arousal," Edmonds told a website.

A new research from neuroscientists and molecular biologists at University of Southern California has shown that a missing brain protein may be the culprit in cases of severe over-worry, where the fear perseveres even when there`s nothing of which to be afraid.

The researchers examined mice without the enzymes monoamine oxidase A and B (MAO A/B), which sit next to each other in our genetic code as well as on that of mice.

Prior research has found an association between deficiencies of these enzymes in humans and developmental disabilities along the autism spectrum such as clinical perseverance - the inability to change or modulate actions along with social context.

"These mice may serve as an interesting model to develop interventions to these neuropsychiatric disorders," senior author Jean C. Shih, USC Professor and Boyd and Elsie Welin Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy and the Keck School of Medicine of USC, said.

"The severity of the changes in the MAO A/B knockout mice compared to MAO A knockout mice supports the idea that the severity of autistic-like features may be correlated to the amounts of monoamine levels, particularly at early developmental stages," Shih said.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have discovered that a set of proteins that are a part of the body`s natural defences cause mutations in human DNA, which could potentially lead to cancer, says a study.

According to a study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, these naturally occurring mutations are just as powerful as known cancer-causing agents in producing tumours, reports Science Daily.

The proteins are part of a group called apolipoprotein B mRNA like (APOBEC) cytidine deaminases. The investigators found that APOBEC mutations can outnumber all other mutations in some cancers, accounting for over two-thirds in some bladder, cervical, breast, head and neck, and lung tumours.

The scientists published their findings online July 14 in the journal Nature Genetics. Dmitry Gordenin, Ph.D., is corresponding author of the paper and a senior associate scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of NIH.

He said scientists knew the main functions of APOBEC cytosine deaminases were to inactivate viruses that attack the body and prevent ancient viruses present in the human genome from moving around and causing disrupting mutations.

Because they are so important to normal physiology, he and his collaborators were surprised to find a dark side to them; that of mutating human chromosomal DNA.

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide, with around 2.8 million people dying each year as a result of being overweight or obese, according to international health experts.

Globalisation has brought fast food culture to Chinese cities, contributing to major obesity problems. A study in 2006 found that over one-fifth of the one billion obese or overweight people in the world are Chinese, Xinhua reported.

One of the fattest nations in the developed world, Australia also shares this obesity problem. If Australians` weight gain continues at current levels, almost 80 percent of adults will be overweight or obese by 2025, according to Monash University.

To discuss the problem of obesity and evaluate a solution being developed by the Public Health Association of Australia, international nutrition experts met at an obesity and nutrition conference in Sydney.

The rise of multinational fast food outlets has been a key change in our environment leading to fatter foods and fatter people, said Bruce Neal, professor at the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney.

"As fast as we get rid of all our traditional vectors of disease -- infections, little microbes, bugs -- we are replacing them with the new vectors of disease, which are massive transnational, national, multinational corporations selling vast amounts of salt, fat and sugar," Neal said.
Over time, consumers in developed countries have become acculturated to larger serving sizes that are well above what`s necessary for an enjoyable, sensible and nutritious meal, said Tim Gill, associate professor at the University of Sydney`s Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating Disorders.

"People will consume a portion that`s put in front of them. People will seek value by purchasing the largest portion size, because it`s relatively cheap compared to the smaller size. We`ve just had a disconnect in terms of what we need to eat and what we can purchase," he said.

A 2005 study by American scientists found that diners who ate from a bowl of soup that kept refilling would not only eat far more than normal, but they did not notice that they had eaten more, and did not feel more sated.

Most shoppers base their food choices on price rather than nutritional value, with lower socio-economic status consumers more likely to eat high energy-dense foods such as sugary drinks, said Marion Hetherington, a professor of biopsychology at the University of Leeds.

However, Jennie Brand-Miller, a professor at the University of Sydney`s School of Molecular Bioscience, said low-fat diets may not in fact be best for our health.

"Low-fat dietary advice has not been helpful on a population level. It is consistently associated with weight regain. It does not reduce the risk of chronic disease," said Brand-Miller.

"We need to pay more importance to protein. Protein is satiating, and we`ve undervalued it. We need to pay more attention to the sources of carbohydrate -- we need to switch from high GI to low GI carbohydrates," she said.

At the heart of the obesity issue is the question of responsibility, and whether it`s up to the consumers to look after their own needs, or industry to provide more healthy foods.

"In Britain, the public health responsibility has been an important initiative in the sense that companies will sign up, they will pledge to reduce the amount of calories in their food, to reduce the amount of salt," said Hetherington.

By lowering salt, sugar and calorie content of their foods independently, industry will not face competitive pressure caused by only some producers providing more healthy foods in the marketplace, she said.

Stanford researchers are on track to begin human trials of a potentially potent new drug against cancer by next year, it has been revealed.

The progress comes just two months after the groundbreaking study by Dr Irv Weissman, who developed an antibody that breaks down a cancer`s defense mechanisms in the body, the New York Post reported.

A protein called CD47 tells the body not to "eat" the cancer, but the antibody developed by Dr Weissman blocks CD47 and frees up immune cells called macrophages - which can then engulf the deadly cells.

The new research shows the miraculous macrophages effectively act as intelligence gatherers for the body, pointing out cancerous cells to cancer-fighting "killer T" cells.

The T cells then "learn" to hunt down and attack the cancer, the researchers claimed.

The clinical implications of the process could be profound in the war on cancer.

When macrophages present "killer T" cells with a patient`s cancer, the T cells become attuned to the unique molecular markers on the cancer.

This turns them into a personalized cancer vaccine.

The team of researchers at Stanford plan on starting a small 10-100 person phase I clinical human trial of the cancer therapy in 2014.