The deadly swine flu seems to have made a comeback with a vengeance in the country with a whopping 83 deaths due to the disease being reported in the week ending August 8.

Maharashtra reported the maximum number of 51 deaths, 12 were reported from Karnataka and 6 from Andhra Pradesh.

Seven deaths were reported from Gujarat and one each from West Bengal, Goa and Uttar Pradesh.

Till date, samples from 1,54,259 people have been tested for influenza H1N1 in government laboratories and a few private laboratories across the country and 36,240 (23.4%) of them have been found positive.

All the 942 cases reported during the week are indigenous cases.

Autism is a set of disorders ranging from inability to communicate, relate, and interact with the world around him. It is characterized by restrictive and repetitive behavior.

Sadly, no definite therapy till date has been modulated to cure this disorder completely. Antidepressants have worked for adults in some individual cases, but in children, its usage still not advisable.

According to a current study by researchers at Cochrane, autistic children could suffer from adverse side effects on taking antidepressants. There are no evidences of benefits gained due to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Why SSRIs Are Used To Treat Autism?

Medications do not treat the underlying neurologic cause of this disorder. Rather, it helps in managing the behavioral manifestations. It's a kind of symptomatic treatment.

Reason behind using antidepressants for autism is that SSRIs act upon serotonin, which is responsible for causing few of the psychological processes in this condition. In some people, they are known to have reduced the behavioral symptoms like irritability, depression, and aggression.

A Big No-No For Children

In several countries antidepressants are not approved by their drug authorities for children in any condition. So, its usage for autistic kids is still not recommended.

Recent Trials

In a recent trial, lead author, Dr. Katrina Williams of Sydney Children's Hospital,

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, has suggested that antidepressants in children and even adults for that matter, is not recommended.

However, SSRIs for co-occurring disorders such as aggression, depression, or anxiety in autistic individuals should be made on a case by case basis.

In the research, seven trials were undertaken and it involved 271 patients in the study.

The trials evaluated fluoxetine, fenfluramine, fluvoxamine, and citalopram. To their disappointment, in five trials conducted on children, researchers found no significant benefit. In the remaining two in adults, very little improvement was observed.

According to the author, the benefits reaped from the two adult trials are still very little from recommending SSRIs in the treatment of autism.

One of the most common causes of fatigue and weight gain in women is hypothyroidism; but the awareness of thyroid diseases among women remains very low.

Hypothyroidism is usually manifested in young girls, but these days women are being diagnosed well into their 30s. Some of the symptoms of hypothyroidism include weight gain, chronic fatigue, anemia and irregular menstrual periods.

"The occurrence of Hypothyroidism is due to deficiency of iodine or problem with the functioning of the pituitary gland or a problem with the thyroid gland", said Dr D. C. Sharma, Associate Prof. RNT Medical College Jaipur Rajasthan.

Iodine-enhanced salt is available in order to overcome the deficiency in the diet, but women do not seem to be aware of the importance of this element. As such there is an urgent need to spread awareness of thyroid disorders among women.

Two more people died of Malaria on Wednesday night, taking the death toll in Mumbai to 45. The number of Malaria patients has gone up to 988 since August 1. That belied the claims made by the Health authorities that Malaria is showing signs of decline now.

The latest victims were from Goregaon and Haji Ali. Situation is going from bad to worse in many parts of Mumbai. The BMC is working hard to deal with the crsis and bring the situation under control.

Ironically, Mumbai's Mayor Shraddha Jadhav does not acknowledge that Malaria has raised a panic button in the city. She claimed the BMC has been successful in preventing malaria cases in the city!

Want to slow down the aging process of your brain? Well, then start keeping you heart healthy, suggests a new study.

In the study, people whose hearts pumped less blood had brains that appeared older than the brains of those whose hearts pumped more blood.

Decreased cardiac index, the amount of blood that pumps from the heart in relation to a person's body size, was associated with decreased brain volume using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Researchers observed the link even in those participants who did not have cardiovascular disease, such as heart failure or coronary heart disease. As the brain ages, it begins to atrophy (shrink) and has less volume.

The decrease in brain volume is considered a sign of brain aging. More severe brain atrophy occurs in those with dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease.

"The results are interesting in that they suggest cardiac index and brain health are related," said Angela L. Jefferson, the study's lead author and associate professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine.

"The association cannot be attributed to cardiovascular disease because the relationship also was seen when we removed those participants with known cardiovascular disease from our analyses," Jefferson added.

In the observational study, which cannot establish cause and effect, researchers examined brain and heart MRI information on 1,504 participants of the decades-long Framingham Offspring Cohort who did not have a history of stroke, transient ischemic attack or dementia. Participants were 34 to 84 years old and 54 percent were women.

Researchers measured cardiac output using MRI and normalized the data for each participant's body surface area. Brain volume was assessed using MRI. Participants were divided into three groups based on cardiac index values.

The participants who had the lowest cardiac index, or the least amount of blood pumping from the heart for their body size, showed almost two years more brain aging than the people with the highest cardiac index.

The participants in the middle cardiac index group, who had low but still normal levels of blood pumping from the heart, also showed almost two years more brain aging than the people with the highest (or healthiest) cardiac index.

"We expected an association between the lowest levels of cardiac index and smaller brain volumes, but we were surprised to find people on the lower end of normal cardiac index also have smaller brain volumes when compared to people with very health cardiac index," Jefferson said.