Eating too many foods containing "bad" fats, such as saturated fats or trans fats, is said to be unhealthy for heart.

Now, a new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), has found one "bad" fat-saturated fat-to be associated with worse overall cognitive function and memory in women over time.

By contrast, a "good" fat-mono-unsaturated fat was associated with better overall cognitive function and memory

The research team analysed data from the Women's Health Study-originally a cohort of nearly 40,000 women, 45 years and older

The researchers focused on data from a subset of 6,000 women, all over the age of 65. The women participated in three cognitive function tests, which were spaced out every two years for an average testing span of four years. These women filled out very detailed food frequency surveys at the start of the Women's Health Study, prior to the cognitive testing

"When looking at changes in cognitive function, what we found is that the total amount of fat intake did not really matter, but the type of fat did," explained Olivia Okereke, MD, MS, BWH Department of Psychiatry

Women who consumed the highest amounts of saturated fat, which can come from animal fats such as red meat and butter, compared to those who consumed the lowest amounts, had worse overall cognition and memory over the four years of testing. Women who ate the most of the monounsaturated fats, which can be found in olive oil, had better patterns of cognitive scores over time

"Our findings have significant public health implications. Substituting in the good fat in place of the bad fat is a fairly simple dietary modification that could help prevent decline in memory," said Okereke

Okereke noted that strategies to prevent cognitive decline in older people are particularly important. Even subtle declines in cognitive functioning can lead to higher risk of developing more serious problems, like dementia and Alzheimer disease

Two virus strains - viruses 1 and 3 - were the cause behind the 16 dengue deaths reported in Tirunelveli district in the past one month, said Health Minister Dr V S Vijay. After a review meeting with local body representatives and health officials to control and prevent the spread of the disease in the district, Dr Vijay said a team from the Indian Council of Medical Research took samples of the dengue virus here and found that viruses 1 and 3 were prevalent in the district. Due to the control measures, the spread of the fever was decreasing. In a week, the situation would come under control.

Control measures taken in the Virudhunagar, Thoothukudi and Kanyakumari districts, prevented the spread of the disease in the neighbouring districts as well, the Minister said.

The charity Back Care has warned that heavy school bags could cause "an epidemic" of future back problems for the children who carry them.

Research showed that eight in 10 children in the UK regularly carry bags that are a fifth of their body weight on their backs. Dr Skew, vice-president of BackCare, said: "Children's skeletons are still developing, and having a heavy bag slung over one shoulder can exert unnatural force on the spine, muscles and attachments. Rather like exercising only one side of your body in the gym, you quickly get unilateral muscle-loading, which can cause the small muscles in the back to tighten and compress the spine."

In order to overcome the human resource shortage in the health sector, the government has increased the number of medical seats at the post-graduate level in the past three years and has set up 46 new medical colleges, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad said Friday.

Azad told a meeting here of the parliamentary consultative committee attached to his ministry: "In the last three years alone, the number of post-graduate seats has increased by more than 9,100. The number of post-graduate seats available in this academic year is 22,194 as against 13,043 in the year 2008-09."

According to the Health Ministry, the existing doctor-patient ratio is one doctor for 2,000 patients and the target is one doctor per 1,000 people. India has nearly 7.5 lakh registered doctors, of whom 5.5 lakh are in active service.
Apart from this, from 2009-12, 46 new medical colleges have been set up.

"These strides have been made possible because of the concerted efforts made by the ministry to facilitate and overcome the issue of shortage of human resources," Azad said.

The minister also said that the nursing profession is being given top priority and a series of initiatives are being taken to bridge the shortage of nurses in the country.

"The ministry has sanctioned, during the last two years, 132 Auxiliary Nursing and Midwifery (ANM) and 137 General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) schools all over the country, particularly in the un-served and under-served districts. These 269 schools will produce an additional 20,000 nurses every year," Azad stated.

Azad recounted that to standardize paramedical education across the country, one National Institute of Paramedical Sciences (NIPS) is being set up at Delhi and eight Regional Institutes of Paramedical Sciences (RIPS) will be coming up at Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, Patna and Aurangabad.

India at present has nearly 10 lakh registered nurses, of whom only 40 percent are in active service.

A new study reveals that waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) is a significantly better predictor of cardiometabolic risk than waist circumference (WC) and body-mass index (BMI). In addition WHtR takes account of differing heights, therefore making it the best proxy to use across all countries.

Findings from the study, conducted by Dr. Margaret Ashwell and Sigrid Gibison, are being presented at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France.

The researchers examined 31 studies involving around 300,000 participants that used specificity and sensitivity analysis for evaluating the discriminatory power of anthropometric indices in individuals with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, abnormal body fat levels, and general cardiovascular outcomes (CVD).

They found that compared with BMI, WHtR had considerably greater discriminatory power. WC and WHtR also improved discrimination of adverse outcomes by 3% and 4-5%, respectively, compared with BMI.

Furthermore, WHtR was found to be considerably better for diabetes, CVD, hypertension and all outcomes in men and women compared with WC, and also better than BMI and WC at detecting cardiometabolic risk factors in both sexes. As a result WHtR should be considered as a screening tool.

The average proposed values, i.e. the first risk level for people of different ethnic backgrounds, calculated from the study size for both men and women was 0.5, which was determined in a separate analysis of suggested WHtR cut-off values from the people's specificity and sensitivity analysis. In other words, in order to avoid increasing risk of these adverse risk factors "Keep your waist circumference to less than half of your height." According to Ashwell, if a second level of increased risk is needed, keep your waist to below 60% of height (0.6).

WC and BMI both require differing values to be considered for different ethnicities, thus making things considerably more difficult than they need to be. The UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence are currently considering new guidelines on WC. However, Ashwell states that this would be a waste of resources, as using WHtR instead would be a one-size fits-all approach. This approach is gaining support in a variety of countries, including the UK, USA, Australia, Japan, India, Iran, and Brazil.

Dr Ben Rickayzan and Professor Les Mayhew, from Cass Business School, City University, London, UK, estimate that a 30-year-old non-smoking man could increase his life expectancy by up to 14% if his WHtR is 0.7 and by up to one third if his WHtR is 0.8.