Behaviours relevant to autism are more frequently observed in boys than in girls, because of naturally occurring sexual difference in characteristic of all children, research has found.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by social impairments, communication difficulties and restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour.

"The results imply that there may be an over representation of boys with autism, based on sex differences that affect all children," said principal investigator of the study Daniel Messinger, professor of psychology at University of Miami in the US.

The study followed a large sample of boys and girls at high-risk for the disorder and other children at low risk beginning before 18 months of age.

One in four high-risk boys were identified with the disorder at three years, compared to one in 10 high-risk girls.

The researchers examined how this difference in male-to-female risk of autism spectrum disorder emerged.

They found that boys with ASD had higher levels of a particular autism symptom (stereotyped behaviours) than girls.

The boys with ASD generally had less advanced cognitive and language functioning than the girls.

However, the sex differences in stereotyped behaviours and cognitive functioning were also present in children without ASD.

"We found that girls look a little better than boys in almost every area," Messinger said.

"Children with ASD show typical differences between boys and girls, even though - by virtue of having ASD - they clearly have higher symptoms and cognitive difficulties."

"Our results are important because they show that naturally occurring sex differences characteristic of all children are behind the sex differences we see in autism," he added.

The study was published in the journal Molecular Autism.

Adding eggs to a salad with a variety of raw vegetables is an effective method to improve the absorption of carotenoids, which are fat-soluble nutrients that help reduce inflammation, a research has found.

"Eating a salad with a variety of colourful vegetables provides several unique types of carotenoids, including beta-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin and lycopene," said Wayne Campbell, professor of nutrition science at Purdue University in the US.

"The lipid contained in whole eggs enhances the absorption of all these carotenoids," Campbell said.

Most people do not eat enough vegetables in their diets, and at the same time, people are consuming salad dressings that have less fat or are fat-free," said Jung Eun Kim, postdoctoral researcher in Purdue University.

"Our research findings support that people obtained more of the health-promoting carotenoids from raw vegetables when cooked whole eggs were also consumed," Kim said.

Eggs, a nutrient-rich food containing essential amino acids, unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins, may be used to increase the nutritive value of vegetables, Kim said.

In the study, 16 participants consumed a raw mixed-vegetable salad with no eggs, a salad with one and a half eggs, and a salad with three eggs at different times.

All salads were served with three grams of canola oil.

The second salad had 75 grams of scrambled whole eggs and the third 150 grams of scrambled whole eggs.

The absorption of carotenoids was 3.8-fold higher when the salad included three eggs compared to no eggs.

The study used scrambled eggs to make sure the participants consumed both the yolk and egg whites.

This research was published online in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

If you are consuming more than five espressos worth of caffeine every day, you are putting you health a risk.

According to the European Food Safety Authority, excess caffeine consumption could cause problems like increased heart rate, higher blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, tremors, nervousness, insomnia and panic attacks, reported the BBC.

As per the report, if healthy adults were 400mg a day, they were still in the safe zone with no health consequences. For pregnant women, the limit is 200mg a day due to the impact on the growing foetus, while in kids 3mg per day for every kilogram the child weighs was been recommended.

The researchers also found that there was no extra risk caused by combining caffeine and alcohol.

The more impulsive you get, the chances are the more you will binge eat when you feel low, claims a new study.

According to Kelly Klump, it is human nature to want to turn to something for comfort after experiencing a bad day. But, according to their research, the tendency to act rashly when faced with negative emotions, is a personality trait that could lead to binge eating.

Binge eating refers to the uncontrollable consumption of a large amount of food in a short period of time, and this doesn't just happen because someone's had a rotten day, but is tied to how impulsive you are.

The research determined that people with these eating problems generally have higher levels of negative urgency or a tendency to act impulsively when experiencing negative emotions, than those who do not have pathological eating habits.

Sarah Racine said it is possible that relationships between binge eating and negative urgency reflect impairments in behavioral control over eating when upset.

She added that overeating may instead represent increased sensitivity to rewarding effects of food in the context of negative emotions

Klump believes that if they can treat the underlying tendency to jump to eating when feeling negative emotions like stress then they may be able to help thousands of individuals who suffer from a range of eating disorders.

The study is published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Newer versions of the Pill may raise a woman's risk of dangerous blood clots even more than older versions, a large U.K. study suggests.

Women taking any combined oral contraceptive pills - containing both estrogen and progestin - were three times as likely to develop a blood clot in a deep vein in the leg or pelvis, compared to women not on the Pill. The risk was higher still with all the newer Pill versions except one, researchers found.

"This association is between 1.5 and 1.8 times higher for the newer formulations," said lead author Yana Vinogradova, a research fellow in medical statistics at the University of Nottingham.

The blood clots, known as venous thromboembolisms (VTEs), are common and can be deadly if the clot dislodges and travels to the heart, brain or lungs. They are more common among women taking estrogen medicines, and the risk is even higher if the woman smokes, according to the National Library of Medicine.

But the overall risk of a blood clot for women on any combined oral contraceptives is still relatively low: between six and 14 extra cases per year per 10,000 women taking the drugs, Vinogradova told Reuters Health by email.

Newer combined pills, including the progestins drospirenone, desogestrel, gestodene or cyproterone acetate, have been suspected of carrying an even higher clot risk compared to older versions that include levonorgestrel and norethisterone. But most past studies have been small or flawed by not taking into account certain other risk factors for clots, the study team writes in BMJ.

To assess VTE risk in women on both older and newer-generation pills, the researchers analyzed U.K. general practice databases covering the period between 2001 and 2013. They found 5,062 cases of VTE among women ages 15 to 49, and matched each of these women with up to five women who did not have a blood clot in the same year, but were of similar age and treated at a similar medical practice.

The researchers accounted for smoking, alcohol consumption, race, body mass index and other health problems, and found that women taking any combined oral contraceptive were almost three times as likely to suffer a blood clot as those not taking contraceptive pills.

Women taking older-generation drugs were about 2.5 times as likely to have a blood clot as women not taking any oral contraceptives over the previous year. Those taking newer types of combined pills were about four times as likely to suffer a clot compared to women not taking oral contraceptives.

The exception among the newer formulations was norgestimate, with a risk profile more similar to the older drugs.

The results would translate to a number of "extra" cases of VTE among women taking the combined pills versus women not on the Pill. These numbers were lowest for the older drug levonorgestrel and the newer norgestimate, with an additional six cases per 10,000 women per year, and highest for two newer drugs, desogestrel and cyproterone, with an extra 14 cases each.

"However," Vinogradova noted, "these increased risks of (venous thromboembolism) associated with both the older and the newer pills are lower than those associated with pregnancy," which may increase clot risk tenfold.

The newer pills carry higher clot risk, but were introduced as potentially having new benefits as well, including reduced acne, headache, depression, weight-gain, breast symptoms and breakthrough bleeding, she said.

The association between different oral contraceptives and blood clot risk has been controversial and previous study results have been mixed, but the new findings help to clarify those inconsistencies, Susan Jick, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health wrote in an editorial accompanying the new results.

About nine percent of women worldwide take birth control pills, including 28 percent of women in the U.K., the authors write.

Any women who are concerned should discuss treatment options with their doctor at their next routine appointment, Vinogradova said.

"Some women are at higher risk of (blood clot) because of family history or other medical conditions and doctors will already take account of these factors when advising women regarding their options for contraception," she said.