Well there are umpteen number of reasons why you shouldn't smoke. Adding to that, there is another one now which says that smoking totally ruins your taste buds. Your taste buds being affected, you won't be able to completely enjoy the food/drinks that you really like.

It happens so that smokers' ability to taste is impaired by toxic chemicals found in tobacco, even after they have quit smoking. So they do not enjoy their coffee despite the strong, bitter taste of caffeine which can be easily detected.

Scientists tested how well 451 volunteers could recognise the four basic flavours of sweet, sour, bitter and salty, as well as the intensity of each taste as a part of this study.

Researchers found that whether the volunteers smoked or not did not affect whether they could recognise salty, sweet or sour tastes -- but it did have an effect where the bitter taste of caffeine was concerned.

One in five smokers and one in four ex-smokers could not correctly recognise the taste.However, 13 percent of non-smokers also failed the taste test.

According to the researchers ,the build-up of tobacco in the body could stop taste buds renewing themselves and so harm a person's ability to recognise certain tastes, even after they have stopped smoking.

A new study has revealed that consuming a high-fat diet is associated with increased risk of certain types of breast cancer.

According to the researchers, high total and saturated fat intake were associated with greater risk of estrogen receptor- and progesterone receptor-positive (ER+PR+) breast cancer (BC), and human epidermal growth factor 2 receptor-negative (HER2-) disease.

Published data from epidemiological and case-control studies on the association between high fat intake and BC risk have been conflicting, which may be attributable to difficulties obtaining accurate information on fat intake and because of limited heterogeneity of intake within a specific geographic area from which the study cohorts live.

Furthermore, BC is now classified clinically into subtypes by ER, PR, and HER2 expression status and each subtype has its own prognosis and set of risk factors, which may also contribute to the inconsistencies in the published reports on this relationship.

Sabina Sieri, Ph.D., from the Epidemiology and Prevention Unit of the Department of Preventive and Predictive Medicine at Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Dei Tumori in Milan Italy, and colleagues prospectively analyzed data from 10,062 BC patients from the EPIC study with 11.5 years of follow-up.

The authors report high total and saturated fat intake were associated with greater risk of ER+PR+ BC. High saturated fat intake was also associated with greater risk of HER2- disease.

The authors conclude, "a high-fat diet increases BC risk and, most conspicuously, that high saturated fat intake increases risk of receptor-positive disease, suggesting saturated fat involvement in the etiology of receptor-positive BC."

The study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

It could be a groundbreaking treatment option for women with Breast cancer.Scientists have revealed that a new drug can help prevent advanced breast cancer from progressing.

The drug, palbociclib could cut in half the risk that the cancer would worsen.

The principal investigator Dr. Richard S. Finn, remarked that the magnitude of benefit they are seeing is not something commonly seen in cancer medicine studies.

The drug, palbociclib, developed by pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, appears to prolong survival, though not by a statistically significant amount.

Finn added that a statistically significant survival benefit should not have been expected at this point because only 61 of the 165 patients in the trial had died.

The fast spreading e-cigarettes are undoing the anti-smoking efforts of the last three decades, health experts warn.

Also, the number of people being poisoned by e-cigarettes in the US has gone up manifold in the last few years, according to official reports.

The number of calls to poison centres in the US relating to e-cigarettes has risen from one per month in September 2010 to 215 per month in February 2014.

The figures, from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also show the number of calls per month relating to conventional cigarettes did not increase in the same way.

The CDC statistics show that more than half of the calls relate to children under the age of five.

Poisoning related to e-cigarettes involves the liquid containing nicotine used in the devices.

"This report raises another red flag about e-cigarettes -- the liquid nicotine used in e-cigarettes can be hazardous," CDC director Tom Frieden said in a statement.

E-cigarette liquids come in candy and fruit flavours that are appealing to children.

"The most recent National Youth Tobacco Survey showed e-cigarette use is growing fast, and now this report shows e-cigarette related poisonings are also increasing rapidly," Tim McAfee, director of CDC's office on smoking and health, was quoted as saying.

The study comes close on the heels of news that the Welsh government might include e-cigarettes under the smoking ban.

Vector-borne diseases like dengue and malaria still have a significant impact on the socio-economic status of countries in south Asia, the WHO said Thursday, calling for a united effort against them.

"These diseases are still killing thousands of people in the WHO southeast Asia Region," a World Health Organization release said.

Forty percent of the global population at risk of malaria lives in the WHO southeast Asia region, home to a quarter of the world's population, it said.

"These are deadly but preventable diseases. The solution lies in a united and sustained effort from all of us," said WHO regional director Poonam Khetrapal Singh.

"This region recently defeated polio, it is time for us to show the same resolve to defeat malaria, dengue and other vector-borne diseases," she added.

Vector-borne diseases account for 17 percent of the estimated global burden of all infectious diseases with malaria being endemic in 10 of the 11 countries of the region, including India.

"With mass drug administration with effective coverage, there is no reason why diseases like lymphatic filariasis cannot be eliminated from the region," said Singh.

"Countries must prioritize vector-borne diseases in their national development agendas. Communities need to be empowered to fight this battle and protect themselves. Preventing and controlling vector-borne diseases is everyone's responsibility," she said.