Obesity epidemic is slowly taking over the world. The fast paced lifestyle and careless way of living has further pushed up this epidemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that lack of physical activity and diets high in fats, salts and sugars has led to obesity and overweight is becoming "the new norm" throughout Europe.

Ahead of EU summit in Greece, the officials informed that up to 27 percent of Europe's 13-year-olds and 33 percent of 11-year-olds are overweight. Seeing the data, childhood obesity poses the gravest challenge.

As per reports, countries with the highest proportion of overweight 11-year-olds included Greece, with 33 percent, Portugal (32 percent), and Ireland and Spain, both with 30 percent.

The WHO's regional director for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab, said that Europeans' "perception of what is normal has shifted".Obesity is no longer seen as unnatural and overweight is now more common than unusual.

Lack of physical activity, listed by the WHO as the fourth leading cause of death globally, is now viewed as one of the major health threats affecting developed countries.

More than two thirds of people in UK over the age of 15 were insufficiently active, according to the WHO's latest data, from 2008.

According to international guidelines ,it is recommended that adults get 150 minutes moderate-intensity exercise per week, while children and adolescents should have an hour per day.

A new study has found that for people seeking a natural treatment for the common cold, some preparations containing the plant Echinacea work better than nothing, yet "evidence is weak".

The evidence review revealed no significant reductions in preventing illness, but didn't rule out "small preventive effects."

The six authors conducted reviews on this subject in 1998, 2006 and 2008 and wanted to do an update to include several new trials conducted since then.

"We've been doing this for so long and are very familiar with past research- which has been mixed from the very beginning," author Bruce Barrett , M.D., Ph.D. in the department of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said.

The research team reviewed 24 randomized controlled trials to determine whether Echinacea was a safe and effective cold prevention and treatment.

Trials included 4631 participants and 33 preparations, along with placebo. Echinacea products studied in these trials varied widely according to characteristics of three different plant species, the part of the plant used and method of manufacturing.

Barrett added that "it looks like taking Echinacea may reduce the incidence of colds. For those who take it as a treatment, some of the trials report real effects-but many do not. Bottom line: Echinacea may have small preventive or treatment effects, but the evidence is mixed."

The study was published in the journal Cochrane Library.

Women are more prone to heart attacks than men, says a new study.

The research led by Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health, revealed that there are significant differences between men's and women's hearts and both experience varying heart attack symptoms.

The hallmark chest pain is more likely to be felt by men, whereas women may experience less obvious symptoms like trouble sleeping, nausea, indigestion, fatigue and jaw pain.

The study showed that men and women have substantive, clinically important differences in their bodies in all of health, from how their organs are structured to how they function.

One major difference is how the blood vessels of women with heart disease look compared to those of men.

Coronary heart disease is caused by plaque- made by cholesterol, fat and other substances- building up in the arteries that supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle.

Clayton explained that in women, this buildup lines the walls of the blood vessels evenly- like the inside of a straw getting more narrow because the wall is thickening.

However, in men, this plaque buildup can be more concentrated in one area, as if a section of the straw is pinched.

The study was published in the journal of the American Medical Association.

Parents, note! Your neighbourhood may determine whether your kids are overweight, a new study has found.

Children living in areas surrounded by fast food outlets are more likely to be overweight or obese, according to researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in UK and their colleagues.

The research looked at weight data from more than a million children in UK and compared it with the availability of unhealthy food from outlets including fish and chip shops, burger bars, pizza places, and sweet shops.

They found that older children in particular are more likely to be overweight when living in close proximity to a high density of unhealthy eating outlets.

"We found that the more unhealthy food outlets there are in a neighbourhood, the greater the number of overweight and obese children," said Professor Andy Jones, from UEA's Norwich Medical School, who led the research.

"The results were more pronounced in secondary school children who have more spending power to choose their own food. But the association was reversed in areas with more healthy food options available," Jones said.

"If we can use these findings to influence planning decisions and help create a more healthy food environment, we may be able to help reverse this trend for future generations," study co-author Andreea Cetateanu, from UEA's school of Environmental Sciences, said.

"Public health policies to reduce obesity in children should incorporate strategies to prevent high concentrations of fast food and other unhealthy food outlets.

"But there is no quick fix - and any interventions for tackling childhood obesity and creating environments that are more supportive for both physical activity and better dietary choices must be part of the bigger picture looking at the whole obesity system," Cetateanu said.

The research team used data from the National Child Measurement Programme which records the height and weight of one million children at the majority of state schools in England annually.

Indian-origin scientists have successfully developed a radical new technique that may kill brain tumours by hijacking them into toxic pits or areas of the body that are safer to operate on.

One factor that makes glioblastoma cancers so difficult to treat is that malignant cells from the tumours spread throughout the brain by following nerve fibres and blood vessels to invade new locations.

Now, researchers have learned to hijack this migratory mechanism, turning it against the cancer by using a film of nanofibres thinner than human hair to lure tumour cells away.

Instead of invading new areas, the migrating cells latch onto the specially-designed nanofibres and follow them to a location - potentially outside the brain - where they can be captured and killed.

Using this technique, researchers can partially move tumours from inoperable locations to more accessible ones.

Though it would not eliminate the cancer, the new technique reduced the size of brain tumours in animal models, suggesting that this form of brain cancer might one day be treated more like a chronic disease, researchers said.

"We have designed a polymer thin film nanofibre that mimics the structure of nerves and blood vessels that brain tumour cells normally use to invade other parts of the brain," said Ravi Bellamkonda, lead investigator and chair of the Wallace H Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

"The cancer cells normally latch onto these natural structures and ride them like a monorail to other parts of the brain. By providing an attractive alternative fibre, we can efficiently move the tumours along a different path to a destination that we choose," said Bellamkonda.

Treating the Glioblastoma multiforme cancer, also known as GBM, is difficult because the aggressive and invasive cancer often develops in parts of the brain where surgeons are reluctant to operate.

Even if the primary tumour can be removed, however, it has often spread to other locations before being diagnosed.

"The signalling pathways we were trying to activate to repair the spinal cord were the same pathways researchers would like to inactivate for glioblastomas," said first author of the study, Anjana Jain, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

Tumour cells typically invade healthy tissue by secreting enzymes that allow the invasion to take place, Jain said. That activity requires a significant amount of energy from the cancer cells.

"Our idea was to give the tumour cells a path of least resistance, one that resembles the natural structures in the brain, but is attractive because it does not require the cancer cells to expend any more energy," she said.

Details of the technique were reported in the journal Nature Materials.