In a new study from South Korea, people with worsening glaucoma on just one side were also more likely to sleep with the affected eye facing downward.

The researchers say that position raises the eye's internal pressure and probably hastens deterioration of the eye.

In glaucoma, the optic nerve is often damaged by increased intraocular pressure. The damage causes tunnel vision and eventual blindness.

According to the World Health Organization, glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness around the world, after cataracts.

"There is prior data from the early nineties, suggesting that in patients with glaucoma who sleep on their sides, the eye in the dependent position tends to have greater damage of the optic nerve," Dr. Jeffrey Schultz said.

Schultz directs Glaucoma Service at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York and is an associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

He was not involved in the study, but said it is "important in letting us know that there is potential for behavior changes in lessening the risk of blindness from glaucoma."

The study was led by Dr. Kyoung Nam Kim, a researcher in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Chungnam National University hospital in Daejeon.

Treatments to decrease pressure in a patient's eyeballs can slow progression of glaucoma in some cases. But other patients continue to progress even when intraocular pressure appears to be under control, Kim's team writes in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

Since lying down raises the pressure in the eyeball, and sleeping on one side consistently more than the other could be problematic for the eye on that side, the researchers decided to investigate whether a side- sleeping position might be part of the problem.

Kim and colleagues examined the sleeping habits of 430 glaucoma patients who had a visual field loss that was worse in one eye.

They found 132 of the patients preferred to sleep on one side. Of these patients, 67 percent usually slept with the worse eye downward.

They also compared the sleeping habits of patients who had glaucoma with elevated intraocular pressure (high-tension glaucoma) with those with normal pressure (normal-tension glaucoma).

Approximately 66 percent of the patients with normal-tension glaucoma preferred to sleep with the worse eye downward and 71 percent of the patients with high-tension glaucoma slept that way.

The results don't prove that sleeping position accounts for worsening glaucoma on one side.

But they at least verify a link "between the preferred sleeping position and asymmetric visual field loss between eyes," the authors write.

"Unfortunately, it is very difficult to control your body position during sleep," Schultz said.

"Certainly, if one has severe damage in one eye it would seem to make sense to attempt to avoid sleeping on your side with that eye down," he said.

It may help to sleep on the side with less eye damage - or on your back. But Schultz warns that sleeping on your back may not be the answer for people who are predisposed to sleep apnea, which is another risk factor for worsening glaucoma.

At this point there is no way to improve visual field loss in patients with glaucoma once it occurs, he said.

"The best thing that patients can do to lessen the risk of worsening, is to be compliant with the medical regime and to follow up as directed by the patient's physician," Schultz said.

Not just this, Indians have another reason to smile as the World Health Organisation (WHO) is all set to officially certify India as a polio-free nation after the last of random samples picked up would be tested.

For the record, India reported its last case of polio on January 13 last year, from Kolkata in West Bengal.

Further, there has been a constant drop recorded in polio endemic states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with zero case recorded in the year 2011 in both the states.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on January 6, "For the last two years we have been a polio free country. If by January 13, there are no polio cases in the country, then we will be declared polio free".

An Indian origin researcher has found that a form of malaria, which is common in India, Southeast Asia and South America, attacks human red blood cells by clamping down on the cells with a pair of proteins.

New study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provides details that will help scientists design better vaccines and drug treatments for the strain, Plasmodium vivax.

"More people live at risk of infection by this strain of malaria than any other," senior author Niraj Tolia, PhD, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, said.

"We now are using what we have learned to create vaccines tailored to stop the infectious process by preventing the parasite from attaching to red blood cells," the researcher said.

Earlier studies had suggested that one P. vivax protein binds to one protein on the surface of red blood cells . Tolia's new study reveals that the binding is a two-step process that involves two copies of a parasite protein coming together like tongs around two copies of a host protein.

Tolia also found evidence that people with immunity to P. vivax have developed naturally occurring antibodies that attach to a key part of the parasite's binding protein, preventing infection.

The study was published in PLOS Pathogens.

Early onset of heart attacks can now be predicted with the development of a new technique, according to a study.

A team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have been able to identify patients at high risk of a heart attack by identifying specific cells as markers in the bloodstream.

Diseased plaques build up on the walls of blood vessels, rupture and cause inflammation in the arteries. This can obstruct the flow of blood through the arteries and cause a heart attack. During this process, the circulating endothelial cells (CECs) are also released into the bloodstream. The researchers were able to identify these cells and has been successful in distinguishing patients undergoing treatment for a recent heart attack with a healthy control group.

"The goal of this paper was to establish evidence that these circulating endothelial cells can be detected reliably in patients following a heart attack and do not exist in healthy controls-which we have achieved," said Associate Professor Peter Kuhn, who led the study. "Our results were so significant relative to the healthy controls that the obvious next step is to assess the usefulness of the test in identifying patients during the early stages of a heart attack."

The results were so significant relative to the healthy control group, that the obvious next step is to assess the usefulness of the test in identifying patients during the early stages of a heart attack, said the study published in the journal Physical Biology.

The researchers believe the technique can now be tested on patients who exhibit symptoms but are yet to experience a heart attack.

Adolescents whose parents suffer from chronic pain may be more likely to develop ongoing pain too - especially if the parent tends to 'catastrophize' pain, according to new research.

"Children are careful observers of everything that we do as parents, and how we respond to our pain and to their pain is no different," said Anna Wilson, a psychologist at Oregon Health & Science University who led the study.

Sometimes acting worried or repeatedly asking how a child is feeling can lead them to worry that the problem they are having is serious, even if it isn't, Wilson said.

"Unfortunately, we know from many research studies that this (misplaced) worry tends to make pain worse," she said.

In the study, 178 kids between the ages of 11 and 14 were recruited through their schools. They filled out questionnaires asking about ongoing physical issues such as backaches, stomach pain and headaches, as well as how much the pain interfered with their everyday lives. The adolescents' parents answered similar questions about their own pain.

Both kids and parents also filled out surveys focused on how they coped with the child's pain, such as whether parent or child felt helpless about the condition or blew the pain out of proportion.

About one-fourth of adolescents and two-thirds of parents in the study reported having chronic pain, and parental pain was significantly linked to the likelihood of that parent's child having pain.

Having a parent with pain and having a parent who magnified the significance of pain boosted the risk that a child would also put more emphasis on the pain's importance, the team reports in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

The take-home point, according to Wilson, is that the most helpful way to approach ongoing pain in a child - such as repeated headaches or muscle aches - probably differs from the way a parent might act when the child has a short-term illness like stomach flu or a sprained ankle.

For that reason, it can be helpful for parents with chronic pain to seek outside help to pinpoint their own strengths, and to assist their kids in developing healthy ways to cope with pain and discomfort.

"Being a parent is hard; pain just makes it harder," Wilson said.

"If you are a parent who has chronic pain and you are worried about how it might be impacting your child, talk with your own doctor, a pain psychologist or your child's doctor," she said.