A weekly roundup of news affecting your health:
CARING FOR AGEING PARENTS:
There's early evidence to suggest the strength of family bonds can affect the physical and mental health of Australians and ageing parents in their care.
Victoria's Deakin University has begun a year-long study of sons and daughters who are caring for their ageing parents.
Researchers are focusing on the quality of parent-child relationships and how that might affect the physical and mental health of both groups.
Early evidence suggests strained family bonds can result in negative outcomes for both, including immune system functions, and increased risk of depression and anxiety.
"There's even preliminary evidence to suggest that relationship strains can exacerbate rates of cognitive decline in both carers and care-recipients," says Associate Professor Gery Karantzas.
But good family relationships appear to have the opposite effect and it's almost as if they inoculate ageing parents and their children from all kinds of physical and emotional problems, he says.
Researchers are looking for more families from the Melbourne and Barwon regions to join the study. For details go to: www.fills.org.au
RESPIRATORY HEALTH
If your asthma or bronchitis is playing up, boosting your vitamin D levels could be the answer, a new Australian study suggests.
Researchers from the University of Western Australia have found low levels of the vitamin are associated with asthma, bronchitis, wheezing and chest tightness.
The study, which involved more than 5000 adults aged 45 to 69, also found high levels were associated with healthy lung function.
"Respiratory illness and symptoms are associated with lower vitamin D levels in a relatively large representative adult Caucasian population," the researchers found.
"Lower vitamin D levels confer an increased risk of reported asthma, bronchitis and symptoms of wheeze and chest tightness."
The research, which fits with other recent studies investigating asthma outcomes and use of vitamin D supplements, has been published in the latest edition of the journal Respirology.
PERIOD PROBLEMS
There's hope on the horizon for women who suffer every month, after researchers managed to trick the uteri of mice into repairing themselves faster after a period.
The lining that sheds during a period requires low levels of oxygen to successfully repair.
Scottish researchers have found that by using a special pharmaceutical compound, they can fool mouse uteri into thinking oxygen is low and repairing themselves more quickly.
One in five women experience heavy menstrual bleeding at some point, with many resorting to surgery or hormonal treatment to resolve the problem, but those options are associated with a wide range of side effects.
More research is needed but it's hoped the compound could eventually help women who experience severe menstrual bleeds, and the pain that often accompanies them.
The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
YOGA
Hot yoga may be a whole lot of hot air when it comes to the health of your blood vessels, a new study suggests.
US researchers have found Bikram yoga - practised in rooms heated to more than 40C and purported to improve blood vessel function - doesn't provide any more benefits than yoga at room temperature.
"The postures and the breathing exercises are enough in the absence of the heated environment to elicit some beneficial adaptations that could reduce the risk of heart disease," the study found.
Texas State University researcher Stacey Hunter randomly selected a group of healthy but sedentary middle-aged adults and split them into three groups.
Nineteen carried on as usual, 14 did 12 weeks of three 90-minute Bikram classes at room temperature, and 19 did Bikram classes at 40.5 degrees.
The groups underwent testing to determine if the main artery in the forearm dilated in response to increased blood flow - a measure of the function of the inner-blood vessel lining.
Both yoga groups showed improvements in the function of their artery lining but the size of the benefit was the same regardless of temperature.
The research has been published in the journal Experimental Physiology.
