Fish good and gadgets not bad for brain
Tuesday February 9th, 2010
Video games and mobile phones are not causing an epidemic of headaches among teenagers, researchers claimed today.
A new study says the only teenage habit that is linked to the development of headache is regular music listening.
German researchers questioned some 1,000 teenagers for the research, published in the journal BMC Neurology. Nearly half claimed to suffer from headaches.
Researcher
Astrid Milde-Busche, of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany,
said there had been little detailed study of claims that electronic gadgets
are causing teenagers health problems.
She said: "It cannot be concluded whether the habit of listening to music is the cause of frequent headaches, or the consequence in the sense a self-therapy by relaxation."
* A second report today links the so-called Mediterranean diet to improved brain health.
People who eat the healthy diet, rich in olive oil and fish, are less likely than others to experience problems with thinking and memory caused by minor brain disease, the conference of the American Academy of Neurology was told.
Researchers said the diet seemed to help prevent the loss of small areas of brain tissue, a problem known as brain infarcts.
The conference in Toronto, Canada, was told how researchers studied some 700 people in New York, USA, questioning them about diet and then giving them MRI brain scans after six years. Some 238 had at least one area of brain damage.
People whose diet was closest to the "Mediterranean" diet were 36 per cent less likely than those with the unhealthiest eating habits to show signs of brain problems, according to researcher Dr Nikolaos Scarmeas, of Columbia University Medical Center, New York.
The researchers defined the Mediterranean diet as including large amounts of vegetables, fruit, cereals, fish and monounsaturated oils such as olive oil - together with moderate amounts of alcohol and low consumption of dairy products and fat.
Tags: Brain & Neurology | Diet & Food | Europe | Infancy to Adolescence | North America | Pain Relief
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