Having sons may shorten mother's life-span: study
Producing sons is more stressful for mothers and could
shorten their life spans, a study has suggested.
Researchers
used demographic data from pre-industrial Finland to show, irrespective of
access to resources, mothers but not fathers with many sons suffered from
reduced survival, a media report said.
But
this association reduced, as mothers got older, according to the Royal Society
journal Biology Letters.
"Our
results provide evidence that Finnish mothers traded long post-reproductive
lifespan for giving birth to many sons," Dr Samuli Helle, of the
University of Turku, said.
Previous
studies have suggested sons are especially costly for the mother because they
are, on average, born heavier and place more physical stress on the body.
"They
also raise levels of testosterone in their mothers", which can age the
immune system, making it is less able to defend the body.
Moreover
sons need more care after birth. On the other hand daughters prolong mothers'
lives by helping in tasks such as obtaining food and rearing younger siblings,
at least in the traditional society studied.
Dr
Helle' study found that women's post reproductive survival declined with the number
of sons they gave birth to, regardless of the socio-economic status.But was age
dependent. That is, the survival costs of the number of sons born decreased
linearly as women aged.
However,
the number of daughters born was not connected to women's lifespan and, in men,
neither the number of sons nor daughters born were related to their survival,
irrespective of their socioeconomic status.
Added
Dr Helle: "Our results show producing sons shortened the post reproductive
lifespan of Finnish women and this association deteriorated as mothers
aged."
Source:
www.indianexpress.com
28.02.2013
Over 360 mn people suffering hearing
loss,half of them preventable: WHO
An estimated 360 million people
in the world are suffering from hearing loss, a World Health Organisation (WHO)
report prepared for International Ear Care Day (March 3) has said. WHO said one
in three people over the age of 65, or a total of 165 million people worldwide,
live with hearing loss, and another 32 million affected by hearing loss are
children aged below 15.
About half of all cases of
hearing loss are easily preventable while many can be treated through early
diagnosis and suitable interventions such as surgically implanted hearing
devices, said Shelly Chadha of the WHO Department of Prevention of Blindness
and Deafness.
She, however, warned that the
current production of hearing aids met less than 10 percent of the global need.
‘In developing countries, fewer than one out of 40 people who need a hearing
aid have one,’ Chadha said.
WHO encouraged countries to
develop programmes for preventing hearing loss within their primary health care
systems including vaccinating children against infectious diseases such as
measles, meningitis and mumps. It also recommended measures such as screening
and treating syphilis in pregnant women, and early assessment and management of
hearing loss in babies.
Source:
http://health.india.com
28.02.2013
Nothing is
good or bad, but thinking makes it so
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