GOOD NEWS

Chocolate for cough

If Peter Barnes, a professor at the Imperial College, London, is to be believed, the clue to an effective cure of cough lies in chocolates. According to a paper published in the journal FASEB, theobromine, an ingredient found in cocoa, has been found to be much more effective in stopping persistent coughs than codeine, the cough medicine currently thought to be most effective. However, the researchers say that this is the result of a small study and a larger study is required before developing new medicines.

Digital confirmation

According to a group of University of Michigan researchers, computer-aided-diagnosis makes it much easier to determine whether a lump is malignant or just a benign growth. When a patient undergoes a scan to identify a lump or a nodule, the radiologist looks at the texture, the borders and the shape to determine its malignant or benign nature. In the newly developed system, a computer program scans the lump, reads the radiologist?s views, and makes a combined judgement, helping detect cancers more accurately. The study was presented at the Radiological Society of North America?s annual meeting in Chicago last week.

BAD NEWS

Pain legacy

Chronic back pain shrinks the brain by as much as 11 per cent (the same amount of grey matter is usually lost in 10 to 20 years of normal ageing), says a paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience. The study conducted by a group of Northwestern University researchers claims that 1.3 cubic centimetres of grey matter are lost for every year of chronic pain.

Insomnia ignored

A Lancet report says that while anything between 5 and 35 per cent of people suffer from insomnia, the importance given to this disease is far from desired. A group of scientists from the Dartmouth Medical School, US, describe in the report how family doctors and other healthcare providers such as nurses and psychologists falter in enquiring about sleep habits as a component of overall health assessment, thereby neglecting this very vital aspect. The report also calls for educating family doctors about identification and assessment of chronic insomnia.