A team of Spanish scientists, which includes several researchers from the University of Granada, has confirmed that there is a relation between the levels of certain environmental pollutants that a person accumulates in his or her body and their level of obesity. Subjects with more pollutants in their organisms present besides higher levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, which are important risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

This is a study published in the prestigious journal Environmental Pollution, which has counted with the participation of researchers from the University of Granada, the San Cecilio and Virgen de las Nieves university hospitals, and the Andalusian School of Public Health, all of them members of the Granada Biohealth Research Institute.

The "average" Australian according to statistics is a 37 year-old woman with two kids, a mortgage and three bedroom house. But how "typical" are her consumer choices? Image from Shutterstock

Who is the “typical” or “average” consumer? Is there such a thing? What do they look like? How do they make decisions? Am I an average (or perhaps a below average) consumer?

If you ask doctors what the biggest myth about the flu is, they will tell you that it's people thinking they have the flu. Flu-like illness can be caused by many pathogens, and most people don't go to the doctor for it, making it difficult to assess how often people really have.  

Older and young people are more susceptible but adults over the age of 30 only catch flu about twice a decade, according to a new paper.  The immune system responds to flu viruses by producing antibodies that specifically target proteins on the virus surface. These proteins can change as the virus evolves, but we keep antibodies in the blood that have a memory for strains we've encountered before.

There are lots of good reasons not to smoke marijuana and you probably heard or read them all growing up - what you may not have heard is that marijuana, like other pollen-bearing plants, is an allergen which can cause allergic responses.

A new article summarizes research on the ways in which cannabis can act as an allergen. The article draws attention to allergic responses that may be unfamiliar to marijuana users.

Gastric bypass and similar stomach-shrinking surgeries are a popular option for obese patients looking to lose weight and they have even been linked to a decreased risk in many types of cancers - except colon cancer. A 2013 long-term study of 77,000 obese patients found that colon cancer rates were higher but a new study in mice could explain the association - and raise safety concerns for a new generation of weight-loss drugs. 

According to new research, adults in Ontario with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are significantly less likely to be screened for colorectal cancer than the general population.

Hélène Ouellette-Kuntz, a Queen's researcher and lead author on the first study of its kind, found that Ontarians with IDD, such as autism and Down syndrome, were almost twice as likely to not be up-to-date with colorectal tests when compared to Ontarians without IDD.

Undefined matter under the envelope of "dark matter" makes up over 80% of the universe - but it has never been directly detected.

But the search is on to narrow it down and a new paper has computationally set limits to the properties of one of the particles which might be identified as dark matter: axions. Due to the high temperature inside stars, photons can turn into axions that escape to the exterior, carrying energy with them.

The simulation indicates that the emission of axions can significantly diminish the time for the central combustion of helium, the so called HB (Horizontal Branch) phase: the energy taken by axions is compensated with the energy provided by nuclear combustion, which leads to a much faster consumption of helium. 

Doctors are writing lots of prescriptions for drugs to calm the behavior of people with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia, but non-drug approaches work better and carry far fewer risks, according to a new paper.  

In contrast to current protocol non-drug approaches should be the first choice for treating dementia patients' common symptoms such as irritability, agitation, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, aggression, apathy and delusions, write a team in British Medical Journal after reviewing two decades' worth of research on antipsychotics, antidepressants and non-drug approaches that help caregivers address behavioral issues in dementia patients. 

How will we know if the economy has really gotten better, rather than using bogus claims about employment or how well Wall Street executives are doing? When senior citizens stop killing themselves.

Suicide rates for adults between 40 and 64 years of age in the U.S. rose about 40% since 1999, with a sharp rise after in 2007 that continued during the economic downturn of 2008 and on, which led to disproportionate effects on house values, household finances, and retirement savings for that age group. In a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers found that external economic factors were present in 37.5% of all completed suicides in 2010, rising from 32.9% in 2005.