A round-up of other stories in brief
NOT SO HEALTHY OPTIONS:Some lunchtime salads and pasta bowls ought to carry health warnings because they are so salty, a campaign group in Britain has said.
A number of supposedly healthy products had more hidden salt than a burger and fries, a survey found.
One noodle salad had 4.4g of salt in a single portion - 73 per cent of an adult's recommended daily salt limit.
Some McDonald's salads were saltier than its Big Mac and small French fries meal, according to Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) which conducted the survey.
Cash says some salads sold in coffee shops and supermarkets should carry health warnings rather than be thought of as healthy options.
Eating too much salt can raise blood pressure which in turn increases the risk of strokes and heart disease, according to the Food Standards Agency.
The food watchdog says adults should eat no more than 6g of salt per day. But the
Cash survey of 156 ready- made salads and pasta bowls bought from high street outlets found 19 per cent contained more than one-third of the 6g limit.
CHINA ISSUES CONDOM ORDER:China has ordered all hotels, holiday resorts and public showers to provide condoms, as part of nationwide efforts to fight the spread of Aids.
The regulation, issued by the commerce and health ministries, also requires pamphlets about Aids prevention to be displayed, the Beijing Newssaid.
The move follows an unusual step by the booming eastern province of Zhejiang in March to fine hotels and bars if they do not provide condoms.
China originally stigmatised Aids as a disease of the decadent, capital West - a problem of gays, sex workers and drug users. Traditionally, none of these officially existed in communist China.
It has belatedly woken up to the problem and health experts have warned the virus is now moving into the general population. But a lack of sex education and unwillingness to talk about sex still hampers the fight, health experts say.
AGEING STUDY:The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (Tilda) has said leading researcher Dr Patricia Kearney has joined the Tilda team, following the awarding of the first ever Paul B. Beeson Fellowship outside of the US.
The Tilda study, which is being led by Trinity College, is a cross-institutional study which will provide a detailed and comprehensive picture of the lives of up to 10,000 people charting their health, social and economic circumstances as they age over at least a 10-year period.
The information gathered will be invaluable to policy-makers and practitioners in the areas of health, social care, transport and pensions, as well as for the voluntary sector, business and service industries, according to Tilda.
Dr Kearney will use data collected by Tilda to determine the prevalence of known cardiovascular risk factors in the ageing Irish population, including hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, smoking and lack of physical activity.
She will also evaluate the extent to which these factors are clustered together to quantify the burden posed by different risk factors in the population "as well as to assess the potential benefits of strategies to prevent and treat such risk factors".
In addition, she will investigate the role of psycho-social factors in cardiovascular disease.
HEART AND BRAINS:People who take steps to maintain the health of their heart and blood vessels may be protecting their brains too, a new British study has revealed. Elderly people with cardiovascular disease showed sharper declines in cognitive function over a four-year period than their peers with healthy hearts, Dr Snorri Bjorn Rafnsson of the University of Edinburgh and colleagues found.
MALNUTRITION IN HOSPITALS:The energy input from food eaten by hospitalised elderly patients is only just sufficient to cover their minimal energy output, French researchers have found. The group believes such patients could benefit from higher caloric intake.
Malnutrition is known to be common among elderly patients hospitalised with acute illness, because they often have little appetite and don't eat much.