In a study conducted in Chennai, vitamin A supplements given in the early newborn period reduced the risk of infant deaths from diarrhoea, fever and respiratory infections, but did not reduce the occurrence of these problems. The researchers randomly assigned 5,786 newborns to receive vitamin A supplements within the first 48 hours after birth and 5833 newborns were made to receive placebo. Infants in both groups were followed up through home visits for six months and details of illness were recorded. Death rates due to diarrhoea and fever were markedly lower amongst vitamin A-tested infants compared with those given the placebo. There was also evidence that vitamin A reduced the risk of death from respiratory infection.

Too little or too much sleep tied to death risk
Adults who routinely get too little or too much sleep may die sooner than those who get the standard eight hours of sleep each night, a study says. The research, that was published in the journal Sleep, found that among nearly 10,000 adults that were followed for 17 years, those who slept less than eight hours each night during the early part of the study were more likely to die of a heart disease than those who slept for about eight hours daily. On the other hand, those whose typical sleep time increased beyond eight hours were at elevated risk of dying from non-cardiovascular causes such as depression or fatigue.

Obesity hurts a woman’s fertility
Obesity decreases the chances that a woman will get pregnant, and the more obese she is, the worse her prospects of conception, a Dutch report said. The study, published in the journal Human Production, included more than 3,000 couples between 2002 and 2004 in 24 hospitals in the Netherlands. They looked at the relationship between fertility in these women and their body mass index, a ratio of weight to height. Women with a BMI of 30 or higher are considered obese. The researchers found that women with a BMI of 30 or higher had significantly lower probability of becoming pregnant naturally as compared to women who had a BMI of between 21 and 29. ©
Reuters