Living on a farm during pregnancy may help reduce the chance of the child developing asthma, eczema and even hayfever, say scientists.

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By KENNETH CHANG

Cinnamon is a spice added to some breads and other bakery items. Soon, it might also be an ingredient in the wrapper around the bread as a way to keep out mold.

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French brain surgeons have conducted a world first by destroying a brain tumour on a conscious patient using keyhole laser surgery, it has emerged.

By Henry Samuel in Paris

Last Updated: 11:40PM BST 29 Aug 2008

The team from Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris drilled a 3mm hole into the skull of a patient under local anaesthetic, inserting a tiny fibre-optic cable armed with a laser.

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By RONI CARYN RABIN

Until she was 11 months old, Aleanie Remy-Marquez could have starred in an advertisement for breast milk. She took to nursing easily, was breast-fed exclusively for six or seven months, and ate little else even after that. She was alert and precocious and developed at astonishing speed, her mother said, sitting at four months and walking by eight months.

But once Aleanie started putting weight on her feet, her mother noticed that her legs were curving in a bow shape below the knees. Doctors diagnosed vitamin D-deficiency rickets, a softening of the bones that develops when children do not get enough vitamin D — a crucial ingredient for absorbing calcium and building bone, and the one critical hormone that breast milk often cannot provide enough of.

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by Allison Aubrey

In his 20 years as director of the hypertension program at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Randy Zusman has maintained a rather traditional approach.

He writes plenty of prescriptions for standard medications to treat high blood pressure. But in recent years, Zusman has gotten more assertive with patients about lifestyle choices.

“You’re going to have to change your diet, you’re going to have to lose weight, exercise, stop smoking,” Zusman tells patients. “If it’s not an important priority, keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll give you the pills. But if you really want to be there, you’re going to have to change.”

A Prescription For Meditation

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By PETER JARET

Hepatitis C can take decades to show up as damage to the liver.

Chronic viral hepatitis is now the leading reason for liver transplants.

Current combination therapy can be individualized to cure chronic infections in 40 to 80 percent of cases.

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