According to scientists, getting people to eat a healthy diet, exercise more, avoid smoke, and cut down alcohol consumption could likely prevent about one-fourth of the 1.2 million cases of colon cancer that are diagnosed each year.

Denmark researchers found that by following the guidelines on physical activity, waist circumference, alcohol intake, smoking and diet could decrease a person’s risk to develop colon cancer by as much as 23 percent.

According to Anne Tjonneland, the scientist who led the study from the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology at the Danish Cancer Society, the study reveals the importance of a public health message that even the slightest differences in lifestyle can make a substantial effect on the risk of colorectal cancer.

There are about half million people worldwide that die each year due to colorectal cancer, also referred to as colon or bowel cancer.

The study was made among 55,487 men and women at the ages of 50-64 years old that had not been previously diagnosed with cancer and tracked them along for almost 10 years.

The participants were presented with lifestyle and diet questionnaires and the researchers made a healthy lifestyle index based on the recommendations from various health institutions.

The results showed that 678 people were diagnosed with bowel cancer during the follow-up period. The results are now published in the British Medical Journal.

According to the researchers’ analysis, if the participants followed five lifestyle tips, 13 percent of colon cancer cases might have been avoided while 23 percent of cases could have been prevented if they followed one more extra guideline.

Experts suggest that people should be convinced to follow a good diet and healthy lifestyle to prevent the risk of colon cancer.

An outbreak of suspected cholera had killed nearly 140 people in central Haiti according to the Haitian health officials on Thursday. Since the January 12 earthquake, this is the country’s biggest medical crisis.

The Haitian health authorities had already informed the World Health Organization regarding their 138 deaths and about 1,526 cases so far in the outbreak that is centered on Lower Artibonite region, north of the Port-au-Prince capital. Some cases were also listed in the area of Central Plateau.

Local hospitals in Haiti were overwhelmed with the tremendous  number of patients admitted, most of which are suffering from acute diarrhea. The Haitian officials informed that the victims are rapidly dying from dehydration in just a matter of hours.

Medical teams that have been giving assistance to Haiti since the disaster that occurred on January 12 have set out to the outbreak area.

However, the World Health Organization, as well as the United Nations could not confirm yet if the cause of the outbreak is cholera. They are still waiting for the final results of the laboratory tests that were taken from the samples of the dead and sick victim.

But, Dr. Gabriel Thimote, the Haitian Health Department Director General and Alex Larsen, the Health Minister said that the initial testing suggested cholera even though Haiti does not have any history of recent cholera outbreaks.

Cholera is a disease transmitted through contaminated water and food. This causes watery diarrhea and severe dehydration, which can kill in few hours when not immediately treated.

Yet, experts say that there are about 80 percent of cholera cases that can be successfully treated through oral rehydration salts. However, safe water and good sanitation are still important to help reduce the cases of cholera and other waterborne diseases.

Researchers found that among 4.6 million adults living in Switzerland, heart attacks are more common among people who are exposed to too much aircraft noise. People living under flight routes are the most predisposed.

According to Matthias Egger, researcher from the University of Bern, the case was much more evident among people who were exposed to increased levels of noise, but it was dependent on for how long those people were exposed to such noise.

Although this is not the first time that noise pollution was linked to undesirable health effects, the study helped determine that the noise is the major cause of the cardiovascular risks and not just other factors that might affect the people such as air pollution.

The researchers identified 15,532 heart attack deaths between late 2000 and end of 2005 among 4.6 million residents. Using this information from the ongoing Swiss mortality study, as well as the government records and environmental data, Egger and his colleagues identified that both the duration and level of aircraft noise affect the people most.

In their written report in journal Epidemiology, the researchers said that people who are exposed at a minimum of 60 decibels of noise at a daily rate are at 30 percent greater risk to die from heart attack than those who are exposed to less than 45 decibels.

On the other hand, people exposed to increased levels of decibels for at least 15 years and more puts up their risk to more than 50 percent.

Egger said that noise does possibly have effects on health and their group recommends further measures to protect the people from such aircraft noise such as sound barriers and better home insulation.

Eastern European teenagers have been reportedly involved in drunkenness for the past decade according to the Swiss research. This bad habit has become more widespread, particularly in the Eastern European girls as alcohol marketing has reached the younger audiences.

Based on the study made among 80,000 teenagers at the age of 15, the general teens’ population had been drunk on an average of two to three times. However, it appears that drunkenness was becoming less frequent in the Western countries.

It appears that adolescents in Eastern Europe think of alcohol consumption as an attractive lifestyle. On the other hand, the teenage boys in Western Europe and North America, considered as the high-consuming group before, had resented to alcohol consumption and drunkenness.

According to the researchers, the lack of alcohol marketing and social control of leisure time had kept the adolescent drunkenness down before.

But, the increasing and aggressive marketing of alcohol in the 1990s contributed to the increase in alcohol use in today’s teenagers.

The average frequency of drunkenness across all seven Eastern European countries has increased to about 40 percent over the last 10-year study period. It appears that global marketing have been triumphant to increase excessive consumption of alcohol among teenagers in the Eastern Europe as noted by the researchers.

As a result of the given findings, the researchers suggest that Eastern European countries should give emphasis on public health to ward of drunkenness. This could be done through increasing taxes on alcohol, as well as restricting alcohol advertisement.

A report made by the Virginia tech shows that there are about two thirds of the U.S veterans from the Iraq and Afghan wars based in the state of Virginia that is now suffering from some form of depression.

Apart from that, there is more than one in four veterans that have suffered from a service-related head injury.

In fact, Mary Beth Dunkenberger says that the real numbers may be much higher. Dunkenberger, the author of the report, is the senior program director at the Institute for Policy and Governance at Virginia Tech.

According to her, several veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan war were scared to confess that they are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, an anxiety disorder they had developed during the war.

During demobilization, veterans are all excited to see their families, and once they admit they have PTSD, that would keep them away from their families and could harm their careers.

As part of the report that was gathered for the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program, it was discovered that 66 percent of the Virginia veterans was reported to have been suffering from some type of depression. This percentage is only second to the Vietnam veterans.

In addition, ten percent of that was reported to have high-level of depression. Also, high number of suicides has been cited among the U.S veterans.

One of the primary concerns by the U.S veterans of these two wars is their lack of access to medical treatment and facilities, particularly in very far-flung areas. They also expressed fear of losing their jobs, since U.S unemployment rate is nearing ten percent.