PDF 185@31271 ARAT 04-03-2019 p17-1

ARAB TIMES, MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2019

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Health

Toxin found in recalled pills

Regular `yoga' linked to lowered blood pressure

NEW YORK, March 3, (RTRS): Adults who practice yoga with breathing and relaxation exercises at least three times a week may have lower blood pressure than people who don't, a research review suggests.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 49 trials with a total of 3,517 participants who were typically middle-aged, overweight women and men who already had high blood pressure or were close to developing the condition. These smaller trials assessed blood pressure before and after participants were randomly assigned either to doing yoga or to a control group without exercise programs.

Reduced

Overall, the people in the yoga groups experienced average reductions in systolic blood pressure of 5 mmHG (millimeters of mercury) more than those in the control groups, and diastolic blood pressure was reduced by 3.9 mmHG more with yoga.

When people with high blood pressure did yoga three times a week in sessions that also included breathing and relaxation exercises, they experienced average decreases of 11 mmHG more than control groups in systolic blood pressure and 6 mmHG more in diastolic blood pressure.

"Our results not only showed that yoga can be just as, or even more effective than aerobic exercise to reduce blood pressure; but also quantitatively showed the importance of emphasizing yoga breathing techniques and mental relaxation/meditation along with physical forms during practice," said lead study author Yin Wu, a researcher in kinesiology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

"So, yoga, among other lifestyle interventions (such as diet and smoking cessation) should be adopted early on even when the blood pressure is still relatively low, and should be continued along with medication when blood pressure is relatively high," Wu said by email.

Yoga appeared beneficial, but less so, when people practiced regularly but didn't focus on breathing and relaxation or meditation. Under these circumstances, yoga was associated with average drops of 6 mmHG more in systolic blood pressure and 3 mmHG more in diastolic blood pressure compared to the groups doing no exercise.

In adults, a normal or healthy blood pressure reading is considered to be 120/80 mmHG or lower.

People in the study started out with average blood pressure readings of 129.3/80.7 mmHG. This suggests the reductions associated with yoga might be enough to return some people to the normal range.

The first number in the reading, known as systolic blood pressure, is the pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart beats. The second number, known as diastolic blood pressure, represents the pressure between beats when the heart is at rest.

One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data on the intensity of yoga practices, including how long people held poses and how rapidly participants transitioned from one position to the next, the study authors note in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Also:

NEW YORK: US health regulators said on Friday a third cancercausing toxin was found in some blood pressure pills recalled by India's Hetero Labs Ltd a day earlier, adding to a global recall of commonly used drugs to treat hypertension.

The US Food and Drug Administration is also looking into whether these types of impurities could be found in other classes of drugs, a spokeswoman for the regulator said.

The toxin, N-Nitroso-N-methyl4-aminobutyric acid (NMBA), identified in 87 lots of Hetero's losartan potassium pills, was not found in medicines that were previously recalled by a number of drugmakers.

In this Feb 7, 2018 file photo, a nurse prepares a flu shot at the Salvation Army in Atlanta. Health officials say further research has not found a miscarriage risk for women who get annual flu shots. Two years ago, a puzzling study found women who had miscarriages between 2010 and 2012 were more likely

to have had back-to-back annual flu shots. Experts said other factors may have caused the miscarriages, but urged more research. But this week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said a larger and more rigorous study found no link over three subsequent flu seasons. (AP)

`Talking to children is important'

How parents can deal with internet hoaxes

By Mae Anderson

The latest parental panic on social media ? over a purported challenge for kids to complete harmful tasks ? elevates the importance of establishing an open dialogue with children and taking advantage of online parental controls.

Warnings about the "Momo challenge" swept Facebook and other social media in recent days, as parents worried about purported videos that encourage children to hurt themselves or do other harmful tasks such as turning on stoves without telling their parents. The parental warnings were accompanied by a disturbing image of a grinning creature with matted hair and bulging eyes.

But the challenge is believed to be a hoax. It's unclear how many videos exist or to what extent they have circulated, among children or elsewhere.

Some of the videos might have been made in response to media attention surrounding the challenge. Meanwhile, the image of the grinning creature is reportedly from a Japanese sculpture.

Fact-checking site Snopes said the challenge first appeared in mid-2018 linked to suicide reports without actual evidence. YouTube said it hasn't received "any recent evidence of videos showing or promoting the Momo challenge" on its service.

So why the panic? Experts say internet hoaxes focused on children tap into fears that parents have about protecting their children online and elsewhere. In addition to anxiety about "screen time" in general, there is certainly plenty of problematic videos that children shouldn't watch. It's hard for parents to police everything children do online. Fears were compounded when some school systems, local media and even police sent out their own warn-

ings, accompanied by fuzzy facts. "All moral panics feed on some de-

gree of reality, but then they get blown out of proportion," said Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

These hoaxes echo panics from decades past, like the false belief in the 1980s that teenagers were hearing Satanic messages in rock song lyrics, he said.

"Once the internet is involved in the mix, things get speeded up and they get more widespread," Jones said.

The most important thing parents can do is to establish an open dialogue with their children about what they're seeing online and hearing from other children, said Jill Murphy, editor-in-chief at Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group focused on kids' use of media and technology.

"Parents are increasingly frustrated with feeling surprised or caught off guard by what is being put in front

of their kids," she said. Whether the "challenges" are real or not, she said, "they elevate the idea that they may or may not know exactly what their kids are absorbing through these platforms."

That's why talking to children is important, she said. "Take the right time to have an age-appropriate conversation, and help your kids understand not everything on the internet is real."

She said parents should also take advantage of parental settings built into many products and services. Most web browsers can block certain websites, limit what children can see and provide a report about what sites a child visited. Smartphones and tablets can limit screen time and access to apps. YouTube Kids lets parents disable search and turn off "autoplay". Murphy said these free tools are good enough; no need to pay for third-party parental apps. (AP)

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