Health Bulletin

You can be fat and fit - study

Recent research suggests that being overweight or even obese may not be so detrimental. A 2012 study from the National Cancer Institute found that moderately obese people actually lived about 3.1 years longer than normal-weight persons.

Another study, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that when obese people are metabolically healthy - which means their blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and other indicators fall within a healthy range - they are at no greater risk of dying from heart disease or cancer than those who are of normal weight.

"What we're learning is that a body that exercises regularly is generally a healthy body, whether that body is fat or thin," noted Glenn Gaesser, PhD, a professor of exercise and wellness at Arizona State University, United States and the author of Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health.

"The message should really be that if you are exercising regularly, you shouldn't necessarily be looking at the scale to determine how healthy or fit you are."

Regular physical activity reduces inflammation in the cardiovascular system and affects the secretion of clotting hormones, allowing blood to flow more easily to muscles and preventing the formation of deadly clots.

Childhood sexual, emotional abuse leaves brain scars

According to new research, the brains of women who were sexually and emotionally abused in childhood were permanently scarred, leaving distinct patterns.

The study, which linked specific types of abuse with symptoms experienced by many survivors later in life, showed that emotional abuse affected regions involved in self-awareness and sexual abuse affected areas involved in genital sensation.

"If abuse was of a sexual type, we saw changes in the somatosensory cortex, the area that processes input from the body to create sensations and perceptions," noted Jens Pruessner, associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

For those who were emotionally abused, the changes were seen in regions associated with understanding and controlling emotions and recognising and responding to the feelings of others.

However, recovery is not impossible, and most abuse survivors do not develop symptoms. In fact, research shows increasingly that the brain can change dramatically when provided with the right type ofsupport and emotional nourishment.

The research, which was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, imaged the brains of 51 women - age 18 to 45 - in Atlanta, United States, who were taking part in a larger project on the effects of early trauma.

Third of women suffer domestic violence - WHO study

The World Health Organization's (WHO) first major global review of violence against women has released a series of reports that found that about a third of women have been physically or sexually assaulted by a former or current partner.

The head of WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, called it "a global health problem of epidemic proportions", and other experts said screening for domestic violence should be added to all levels of healthcare.

Among the findings: 40 per cent of women killed worldwide were slain by an intimate partner, and being assaulted by a partner was the most common kind of violence experienced by women.

WHO defined physical violence as being slapped, pushed, punched, choked or attacked with a weapon. Sexual violence was defined as being physically forced to have sex, having sex for fear of what the partner might do, and being compelled to do something sexual that was humiliating or degrading.

The report also examined rates of sexual violence against women by someone other than a partner and found about seven per cent of women worldwide had previously been a victim.

Globally, the WHO review found 30 per cent of women are affected by domestic or sexual violence by a partner. According to the United Nations, more than 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime.

The rate of domestic violence against women was highest in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where 37 per cent of women experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner at some point in their lifetimes. The rate was 30 per cent in Latin America and 23 per cent in North America. In Europe and Asia, it was 25 per cent.