Another potential benefit to breast-feeding has come forward as fewer behavioral problems in children.

A new study finds that parents of youngsters who were breast-fed as infants have been reporting less regarding behavioral problems in their children during the first five years of life.

Similarly, the possibilities of mental health issues reduce in proportion to the duration of breast-feeding, i.e. if a child has been breast-fed for a year is less likely to develop behavioral problems than a child who has been breast-fed for just two months.

Dr. Katherine Hobbs Knutson (a resident in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston) presented the study at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, in San Diego. She said: “Though it’s an early finding, it indicates that breast-feeding during infancy could have an effect on behavior during childhood.”

…Click here to read more

“Cryptosporidium parvum”, a typical protozoa-infection that causes acute, watery, and non-bloody diarrhea in small children in developing countries and immune-compromised patients is becoming a concern for scientists the world over. This infection may also cause anorexia related watery diarrhea in HIV infection. Such an infection will result in to nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.

Resistivity property of these protozoa to the water chlorination has caused massive epidemic in the United States. Scientists have also expressed that it has attained a status of a ‘prospective bio-terrorism agent’. There are neither vaccines nor effective drugs available to respond to these multiple threats to human health.

A major breakthrough has been achieved as scientists at the ‘Brandeis University’ and the ‘University of Georgia’ has been successful in identifying the lead compounds that can resist the attacks of this protozoa. In the published details of this research in the journal “Chemistry and Biology”, the scientists hope that their findings will pave the way for further development of an effective antibiotic treatment.

…Click here to read more