July 14 2016, Porto, PORTUGAL. Obesity may ultimately be a disease of the brain, involving a progressive deterioration of various cognitive processes that influence eating. Researchers at Macquarie University have now shown that memory inhibition - the useful ability to 'block out' memories that are no longer useful, which depends on a brain area called the hippocampus - is linked to dietary excess. Usually, food-related memories should be at the forefront during hunger but then inhibited during fullness, so that thoughts of food are set aside when eating is no longer top priority. Prior animal studies have shown that a Western diet - one high in fats and sugars and low in fruit, vegetable and fiber - impairs the memory inhibition abilities of the hippocampus.

Outdoor learning can have a significant and positive impact on children's quality of life but needs to be introduced more formally into global school curricula in order for its potential benefits to be fully realised, a new report suggests.

Cancer centers promoting their services dramatically increased their advertising spending from 2005 to 2014, and  9 of the 20 that accounted for the bulk of the spending were National Cancer Institute-designated centers, so they were using taxpayer funding to advertise to taxpayers to get taxpayers to come to their centers.  Five were for-profit institutions.

In what is probably the largest study of salary differences between male and female medical school faculty members, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) find that - even after adjusting for factors likely to influence income - women physicians earn an average of $20,000 per year less than men. Their study, which analyzed data for physicians employed at 24 public medical schools, is being published online in JAMA Internal Medicine.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Researchers are learning whether a simple part of our diets might be linked to a healthier weight - and it has nothing to do with carbs, fat or protein.

The potential secret weapon? Water.

People who are obese and have a higher body mass index (BMI) are more likely to be inadequately hydrated and vice versa, suggests new research from the University of Michigan published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

"The link between hydration and weight is not clear. Our study further explains this relationship on a population level using an objective measure of hydration," says lead author Tammy Chang, M.D., MPH, MS, an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the U-M Medical School.

Children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails may be less likely to develop allergies, according to a new study from New Zealand's University of Otago.

The finding emerges from the long-running Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study, which has followed the progress of 1,037 participants born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972-1973 into adulthood.

The study, which appears in the August issue of the US journal Pediatrics, suggests that childhood exposure to microbial organisms through thumb-sucking and nail-biting reduces the risk of developing allergies.

Study lead author Professor Bob Hancox says that this exposure may alter immune function so that children with these habits become less prone to developing allergy.