ISLAMABAD (Online) Routine childhood vaccinations do not increase the risk of developing diabetes, according to a study of more than 700,000 Danish children. The study, led by Anders Hviid of the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, looked at all Danish children born from 1990 through 2000 and found that diabetes rates were not higher regardless of what types of vaccines were administered. The study will, one hopes, be the last one that is necessary to disprove an association between immunization and diabetes, said Dr. Lynne Levitsky of Massachusetts General Hospital. In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, where the study appears, Levitsky said researchers should now move on to the most important tasks of finding what actually causes the blood sugar disease and, perhaps, a way to prevent it. In addition, the study found siblings of children who had diabetes and were therefore more likely to develop the condition themselves were not more likely to become diabetics if they were vaccinated. The Hviid team also looked to see if the vaccinations increased the risk of diabetes two, three or four years later in life. They found it did not. The fact that doctors are doing a better job of getting children immunized against a dozen often-serious diseases had prompted speculation vaccines might contribute to the growing incidence of childhood diabetes. But there is already evidence from previous studies that a yet-to-be-discovered environmental factor makes the body stop producing the insulin it needs to process blood sugar. Extra pounds increase chances of kidney stones The more overweight a person is, the more likely he or she will have kidney stones, says a University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre study in the April issue of Kidney International. This is the first study to identify a direct link between excess body weight and uric acid kidney stones, which occur in about 5 percent of kidney-stone patients and in about 30 percent of diabetics with kidney stones. This is yet another price to pay for being overweight or obese, Dr Khashayar Sakhaee, a professor of internal medicine and programme director of the General Clinical Research Centre (GCRC) at UT Southwestern, says in a prepared statement. Kidney stones form when waste materials in urine do not dissolve completely. Starting as microscopic particles, they eventually grow into kidney stones, which remain in the kidney or break loose and travel down the urinary tract. Sakhaee and his colleagues tracked about 5,000 kidney-stone patients in Dallas and Chicago. They found that overweight and obese people were more likely to develop kidney stones, even if they restricted the types of food they ate. The results were the same for men and women. Larger people have very acidic urine even when they control their diets. Other studies we have done in the GCRC support this concept. For the first time, we are advising weight loss as part of our therapy. That connection had not been made in the past, Sakhaee says. Circumcision protects against AIDS A new study found that uncircumcised men were nearly seven times more likely to get the AIDS virus, giving further support to findings that circumcision. The study by Robert C Bollinger and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University Medical School and the National AIDS Research Institute in Pune, India, was published Friday as a research letter in The Lancet medical journal. It is now about the ninth study which followed men who are HIV-negative over a period of months or years. It is the ninth study in a row which has found that the effect (of circumcision) is significant, said Robert C. Bailey, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who was not connected with Bollingers study. The fact that they found no behavioral differences between the two groups is all the more compelling, and indicates that there is a biological factor, Bailey said in a telephone interview. Bailey, like the authors of the Lancet study, believe that cells in the foreskin may be particularly susceptible to infection. The association between circumcision and a reduced risk of HIV was noted as early as 1987, when Dr. William Cameron of the University of Manitoba in Canada reported findings from a study in Kenya. The research published in The Lancet tracked 2,298 men who were being treated at three clinics in Pune, and who were confirmed to be HIV-negative at the start of the study. The study also found that circumcised men were as much at risk of gonorrhea, herpes simplex and syphilis as the uncircumcised. The nine studies have all tried to control for variables in behavior, Bailey said. A randomized control trial is what is necessary now to really nail this down, he said. Nuts and dried fruit to lower cholesterol High cholesterol is a common pathology, especially in these times. Stress, hectic life, overwork, economic problems are factors that work to raise the limits of cholesterol in blood and this is dangerous because the risk of triggering for coronary artery disease as a result of clogged arteries. For this reason, it is important to have a healthy diet and physical exercise regularly to control it, private news channel reported.Some of them are nuts and dried fruits in general. Within the nuts we can find, in addition to nuts, the almonds, hazelnuts, chestnuts, pistachios, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin and sesame seeds, so that the range of consumption possibilities is wide, as well as incorporate them into our diet. Experts recommend its use as part of a healthy diet because they contain antioxidants, minerals, fiber, vitamins and, especially, are rich in protein and unsaturated fatty acids, such as highly beneficial Omega 3. Other compounds in these foods are the phytosterols, which block the absorption of cholesterol, preventing this is fixed in arteries and intestines. But thats not all, as nuts and dried fruits help also lower triglycerides, another type of lipid also responsible for causing serious heart problems. Recent studies assert that the daily consumption of 67 grams of walnuts, within three to eight weeks, significantly contributes to lowering the rates of both cholesterol and triglycerides, which is good news for lovers of nuts and especially for those suffering from these health problems.