If you have been hating yourself for the extra pounds you are carrying on your hips and thighs, then here is a good news for you. “Fat around the hips and thighs is good for you but around the tummy is bad. Big thighs and hips are beneficial as the fat around these areas protect us from heart and metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes”, the Oxford team told the International Journal of Obesity. They believe that the body fat takes up harmful fatty acids and contains an anti-inflammatory agent that stops arteries clogging, reports The BBC. “It is shape that matters and where the fat gathers”, says lead researcher Dr Konstantinos Manolopoulos, of Oxford University.

Don’t be a couch potato and get moving According to researchers in Australia, sitting glued to the TV for hours increases the risk of death even in people who take exercise regularly. The cause they suggest was the prolonged periods of inactivity. This study is the work of lead author Dr David Dunstan, a researcher at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, and colleagues. The researchers concluded that: “Television viewing time was associated with increased risk of all-cause and CVD mortality.” They concluded that muscle movement helps the body process blood sugar and blood fats but sitting still for hours on end affects our metabolism that contributes to

Tests conducted by UK scientists involved 20 subjects using a driving simulator to test reaction times and driving performance. Researchers tested how driving impairment was affected when drivers were talking on a handheld mobile phone or a hands-free phone, and when drivers had consumed enough alcohol to register above the legal blood-alcohol limit. 1. Drivers reaction times were, on average, 30 percent slower when talking on a handheld mobile phone than when legally drunk. And 50 percent slower than under normal driving conditions (no alcohol). 2. Drivers talking on phones were less able than drunk drivers to maintain a constant speed, and they had greater difficulty keeping a

Men and women who are considered to be normal weight based on their body mass index (BMI) could still be at risk for obesity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) if their body fat levels are too high. People with NWO (Normal Weight Obesity) syndrome are not overweight but are at high risk of heart disease because of their elevated levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines that contribute to the development of CVD, atherosclerotic processes, and insulin resistance. This early inflammatory state could be a significant indicator of their future risk for obesity, CVD, and the metabolic syndrome. One of the ways to calculate normal weight obesity is to know weight gain after 18 or 20 years of age.

Breathing polluted air for even two hours can boost blood pressure, potentially raising the risk of cardiovascular disease in those exposed to smog, said Dr KK Aggarwal President Heart Care Foundation of India and MTNL Perfect Health Mela. In susceptible patients this small increase may actually be able to trigger a heart attack or stroke. In the study, which appeared in a recent issue of Hypertension, researchers tested 83 people as they breathed levels of air pollution similar to those in an urban city near a roadway. The air pollution caused diastolic pressure — the lower number in a blood pressure reading — to rise within two hours. Blood vessels were impaired for as long