Women who have had weight loss surgery should wait at least a year before trying for a baby, experts have warned.

Having a baby after surgery is safer and associated with fewer complications than becoming pregnant when morbidly obese, say doctors.

But patients should still be treated as high-risk and be "strongly advised" not to get pregnant for 12 to 18 months afterwards, a review suggests.

Obesity among women of childbearing age is expected to rise to 28% by 2015.

National guidelines recommend weight loss surgery - most commonly done through a gastric band or gastric bypass - as an option for anyone with a body mass index of more than 40kg/sq m.

The review of the latest evidence, published in The Obstetrician and Gynaecologist journal, says that it will become more and more common for doctors to be asked for advice about the safety of becoming pregnant after bariatric surgery.

Yet there is a lack of guidance on how to manage such patients.
Surgical complications

Researchers found that most women who get pregnant after bariatric surgery would have no complications, with one study suggesting 79% would have a straightforward pregnancy.

But there can be surgical complications with the potential for a gastric band to slip or move during pregnancy, leading to severe vomiting.

One study found that band leakage was reported in 24% of pregnancies.

Women who become pregnant after weight loss surgery should be managed by a team of experts that includes an obstetrician, surgeon, fertility specialist and nutritionist, the review recommends.

The researchers also pointed out that the female patients should receive advice and information before they got pregnant, on contraception, nutrition and weight gain, and vitamin supplements.

Advising women who have had weight loss surgery to wait at least 12 months before trying to conceive, they pointed to research showing an increased risk of miscarriage.

One study found that 31% of pregnancies occurring within 18 months of having weight loss surgery ended in spontaneous miscarriage compared with 18% in women who got pregnant after 18 months.

Rahat Khan, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in Harlow, Essex, and co-author of the review, said this issue was affecting an increasing number of women of childbearing age.

"In light of current evidence available, pregnancy after bariatric surgery is safer, with fewer complications, than pregnancy in morbidly obese women," he said.

But he added this group of women should still be considered to be high risk.

Daghni Rajasingam, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said obesity was associated with a number of serious risks in pregnancy, and women should be supported to lose weight before conception.

"It is important that women are aware of the increased risk of maternal and fetal complications associated with obesity, and they should be advised about the possible strategies to minimise them prior to conception."

Misshapen red blood cells could be used as a tool to kill cancer cells in mice, research in the journal Plos One shows.

Sickle-shaped cells can stick together in blood vessels surrounding tumours in mice and block blood flowing to the cancer, researchers says.

The irregularly shaped cells can also deposit toxic residues on the tumour, leading to cancer cell death.

This research focuses on oxygen-poor areas in tumours which have proven difficult to treat in humans.

The US researchers from Duke University and Jenomic, a private research company, gave a fluorescent sickle-cell solution to mice with cancer and watched what happened inside their systems.

Within five minutes the misshapen cells began to stick like 'Velcro' to blood vessels near the oxygen-starved areas of the tumour, Prof Mark Dewhirst co-author of the study, from Duke University, said.
Exclusive target

At 30 minutes the cells formed clots and began to block small blood vessels which fed the tumour.

And the sickle-shaped cells exclusively targeted the oxygen-low areas of tumour, which can become increasingly aggressive forms of cancer in humans.

"We found that sickle cells show a highly unique natural attraction to oxygen-deprived tumours.

"Once clustered within the tumour, the sickle cells deposit a toxic residue... causing tumour cell death," Dr David Terman, a co-author of the study and head of molecular genetics at Jenomic said.

Sickle-shaped cells are normally present in humans who inherit a genetic condition known as sickle cell anaemia.

Unlike normal disc-shaped blood cells, these crescent-moon shaped cells do not flow smoothly through blood vessels and can clump together to block blood supply.

This can result in a sickle crisis - often causing severe pain in the affected region and sometimes a complete and dangerous stop to blood flow in the area.

"The very qualities that make sickle cells a danger to people with the inherited genetic disorder can be turned against tumours to fight cancer," said Dr Terman.

"This is an intriguing new tactic for destroying tumours that are resistant to standard treatments, but the research was carried out in mice so the next challenge will be to show whether this approach is safe and effective in people with cancer," said Dr Emma Smith of Cancer Research UK.

The researchers say their approach could be directed at breast cancers, prostate cancers and many other tumours that develop resistance to current therapies, once more animal studies and human trials have been carried out.

Taking beta-blocker drugs may cut the risk of dementia, a trial in 774 men suggests.

The medication is used to treat high blood pressure, a known risk factor for dementia.

In the study, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in March, men on beta-blockers were less likely to have brain changes suggestive of dementia.

Experts say it is too early to recommend beta-blockers for dementia.

The findings are preliminary and larger studies in men and women from different ethnicities are needed to see what benefit beta-blockers might offer.

People with high blood pressure are advised to see their doctor and get their condition under control to prevent associated complications like heart disease, stroke and vascular dementia.
Brain blood flow

Having high blood pressure may damage the small vessels that supply the brain with blood.

Blood carries essential oxygen and nourishment to the brain and without it, brain cells can die.

Vascular dementia is the second most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer's disease and can occur if blood flow to the brain is reduced.

Other research in a much larger sample of men - 800,000 in all - suggests another type of blood pressure drug known as an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) may cut dementia risk, including Alzheimer's disease, by as much as 50%.

The latest work in 774 Japanese-American men found that all types of blood pressure medication were better than no treatment in terms of signs of dementia in the brain - brain shrinkage and tiny areas of brain tissue damage caused by poor blood supply - noted at autopsy after death.

However, men who had received beta-blockers as their only blood pressure medication had fewer abnormalities in their brains than those who had not been treated for their hypertension, or who had received other blood pressure medications, the University of Hawaii team found.

Men on beta-blockers and other medications also had fewer brain abnormalities, but not as big a reduction as that seen in the men on beta-blockers alone.

In the study, 610 of the men had high blood pressure or were being treated for high blood pressure.

Study author Dr Lon White said: "With the number of people with Alzheimer's disease expected to grow significantly as our population ages, it is increasingly important to identify factors that could delay or prevent the disease.

"These results are exciting, especially since beta-blockers are a common treatment for high blood pressure."

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "Hypertension is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's and other causes of dementia, and keeping high blood pressure in check could be important for preventing these diseases.

"This study suggests a link between the use of beta-blockers and fewer signs of dementia, but as the results of this study have yet to be published in full, it's not clear what caused this link. It's important to note that this study only looked at Japanese-American men, and these results may not be applicable to the wider population.

He said a better understanding of the links between high blood pressure and dementia could be crucial for developing new treatments or approaches to prevention.

"With 820,000 people affected by dementia in the UK, and that number increasing, we urgently need to find ways to prevent the diseases that cause it - that requires a massive investment in research," Dr Ridley added.

Rain and bigger storms could be the cause of more stomach bugs in certain countries, according to new research.

Torrential rain leads drains to overflow, releasing germ and virus riddled water into waterways and if this water is swallowed while engaging in watersports for example, it can make people sick.

According to research, it is more likely to be viruses that cause people to be ill rather than the germs.

The research was carried out as part of a project called Viroclime which aims to improve tools for tracking harmful viruses from human sewage in European waters.

It looked at viruses from five European sites including Spain, Hungary, Sweden, and Greece and one site in Brazil.

There are two types of virus which could act as a signal to more serious water-based diseases - one belongs to the winter vomiting bug family, the other to noroviruses.

"If we had better data, which EU project Viroclime can gather, and we analyse the data using a health risk-based approach, we could get better estimated disease burdens from recreational water exposures," Mark Sobsey, a virologist from the University of North Carolina, said.

However, he added that testing water for viruses is still difficult and costly.

Scientists believe that being able to monitor viruses in water could help them predict the effects of climate change and to develop new health protection measures to suit such change.

It could also help predict a rise in the number of stomach illnesses by exploiting the link to rainfall.

Taking a break from drinking alcohol can improve your health, experts say.

According to experts, even if you avoid overindulging around the holidays starting off the New Year with a short break from booze can transform your body and mind turn out that much of the damage that alcohol does can be reversed.



Minus any moisture-sapping alcohol, your skin will look and feel more hydrated, any ruddiness in your cheeks and nose will fade, non-chronic dandruff, eczema, or rosacea should lessen or disappear.

Alcohol may make you sleepy but it also disrupts the quality of your sleep, which means you're now getting the sounder shut-eye that leads to increased concentration and energy levels, ABC News reported.

Your liver loves you because it no longer has to work double time to neutralize boozy toxins and can now home in on other stuff like helping you recover faster from scrapes or bruising.

If you suffer wonky digestion, and especially acid reflux, your symptoms should drastically improve.

Since alcohol is by its nature a depressant, it can drag down the outlook of drinkers, which means you should now start noticing increased mental clarity and much better moods.

Lots of women booze to relax, but a lot of alcohol actually makes the heart work much harder over time, and without that extra burden, your pulse rate is lower and you're better able to exercise.

Most alcohol is loaded with sugar and empty calories, which often show up as belly fat.

Additionally, for women trying to get pregnant, you now have a better chance of conceiving.