Drinking black tea may cut blood pressure

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who enjoy drinking black tea throughout the day may get the added benefit of a slight reduction in their blood pressure, suggests a new Australian study. Although the study cannot identify specific components of the tea that might lead to a drop in blood pressure, the researchers said past studies have shown flavonoids, compounds found in many plants such as tea, are good for heart health. "The message really isn't for an individual to go out and drink a lot of tea," said Jonathan Hodgson, the study's lead author and a researcher from the University of Western Australia. He said, instead, the drop is like a bonus. The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, randomly assigned...

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Kids' health predicts parents' future heart disease

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When children have high cholesterol or blood pressure, their parents may have increased risks of diabetes and heart disease down the road, a new study finds. The study, of 519 Ohio families, found that a 12-year-old's weight, cholesterol and blood pressure helped predict the odds of a parent developing heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes over the next three decades. Researchers say the findings suggest that screening kids could have the "bonus" of spotting at-risk parents. "Pediatric risk factors -- cholesterol, triglycerides, high blood pressure -- identified families where parents were at increased risk," said Dr. Charles J. Glueck of Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati, one of the researchers...

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Talking things through in your head may help autism

LONDON (Reuters) - Teaching children with autism to "talk things through" in their heads may help them solve tricky day-to-day tasks and could increase the chances of them living independent lives when they grow up, British scientists said on Wednesday. Psychologists who studied adults with autism found that the mechanism for using "inner speech", or talking things through in your head is intact, but they don't always use it in the same way as typically developing people do. The researchers found that the tendency to "think in words" is also strongly linked to the extent of a person's communication skills, which are rooted in early childhood. The results suggest teaching autistic children how to develop inner speech skills...

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Posted in: HEALTH