Researchers at Vanderbilt University are developing an implantable contact lense that will give older people with cataracts virtually the same vision they had before the cataracts formed. The lense is made up of six overlapping plates that focus when muscles in the eye move. Clinical trials may begin within 2 years.

Scientists are testing hormone supplements that may one day trigger your fat cells to release their stored energy, letting you lose weight -and even want to exercise -with a simple squirt of a nasal spray.

While studying why some folks can scarf cheese fries without worry, while others pile on pounds from any indulgence, researchers at the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Denver found a hormone called melanocyte stimulating hormone (MSH), which helps determine whether you store or bum off the fat you digest. People with genetically low levels of the hormone favour storage, while folks with higher levels bum more fat in metabolism.

So far, researchers have tested the MSH theory only in mice, but results have been promising.

Higher MSH levels may actually prompt you to be more active too. This could explain the "fidget factor" -the phenomenon that allows certain people to gain very little weight even when they overeat, because they fidget or spontaneously move. They may have higher MSH levels, metabolising fat and creating energy to bum. Researchers are currently measuring MSH levels in people who are overweight to see if their suspicions are correct. They hope to begin human trials soon.

A troubled marriage could be making your heart ache in more ways than one. New research shows that it may increase your risk of cardiac disease.

To figure out whether being part of a dysfunctional couple affects a woman’s health, Kristina Orth-Gomer, an internist at the Karolinska Institute, interviewed 290 women who were hospitalised for heart attacks or severe chest pains. She asked them about their relationships with their partners and also about the pressures they faced in the work place.

Five years later, she checked in with these women again. She discovered that while stress on the job had done no visible damage to the women’s health, those in rocky relationships were almost three times as likely to. have had another heart attack as women involved in healthy unions.

The link between a wounded heart and marital stress is still fuzzy, but more research is under way. For now, Orth-Gomer has a suggestion for married couples. "Take the stress of your relationship seriously ," she says. "Try to get help or find a support group because stressful marriages really do impact your health".

To find out if models really affect how women think about themselves, researchers from the University of Toronto quizzed more than 100 women about their mood, body satisfaction and eating habits. One week later, they showed half of the women photos of fashion models, then polled them all again. The results: Women who were shown images of models displayed more anger, hostility and depression. Those who had the most eating issues reported the most anger.

The reactions in men were vastly different. Scientists at MIT’s Sloan School of Management say that seeing a beautiful woman triggers a pleasure response in a man’s brain similar to what a hungry person gets from eating or an addict gets from a fix. Their study, published in the journal Neuron, showed that feminine beauty affected a man’s brain at a very primal level, not on some higher, more intellectual plane, contradicting the general view that beauty is nothing more than the product of society’s values.

Now we know why beauty brings out the baser instincts in Mars and Venus.

(courtesy: Health & Nutrition)

Women the world over may agree that this is just the right device that their male partners need. A Japan- ese firm has unveiled a gadget which converts dogs barks into human expressions of emotion. Toy-maker Takara is marketing the Bowlingual device, which translates growls, barks and yelps into six human feelings. The hand-held device works like
other computerised voice- recognition device for the human voice.