Weight Loss Community Blog

From sexual sleepwalking to dying of nightmares, science struggles with these sleeping riddles.

Miscellaneous News

New smoking bans to be introduced in the state of Victoria, Australia will be a blow to many smokers as they mean it will be illegal to smoke in cars carrying children and on public school grounds.

The advertising of cigarettes and smoking cigarette at 'point-of-sale', will also be banned by the Victorian Government and cigarettes will in future be stored in a cupboard or under the counter and advertised only by a plain sign with prices.

Kylie Lindorff policy manager of Quit Victoria says it is hoped the new advertising restrictions will lead to fewer children taking up smoking.

Ms Lindorff says currently cigarettes are advertised as a normal product, often in close proximity to lollies, milk and bread, which can encourage the idea that smoking is normal and they should try it.

Ms Lindorff says this can also tempt those trying to quit into impulse buying.

Next on the anti-smoking lobby's agenda is for cigarettes to be sold in plain packets and there are already plans afoot to lobby the Federal Government next year to legislate for plain cigarette packaging, only displaying a large, graphic health warning and the name of the brand.

Victoria Health chief executive Todd Harper says it is on the packet where appealing images and attributes appear, meant to entice both new and existing smokers.

The tobacco industry will also be up against a record $22 million anti-smoking advertising strategy which will subject Victorians to least four anti-smoking ads every month, aimed at reducing adult smoking rates by 20% by 2013 and targeting in particular high-risk groups such as pregnant women to quit - $1.5 million will come from the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.

However critics say retailers have been given a reprieve of more than two-years before the cigarette display ban will be enforced - when New South Wales introduced similar laws last month, retailers were only given six months to a year to comply.

Victorian retailers will also not face penalties until 2011 and smoking bans on motorists with children will not come into force until 2010.

Medical Condition News

According to the latest information cancer is on the increase in Australia.

In a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on cancer statistics for 2008 new cancer cases are expected to increase by over 3,000 cases per year.

The report shows that the number of new cancer cases diagnosed in Australia each year passed the 100,000 mark for the first time in 2005 and the number of new cases in 2008 is estimated to be over 108,000.

The report, Cancer in Australia 2008, has revealed that the major impact cancer has already had on the health system is all set to continue and the number of cancer-related hospital admissions is projected to rise by over 23,000 per year in the short term.

Ms Christine Sturrock of the Institute's Health Registers and Cancer Monitoring Unit says this figure does not include cancer being treated in outpatient settings.

According to the report there will be over 42,000 deaths from cancer in 2008 and that this number will increase by over 800 deaths per year.

Ms Sturrock says the increase in the number of cancer diagnoses, hospital encounters and cancer deaths is being driven by Australia's ageing population and although the actual number of cancer deaths has increased, there has also been a significant increase in cancer survival over the last 20 years and more people are living longer after being diagnosed with cancer.

In 2005 the most common cancer in females was breast cancer (over 27% of all diagnoses) and in males it was prostate cancer, (29% of all diagnoses) and the second most common cancer in both men and women is bowel cancer.

The next three most common cancers in both sexes are melanoma of the skin, lung cancer and lymphoma.

The first phase of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, which aims to cut the incidence and deaths from bowel cancer, offered test kits to just under 1 million Australians aged 55 and 65 years between August 2006 and June 2008.

The free tests which detect blood in the faeces, which may be an indication of cancer, were used by about 43% of those people eligible and found that around 8% had blood detected and of these, an estimated 5% were found to have bowel cancer while a further 12% had pre-cancerous polyps.

The AIHW report also shows that Tasmania has some of the highest cancer rates in the country with an annual average of 433 cases per 100,000 people and lung cancer is overtaking breast cancer as a killer of Tasmanian women - Tasmania continues to have, high rates of smoking and the Cancer Council says the figures are alarming.

Disease/Infection News

One of Malaysia's top politicians has apparently suggested that HIV carriers should not be allowed to marry in order to avoid having sick children.

The chief minister of northern Perak state, Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, has been quoted as saying that people who are very sick with such a disease should not be allowed to get married as any 'breeding' will pass the virus on to the embryo which is 'unfair' because the disease is then passed on to the child.

His comments follow an official statement from the Department of Islamic Development, which says that Muslims who test positive for HIV, should still be allowed to marry.

According to Nizar's office the minister was referring to both Muslims and non-Muslims - Nizar is member of the opposition Islamist party Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS).

The debate on the right of HIV/AIDS carriers, especially Muslims, to marry was fuelled last week when Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak apparently said all Muslim couples in Malaysia must undergo HIV screening before getting married.

The controversy comes at a time when many Malaysian Muslims are struggling to come to terms with concerns associated with a rise in hard-line Islam - last month Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Muslims are allowed practice yoga but without chanting, which reversed an outright ban that had caused a furore - the Malaysian government has also threatened to shut down a Catholic newspaper for using the world "Allah," saying it could inflame the country's Muslim population.

While ethnic Malay Muslims are politically dominant in the country accounting for around 60% of the population, Malaysia's 26 million populace also has considerable numbers of ethnic Indian and Chinese minorities include Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians.

In Malaysia while new HIV infections dropped to 3,452 in 2008, compared to 6,756 in 2003, infections among women through normal sexual intercourse rose from 5.02 percent of total cases in 1997 to 16.3 percent last year.

Najib Razak says seen from society's point of view as well from the view of individuals concerned, it is in everyone's interest to know whether prospective husbands are free from HIV.

The quality of state Medicaid programs varies widely, according to two studies.