HEALTH BRIEFS

BACKS TO THE GRIND

Chronic back pain was probably common long before the current sedentary lifestyle in urbanised societies, say researchers at the University of Toulouse, France. They looked into the types of pain experienced by the Tsimané, an Amazonian forager-horticultural group, who they believe are a good proxy for the way humans lived before the Industrial Revolution. Respondents said pain was common, and generally caused by the hard labour they did. The researchers say this indicates chronic back pain is not just a result of a “mismatch” between how our bodies originally evolved and the lifestyles we live now.

STICK TO THE PLAN

Healthy lifestyle changes can prevent cancer returning, say researchers from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Centre, New York State. They looked at the medical records of 1340 women with high-risk breast cancer and found those who stuck to the recommended lifestyle changes were 37% less likely to see the disease return and 58% less likely to die than women who did not adopt changes that included increasing physical activity, eating more fruit and veges, reducing red and processed meat, cutting back on sugary drinks and alcohol, and quitting smoking.

MOZZIE ODOUR

If you’re a mosquito magnet, it could be your natural smell combined with your soap, say researchers at Virginia Tech, US. The team compared the attractiveness to mosquitoes of unwashed participants and those who used four different soap brands. Despite all the soaps containing limonene, a known repellent, two brands increased i the attractiveness of some volunteers while another tended to repel mosquitoes. Their T recommendation is to use coconut soap to keep them at bay.