Stroke mortality rate rises on weekends — studyDALLAS (Reuters) — If you have a stroke, try to have it between Monday and Friday.A Canadian study released on Thursday found that patients hospitalised for the most common kind of stroke on weekends had a higher death rate than those admitted on weekdays.

The “weekend effect” has been identified before in other conditions such as cancer and pulmonary embolism.

But this is the first major study to look at it in relation to ischemic stroke, which is caused by a clot that blocks blood flow in an artery in or leading to the brain. “If the ‘weekend effect’ occurs in a socialised health care system (like Canada’s), it is likely that the effect may be larger in other settings,” said Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, director of the Stroke Research Unit Division of Neurology at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study.

The study, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, looked at all ischemic stroke hospital admissions in Canada from April 2003 to March 2004. It found that about a quarter of the 26,676 patients admitted to 606 hospitals over that time period were brought in on weekends.Infertile couples often use alt medicineNEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Alternative medicines and therapies such as herbs, chiropractic care, and acupuncture, are widely used by couples seeking treatment for infertility, often in conjunction with prescription medicine, a study shows — and the fertility specialist is often unaware of it.It’s possible that these therapies may interact with each other and impact the odds of a woman becoming pregnant, experts say, as the safety and efficacy of complementary medicines used to treat infertility or in conjunction with established treatments is unclear.

Dr. Marcin Stankiewicz, a fertility specialist at Flinders Medical Center, Bedford Park, South Australia, said it’s important to “tell your doctor/fertility specialist” about complementary medicine use. “Ask about ingredients and interactions with other drugs as well as safety.”

In a survey of 97 new patients being seen at an infertility clinic, reported in the Australia & New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Stankiewicz and colleagues discovered that two-thirds reported using complementary medicine.

Nearly half of them said they had consulted with a complementary therapy provider, such as a chiropractor, acupuncturist, or naturopath. Over three-quarters of the patients reported taking over-the-counter multivitamins, and about a quarter to one-third used herbal remedies including chamomile, echinacea, peppermint, and chaste tree berry.Child medicines contain additivesLONDON (Reuters) — Additives banned from food for children under three can be found in a range of medicines for babies and toddlers, a study claims.The Food Commission surveyed 41 medicines aimed at under-threes and found only one, Superdrug’s Children’s Dry Cough Syrup, that did not contain colourings or preservatives.

Two medicines, Morrisons Junior Paracetemol and Superdrug Junior Paracetemol Suspension, contained four different sweeteners. The study, published in the Commission’s Food Magazine, said some of the medicines warned the additives could cause side effects such as irritation of skin and eyes, stomach upset and diarrhoea.

No colours or sweeteners are allowed in foods and drinks for children under three, and most preservatives are banned, the magazine said.

But it said the children’s medicines surveyed contained a “cocktail of additives”. Four contained synthetic azo dyes, although only one of the medicines warned that the colouring could cause “allergic reactions, including asthma”.Want a better memory?WASHINGTON (Reuters) — People who want to learn things might do better by simply stopping to smell the roses, researchers reported. German researchers found they could use odours to re-activate new memories in the brains of people while they slept — and the volunteers remembered better later.Writing in the journal Science, they said their study showed that memories are indeed consolidated during sleep, and show that smells and perhaps other stimuli can reinforce brain learning pathways.

Jan Born of the University of Lubeck in Germany and colleagues had 74 volunteers learn to play games similar to the game of “Concentration” in which they must find matched pairs of objects or cards by turning only one over at a time.

While doing this task, some of the volunteers inhaled the scent of roses. The volunteers then agreed to sleep inside an MRI tube. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to “watch” their brains while they slept.

At various stages during sleep, Born’s team wafted in the same scent of roses. The volunteers were tested again the next day on what they had learned. “After the odour night, participants remembered 97.2 percent of the card pairs they had learned before sleep,” the researchers wrote.