Any exercise can improve diabetes controlNEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Combining resistance training, such as weight lifting, with aerobic workouts appears to be the most beneficial for type for long-term control of blood sugar control than either form of exercise alone, New Zealand researchers report. However, the outcomes according to type of exercise weren’t very significant.The effects of exercise on blood sugar were small, Drs. Neil J. Snowling and Will G. Hopkins of the Auckland University of Technology note, and were similar to those achieved with medication and diet changes. This suggests that putting all three together could have a more substantial effect.

Exercise is a mainstay of therapy for Type 2 diabetes, Snowling and Hopkins note, given that physical inactivity increases diabetes risk. To determine which types of exercise might be most helpful in controlling blood sugar, they analysed 27 studies including 1,003 patients to determine the effects of different types of exercise on haemoglobin A1C, a measure of how well a person’s blood sugar is controlled long-term.

For any type of exercise training lasting 12 weeks or longer, the researchers found, haemoglobin A1C levels fell by 0.8 percent. There was some evidence that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training had more of an effect than either type of exercise alone. But more intense exercise programs did not appear to be more effective, possibly because they were more difficult for people to stick with, the researchers note.Blocking acid doesn’t raise cancer riskNEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Overall, the use of drugs that reduce stomach acid, such as H2 blockers and proton pump inhibitors, do not increase the risk of cancer of the oesophagus or stomach, according to a study reported in the journal Gut.Common H2 blockers are ranitidine (Zantac) and cimetidine (Tagamet); and a common proton pump inhibitor is omeprazole (Prilosec). “There have been concerns regarding the safety of long-time gastric acid suppression,” senior investigator Dr. Mats Lindblad told Reuters Health. “I think our large study clearly suggests that long-time gastric acid suppression does not increase the risk” of cancer of the oesophagus or stomach.

Lindblad and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm evaluated 7 years of patient data entered into the UK general practice database. The team identified 287 patients with oesophageal cancer and 522 with stomach cancer. These subjects were compared with 10,000 randomly selected subjects without cancer.

The authors found some conditions for which acid-suppressing drugs are used, such as acid reflux disease, hiatal hernia and Barrett’s oesophagus, were associated with an increased risk of stomach and oesophagus cancer.

However, no apparent cancer risk was seen with other conditions, including peptic ulcer, gastritis, and indigestion. They found no evidence that the drugs themselves increased the risk.Study shows why the young shun condomsLONDON (Reuters) — Social and cultural factors, not just unavailability or ignorance, influence why young people do not use condoms, researchers said.Some sexually active under 25s associate condoms with a lack of trust, while others believe carrying them could imply sexual experience, which might be a plus for men but not necessarily for women. In a review of more than 250 studies of young people’s sexual behaviour, researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine discovered striking similarities in what affects young sexual behaviour in different countries.

“This study summarises key qualitative findings that help in understanding young people’s sexual behaviour and why they might have unsafe sex,” said Drs. Cicely Marston and Eleanor King in a study in The Lancet medical journal.

They found that compared to men, women’s sexual freedom was universally restricted. Penalties for transgression varied from verbal criticism to honour killings, in which a woman who is thought to have dishonoured her family is killed.

The studies, carried out between 1990-2004, showed that young people assess a potential partner’s disease risk, and the need for a condom, by their appearance and how well they know them socially.

Men were expected to be highly sexually active and women were expected to be chaste, according to data from countries including Britain, Australia, Mexico and South America.

“Our findings help explain why many HIV programmes have not been effective,” the researchers said.More than a million suffer chronic fatigue WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Chronic fatigue syndrome, once thought by some doctors to be a psychological problem or even an excuse for malingerers, is a real disease that affects more than a million Americans, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.Early diagnosis and treatment of the disease are important for recovery — even though it is not clear what the best treatments are, CDC officials said. “CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) is a terrible illness that prevents many people from taking part in everyday activities and participating in the things they enjoy,” CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said.

“Fortunately, there are therapies for CFS that can reduce much of the pain and suffering,” she said. The CDC launched an awareness campaign about chronic fatigue and published a dedicated Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/.