Lead researcher Professor Hung-Fat Tse said: “These findings suggest that isoflavone reverses endothelial dysfunction.”
He said there were important clinical implications, as the benefit of the treatment was conferred to the group of patients with the highest risks for cardiovascular events, and the effect persisted, even at a rather late stage of disease.
Professor Tse said it was too early to recommend the use of isoflavone supplements.
But he said: “Diets with higher isoflavone contents might be beneficial in reducing cardiovascular risk in ischaemic stroke patients.”
He said the mechanism by which isoflavone produces these changes in FMD were still not completely understood.
Isoflavone is a major class of phytoestrogens, naturally occurring chemicals that mimic the effect of the human hormone oestrogen. Oestrogen is known to protect against heart disease.
Dr Peter Coleman from The Stroke Association said: “This is an important and interesting study showing that dietary supplementation with isoflavones in people who have had a stroke may reduce their risk of further stroke or cardiovascular disease.
“Whilst this is a positive finding, it was a small study and further research is needed to discover how plant isoflavones could reduce stroke risk.”
Archive for category news
Blog: High-soy diet
Nov 24
Blog: Coastal identity
Nov 24
The report, entitled Managing Our Coastal Zone in a Changing Climate, urges the authorities to consider “the possibility of a government instrument that prohibits continued occupation of the land or future building development on the property due to sea hazard”.
It estimates that Aus$150bn ($137bn) worth of property is at risk from rising sea levels and more frequent storms in future years.
There are almost 50 recommendations in the report, ranging from a national coastline plan and greater co-operation between different authorities to a revised building code to cope with storm surges and soil erosion.
It does not say the government should force people to move inland but proposes that an independent group look into whether the government could - and should - do just that.
Australia’s major cities are all in coastal areas, as well as the homes of some six million people outside the main population centres, according to the report, which was issued late on Monday after 18 months of study.
Alan Stokes, the task force’s executive director, said banning development in certain areas was necessary if the government wanted to prevent a major loss of life in the event of natural disasters such as tsunamis.
“There’s no doubt Australia will remain and continue to be a coastal community,” he said.
“But we may have to be a bit more considerate about which parts of the coast we develop further and which ones we don’t,” he added.
Last week the government reintroduced carbon trading legislation which was rejected in August and is among a package of bills aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25% by 2020.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, founded by the UN, estimates that a global rise in sea level of some 80cm is possible by 2100.
Saturday marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of occupied Europe on June 6 1944.
Unlike earlier in the war, it was the first time that BBC radio was able to broadcast news back to the UK from the beaches and battlefields of Europe.
Hidden away in a BBC storeroom in central London is a remarkable bit of broadcasting history. It looks rather like a 1950s Dansette record player, redesigned by the British army.
In fact it’s a so-called ‘midget’ recording device made by the BBC for use by correspondents in the field during and after the D-Day invasions.
The BBC’s Charles Commander, who guards this priceless bit of broadcasting heritage, pulls it out from under a pile of boxes. “What the BBC considered ‘portable’ in 1944 is remarkable. But compared to what came before, it did give the reporter freedom to move.
The idea was they could take it through the sand-dunes and round the back roads in Normandy. And it worked: we still have the recordings to prove it.”
Blog: Goods seizures
Nov 23
Material that is much smaller in size, such as rhino horns, elephant tusks, and skin and bone from tigers and leopards, has been seized by authorities at different locations around the country, suggesting that they are indeed smuggled in and out.
In southern Nepal, just outside Chitwan National Park which has conserved endangered species like tigers and rhinos, is a government storage facility used for such seizures.
Hundreds of tiger and leopard pelts, their bones and claws, nearly 60 pairs of elephant tusks, more than 100 rhino horns and 50 sacks of shatoosh - the wool of the endangered Tibetan chiru antelope - are stored here.
The chief of the storage depot, Dhan Bahadur Thapa, said that every month at least three such products are seized from different places in the country.
“From the people involved in trafficking, we have come to know that such products are often sent to Bangkok, Hong Kong and China with the help of international smugglers,” he said.
In most cases, the illegal wildlife goods were seized by chance, as there is no particular crackdown operation on traffickers.
One such seizure took place in Langtang to the north of Kathmandu in 2005. By pure chance, an army patrolling team came across nearly 240 leopard and tiger pelts being transported to Tibet.
Bhim KC, an official in the country’s wildlife department, investigated the case and found that four of the five persons involved were Nepalese and one Tibetan.
“The Tibetan said he was only a porter carrying those illegal goods for another Tibetan who, he said, was an influential businessman in Tibet and Nepal,” the government official explained.
Nepalgunj, a town in western Nepal bordering India, has been blacklisted by conservationists as one of the hotbeds of international smugglers.
The more than 1,800km-long border between Nepal and India is open, and Nepalese and Indians do not need passports to cross.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been named in Portugal’s 23-man squad to face Bosnia in the two-legged World Cup play-offs despite an ongoing ankle injury.
The forward has missed the last seven games for his club Real Madrid and is expected to be out of action for at least two more weeks.
But Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz hopes the ex-Manchester United star can play a part in the 14 and 18 November ties.
Ronaldo injured the ankle in September and aggravated it again in October.
Queiroz said on Friday he would call up the winger to help Portugal “even if just for a few minutes”.
But on Sunday, Real Madrid director general Jorge Valdano said that playing Ronaldo now would be a serious mistake.
You have to remember that he injured himself again playing for Portugal and so he’s a long way from being a player who lacks commitment,” he said.
“Perhaps it’s an excess of commitment (that) has put us in this situation. Making the same mistake again would be a great deal more serious.”
Valdano added that Real Madrid would be sending all the information on the injury to Portugal’s doctors on Monday.
Portugal, World Cup semi-finalists in 2006, play Bosnia in Lisbon and then Zenica four days later, with the winners qualifying for the 2010 finals in South Africa.
Speed test
Nov 22
Google first announced its intention to build an operating system in July this year.
The firm has designed the system around its Chrome browser. The program was released 14 months ago and already has 40m regular users, the firm said.
It’s very familiar and intuitive to users - most people know how to use the browser,” said Mr Pichai.
All programs or applications - such as word processing and e-mail - run in different tabs in the browser.
“There are no conventional desktop applications,” said Mr Pichai. “That means you don’t have to install or update software.
“It’s just a browser; a browser with a few modifications.”
Mr Pichai said the system was based around speed, simplicity and security.
He showed it booting up in seven seconds.
“We’re working very, very, very hard to make that time shorter,” he said. “We want Google Chrome OS to be blazingly fast.”
He said they wanted it to be like a television, where a computer could be switched on and instantly running and connected to the web.
Google has been able to boost the speed of the system by designing it for specific hardware. The firm said that it would only run on computers using “solid state drives” instead of traditional hard drives.
In addition, the firm has been talking to hardware manufacturers to specify which components to include on finished machines.
This means that the company could “optimise” the code to run as quickly as possible, said Mr Pichai.
With 28 million Nintendo Wii consoles sold around the world it is no longer possible to declare its success a fad. But can Nintendo sustain its phenomenal momentum?
Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata is humble enough to admit that even he had been surprised by the epidemic-like success of the Wii console.
He told BBC News: “It was so fast. We knew the Wii was the right direction for the company. But the question was always how many years it would take to find success.”
The answer was two years. In that brief time Nintendo has dramatically altered its fortunes in the home console business, while at the same time maintaining, and even improving, its dominance in the handheld gaming space with the DS.
Kaiserslautern’s 3-0 win over SC Freiburg last November has been named as the top-flight game under suspicion in Germany’s match-fixing scandal.
The German Football Association (DFB) announced the findings on Thursday.
The DFB also revealed the referee at the centre of the case, Robert Hoyzer, had been involved in fixing seven cup and lower league matches.
The scandal began when in January Hoyzer admitted he had rigged games and 25 people are now under investigation.
“We are talking about organised crime here,” Bundesliga chief Werner Hackmann told a news conference.
The Bundesliga first division match between Kaiserslautern and Freiburg was refereed by Juergen Jansen, who has been implicated in the case by Hoyzer but denies any involvement.
Referees Felix Zwayer and Dominik Marks are among the 25 being investigated on suspicion of manipulating 10 matches.
Of the four referees now connected with the case, only Jansen works in the top division of the Bundesliga.
“Naturally, the three referees will not be used until this is cleared up,” the DFB’s refereeing chief Volker Roth said in a statement.
“However, we work on the principle of presumption of innocence. If their innocence in this matter is establishe
cannabis
Nov 18
Mr Duncan Smith insisted: “We are saying to the home secretary: Stop and think again, because this is not the way to go about it.”
The Lambeth scheme was launched to give police more time to combat hard drugs.
However, the Tories say there has been a significant increase overall in drug trafficking in Lambeth and drug dealers are in control, not the police.
Kate Hoey, one of the local Labour MPs, has also condemned the experiment, saying it has made drug trafficking socially acceptable.
Last week Mr Paddick defended the scheme saying there was no evidence to show his relaxed approach had attracted an influx of “drugs tourists” to Brixton.
Figures from Scotland Yard last month showed street crime in Lambeth had fallen dramatically.
Scotland Yard’s Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair, last week said the pilot scheme was “undoubtedly” beneficial to the police.
The policy of issuing police warnings might be extended to other parts of the country, if as seems likely, Mr Blunkett announces on Wednesday that the penalties for cannabis are to be downgraded.
He told MPs last October there was a case for reclassification: for reducing the maximum penalty for possession of cannabis from five years to two years and for trafficking from 14 years to five years.
But Mr Duncan Smith argued that the Metropolitan Police was “deeply concerned about the rise in dealing of hard drugs, as well as soft drugs and the levels of addiction”.
Drugs policing should switch focus to tackling the related violence rather than simply making seizures and arrests, a think tank report has said.
Raids can cause unforeseen problems, like turf wars, and a “smarter” policy is needed to protect communities, the UK Drug Policy Commission says.
Critics say tolerating dealing could “write off” some neighbourhoods.
The Home Office said: “Harm reduction underpins every element of our approach to tackling this complex issue.”
The commission’s chief executive Roger Howard insisted it was not calling for police to “tolerate” drug dealing but said they should target the most harmful drug activity.
“We are saying… don’t be misdirected by just focusing on arrests and seizures. That just tells you how busy the police are, it doesn’t tell you what impact they are having.
“Some drug markets are very violent, very harmful to local communities [who] are living under the cosh,” said Mr Howard.
Instead, the commission wants forces to focus on tackling issues like gun violence, sexual exploitation and use of children as look-outs or couriers.
It suggests forcing drug dealers away from residential areas, where children play and people may get intimidated, to areas like industrial estates. This, it says, would not reduce the amount of drug dealing but would lessen its impact.
Trial schemes in Britain to offer low-level dealers treatment and support as an alternative to prosecution could be extended, it adds.
However, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who founded the Centre for Social Justice think tank, said current drugs strategy was “a mess”.
He said allowing police to decide which communities most needed support, while tolerating dealing elsewhere, would leave other neighbourhoods “written off”.
“It follows like night follows day that the worst elements of people then arrive in that community and deal,” he said.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the “enormous” rise in cocaine use last year showed the “negligible” impact of current policy.
“We need to focus on what works to reduce the damage done by drug abuse,” he added.
