By Martha Kerr

CHICAGO (Reuters Health) - In older individuals, exercise is associated with an increase in the number of large-diameter vessels in the cerebral region of the brain and with an increase in blood flow in the three major cerebral arteries, researchers announced at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, which is being held here this week.

As the investigators noted, narrowing and loss of small vessels may contribute to cognitive decline. This area of the brain controls functions that include consciousness, memory, initiation of activity, emotional response, language and word associations.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Allergan Inc, the maker of Botox, said on Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its eyelash-thickening drug Latisse.

Latisse is designed to treat a condition known as hypotrichosis of the eyelashes, which means a person does not have enough eyelashes.

The active ingredient in Latisse is bimatroprost, the same ingredient that is in Allergan’s glaucoma treatment Lumigan. Patients taking Lumigan found a side effect of the drug to be eyelash growth, prompting Allergan to study it for the new use.

LONDON (Reuters) - A slow, chronic reduction of blood sugar to the brain could trigger some forms of Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The study of human and mice brains suggests a reduction of blood flow deprives energy to the brain, setting off a process that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein researchers believe is a cause of the disease, they said.

The finding could lead to strategies such as exercise, reducing cholesterol and managing blood pressure to keep Alzheimer’s at bay, Robert Vassar and colleagues at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago reported.

By Tan Weizhen

EZ-LINK will start selling its new ez-link smart cards from Monday.

This new smart card has been touted to be much more than its predecessor. Other than being able to pay for bus and train rides with it, cardholders would be able to use it to pay for items bought from 7-Eleven and MacDonald’s, as well as SMRT cab fares.

Eventually, the card can also be used for Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) and Electronic Parking System (EPS) carpark payments, said Ez-Link.

London

Some say hemlines and heels rise and fall with the state of the sharemarket. But for those who really want to know how bad things are there is only one item that counts: lipstick.

When times are tough, consumers stop spending on big-ticket items. Car sales are down by a third; the drop in demand for mortgages has taken its toll of spending on carpets and furniture.

But, according to one economist, rather than lose the spending habit consumers simply trade down to less extravagant items to cheer themselves up. What’s more, this effect has held good in recessions of the past and in countries with different cultural traditions.