A new poem written for Review by Carol Ann Duffy. Illustrated by Posy Simmonds

Carol Ann Duffy

Pieces of freshly cut fish are seen for sale at a market in Tokyo
©AFP/ANP/File

PARIS (AFP) - Take a walk through a supermarket in any wealthy nation and the promise of omega-3 health benefits screams off food products from bread to milk to juice. But are consumers getting the superfood they paid for?

“Consumers don’t understand what it is,” Vivian Tysse, sales manager with Norwegian fish oil producer Denomega, said at a health ingredients trade show in Paris this month.

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Headphones used with MP3 digital music players like the iPod may interfere with heart pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The MP3 players themselves posed no threat to pacemakers and defibrillators, used to normalize heart rhythm. But strong little magnets inside the headphones can foul up the devices if placed within 1.2 inches of them, the researchers told an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans.

Dr. William Maisel of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston led a team that tested eight models of MP3 player headphones, including clip-on and earbud types, in 60 defibrillator and pacemaker patients.

A woman listens to music on her Ipod
©AFP/Getty Images/File - Mat Szwajkos

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Listening to your favorite music may be helpful to maintaining a healthy heart, according to a study.

The research team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced they had shown for the first time the emotions aroused by music enjoyed by the listener to be beneficial to a healthy blood vessel function.

The team, who in a 2005 study noted the cardiovascular benefits of laughter, presented their work at the 2008 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:13pm EDT

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A gene related to a hormone secreted by the body’s fat cells may lower the risk of colon cancer, a discovery that could reassure people with a family history of the disease, researchers said on Tuesday.

The gene variation, shared by about half of all those in the study, likely helps control how much of the hormone adiponectin fat cells secrete, the researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.