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LOS ANGELES, April 3 (Xinhua) -- People with lower levels of vitamin D are more likely to have stiffer arteries and an inability of blood vessels to relax, U.S. researchers have found.This finding also applies to people who are in general good health, according to researchers from the Emory University School of Medicine.The researchers presented their findings on Sunday at the annual American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans.Impaired vascular health in correlation with lower vitamin D levels contributes to high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease, the researchers say.The study involved 554 participants, with the average age of 47 and generally healthy.The average level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (a stable form of the vitamin reflecting diet as well as production in the skin) in participants' blood was 31.8 nanograms per milliliter. In this group, 14 percent had 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels considered deficient, or less than 20 nanograms per milliliter, and 33 percent had levels considered insufficient, less than 30 nanograms per milliliter.The researchers monitored the ability of participants' blood vessels to relax by inflating and then removing a blood pressure cuff on their arms. To allow blood to flow back into the arm, blood vessels must relax and enlarge -- a change that can be measured by ultrasound. The researchers also made other measurements of smaller blood vessels and examined the resistance to blood flow imposed by the arteries.

BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A total of 248 people were arrested in China last year for involvement in food safety cases, food safety authorities said Sunday.The country dealt with 130,000 cases involving food safety last year, including 115 criminal cases, according to a statement of the National Food Safety Regulating Work Office.The cases touched upon such areas as production of edible agricultural produce, food production, food circulation, catering services and food exports and imports,"No major incident occurred last year, and the overall food safety situation maintained stable," said the statement.Last year also saw a nationwide crackdown on "gutter oil", usually made from discarded kitchen waste that has been refined, after media reports that it was commonly used by small restaurants.Since July when the State Council, or Cabinet, ordered the eradication of "gutter oil", 165.7 tons of edible oil has been confirmed to have been disqualified and produced by unknown sources.Chinese authorities since July last year have also cracked down on the use of undisposed tainted milk powder produced before the melamine scandal of 2008.About 2,132 tonnes of melamine-tainted milk powder was seized in the latest crackdown, the statement said.A total of 191 officials were punished for failing to do their duty in food safety enforcement, with 26 of them fired, it said.In July last year, Dongyuan milk powder, produced in west China's Qinghai Province, was found to contain excessive levels of melamine, a toxic chemical normally used in the manufacturing of plastics, which triggered the nationwide crackdown.It is the latest blitz on tainted milk products since 2008 when melamine-tainted milk powder killed at least six infants and sickened 300,000 children across the country.

BEIJING, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's top leading body Monday pledged to prevent wild swings in the economy, while warning that the economic situation in 2011 would be complicated.The country should maintain stable and consistent macro-economic policies while improving accuracy, flexibility and efficiency of the policies, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee decided at a meeting presided over by President Hu Jintao, who is also General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee.Officials at the meeting were urged to "remain sober, be aware of difficulties, and work hard to fulfill the tasks this year so as to create a good beginning for the 12th Five-Year Program (2011-2015)."The top echelon of leadership reassured that China would continue an active fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, while trying to balance steady economic growth with economic restructuring and control of inflationary expectations."It is necessary to maintain stable commodity prices, expand domestic consumption, increase investment in agriculture, speed up industrial restructuring, promote education and development of science and technology, and improve people's livelihoods and cultural services," the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee urged at the meeting.It also reiterated the importance of making great efforts to expand reforms in key sectors, advance the cause of opening-up, while intensifying endeavor to build a clean government and fight corruption.Members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee also discussed the drafts of the government work report and the 12th Five-year Program, or the national development plan for 2011 to 2015.The two documents will be submitted to the top legislature for discussion and approval at its forthcoming annual session in March.The period from 2011 to 2015 will be critical for China which wants to build a well-off society, said a statement from the meeting.In the next five years, in a bid to meet Chinese people's expectations for a better life, China will stick to scientific development by focusing on accelerated transformation of its way of economic growth while deepening the reform and opening-up, guaranteeing and improving people's livelihoods, according to the statement."It is necessary to solidify and boost China's success in outperforming other countries in dealing with the international financial turmoil, and advance the economy to grow at a faster and steady pace for a long time while guaranteeing social harmony and stability," the statement said.Great efforts should also be made to develop social services, advance the cause of conserving energy and resources, protecting the environment in a down-to-earth manner, as well as keep intensifying the drive to enhance reform of the government, the statement said.

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Those childhood music lessons could pay off decades later -- even for those who no longer play an instrument -- by keeping the mind sharper as people age, according to a preliminary study published by the American Psychological Association (APA).The study recruited 70 healthy adults age 60 to 83 who were divided into groups based on their levels of musical experience. The musicians performed better on several cognitive tests than individuals who had never studied an instrument or learned how to read music, according to the research findings published Wednesday online in the APA journal Neuropsychology."Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging," said lead researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. "Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older."The three groups of study participants included individuals with no musical training; with one to nine years of musical study; or with at least 10 years of musical training. All of the participants had similar levels of education and fitness and didn' t show any evidence of Alzheimer's disease.All of the musicians were amateurs who began playing an instrument at about 10 years of age. More than half played the piano while approximately a quarter had studied woodwind instruments such as the flute or clarinet. Smaller numbers performed with stringed instruments, percussion or brass instruments.The high-level musicians who had studied the longest performed the best on the cognitive tests, followed by the low-level musicians and non-musicians, revealing a trend relating to years of musical practice. The high-level musicians had statistically significant higher scores than the non-musicians on cognitive tests relating to visuospatial memory, naming objects and cognitive flexibility, or the brain's ability to adapt to new information.The brain functions measured by the tests typically decline as the body ages and more dramatically deteriorate in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. The results "suggest a strong predictive effect of high musical activity throughout the lifespan on preserved cognitive functioning in advanced age," the study stated.Half of the high-level musicians still played an instrument at the time of the study, but they didn't perform better on the cognitive tests than the other advanced musicians who had stopped playing years earlier. This suggests that the duration of musical study was more important than whether musicians continued playing at an advanced age, Hanna-Pladdy says."Based on previous research and our study results, we believe that both the years of musical participation and the age of acquisition are critical," Hanna-Pladdy says. "There are crucial periods in brain plasticity that enhance learning, which may make it easier to learn a musical instrument before a certain age and thus may have a larger impact on brain development."The preliminary study was correlational, meaning that the higher cognitive performance of the musicians couldn't be conclusively linked to their years of musical study. More research is needed to explore that possible link.

来源：资阳报