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LIMA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- A total of 53.5 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer from hunger or malnutrition, experts said at an international forum here Thursday.Juan Garcia, coordinator of the 5th work-group meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Initiative Without Hunger, said the figure has not increased since 1990.Experts and officials from 13 countries gathered to discuss the challenges facing regional food security and advances that have been made, hoping to make cooperative efforts to eradicate hunger and malnutrition by the year 2025.Carcia said people affected most across the continent are still those living in rural areas as well as African descendants and indigenous people who suffer from "exclusion and inequality."The main cause of undernutrition is not lack of food-production capacity, but access to food, Carcia said.Six countries, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, have approved food security laws with nine more in the process of doing so. The laws are considered as a way to ensure that local agricultural products are primarily used to feed the countries' own populations and not used for export.

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.

WASHINGTON, May 3 (Xinhua) -- People diagnosed with asthma in the United States grew by 4.3 million between 2001 and 2009, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).In 2009, nearly one in 12 Americans were diagnosed with asthma. In addition to increased diagnoses, asthma costs grew from about 53 billion U.S. dollars in 2002 to about 56 billion dollars in 2007, about a six percent increase. The explanation for the growth in asthma rates is unknown, according to the CDC.Asthma is a lifelong disease that causes wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing, though people with asthma can control symptoms and prevent asthma attacks by avoiding things that can set off an asthma attacks, and correctly using prescribed medicine, like inhaled corticosteroids. The report highlights the benefits of essential asthma education and services that reduce the impact of these triggers, but most often these benefits are not covered by health insurers."Despite the fact that outdoor air quality has improved, we've reduced two common asthma triggers -- secondhand smoke and smoking in general -- asthma is increasing," said Paul Garbe, chief of CDC 's Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch. "While we don't know the cause of the increase, our top priority is getting people to manage their symptoms better."Asthma triggers are usually environmental and can be found at school, work, home, outdoors, and elsewhere and can include tobacco smoke, mold, outdoor air pollution, and infections linked to influenza, cold-like symptoms, and other viruses.According to the report, asthma diagnoses increased among all demographic groups between 2001 and 2009, though a higher percentage of children reported having asthma than adults (9.6 percent compared to 7.7 percent in 2009). Annual asthma costs in the United States were 3,300 dollars per person with asthma from 2002 to 2007 in medical expenses. About two in five uninsured and one in nine insured people with asthma could not afford their prescription medication."Asthma is a serious, lifelong disease that unfortunately kills thousands of people each year and adds billions to our nation's health care costs," said CDC Director Thomas Frieden. "We have to do a better job educating people about managing their symptoms and how to correctly use medicines to control asthma so they can live longer more productive lives while saving health care costs."

LOS ANGELES, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Kids born in the spring and summer months might be more likely to develop celiac disease, U.S. researchers have found.Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children drew the conclusion after examining data on 382 children diagnosed with celiac disease at between 11 months and 19 years of age, HealthDay News reported on Sunday.The study found that in the 15- to 19-year-old set, birth season appeared to make no difference, but among 317 children younger than 15 years of age, 57 percent were born in the "light" season of March through August, compared with 43 percent who were born in the "dark" season of September through February.The findings suggest that the higher incidence of this autoimmune disease may be related to a combination of seasonal and environmental factors, the report said.Celiac disease is a digestive disorder triggered by consuming the protein gluten, which is primarily found in bread and other foods containing wheat, barley or rye. It can damage the small intestine and make it difficult to absorb certain nutrients, causing problems ranging from abdominal pain to nerve damage.Even though the exact cause of celiac disease is unknown, potential triggers include the timing of infants' introduction to gluten, and viral infections contracted during the first year of life.The study's findings suggest the season of a child's birth is another potential risk factor for the disease.The researchers pointed out that infants are generally introduced to solid foods containing gluten at around six months of age, which for spring and summer babies would coincide with cold and flu season.Based on the findings, the age at which gluten is first offered to some babies may need to be altered, said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Pornthep Tanpowpong. "If you're born in the spring or the summer, it might not be appropriate to introduce gluten at the same point as someone born in the fall or winter," said Tanpowpong. "Although we need to further develop and test our hypothesis, we think it provides a helpful clue for ongoing efforts to prevent celiac disease."The study also noted that exposure to sunlight may also play a role in celiac disease, since vitamin D deficiency has been associated with the disease.The study was presented Sunday in Chicago during Digestive Disease Week, an international gathering sponsored by the American Gastroenterological Association and other organizations, HealthDay News said.Because the study was presented at a medical meeting and is small, its findings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal and confirmed in other research, the report said.

BEIJING, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese official has called on the country's religious figures to make more contributions to economic and social development by innovating and improving social services.Jia Qinglin, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remark at a meeting Thursday while offering lunar New Year's greetings to religious circles on behalf of the CPC Central Committee.Jia Qinglin (front, R), chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, shakes hands with one of the leaders of the religious groups during an informal discussion sponsored by CPPCC in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 27, 2011, to celebrate the upcoming Spring Festival.Jia said Chinese citizens' freedom in religious belief was fully protected, and the religious circles had provided excellent services for people from around the world during the Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Games last year.The official asked the religious circles to pay more attention to helping grassroots religious groups and believers and improving their management.

来源：资阳报