Today's health scare stories

Published in the last twenty-four hours in The Metro:

Working long hours damages the brain

We work some of the longest hours in Europe but while staying late should make the boss happy it increases the risk of dementia later in life. The stress and exhaustion of working overtime can harm the brain's ability to process information, a study suggests. Middle-aged workers putting in 55 hours or more a week had poorer brain function than those who clocked up 40 hours. Their scores were lower on tests to measure intelligence, short-term memory and word recall, according to research at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Gaming consoles spark skin scare

A skin disorder caused by over-enthusiastic handling of gaming consoles has been identified. 'PlayStation palmar hidradenitis', which causes sore patches on the palms of hands, is linked to intense sweating. Swiss doctors spotted the symptoms in a girl of 12. The British Association of Dermatologists says gamers should take regular breaks.

Daily drink 'raises cancer risk'

Women who have just one alcoholic drink each day increase their risk of cancer, according to a new study. Consuming just one drink a day causes an extra 7,000 cancer cases in women in the UK each year, researchers found. Around 5,000 of these cases are related to breast cancer* but others are cancers of the rectum, liver, mouth and throat, researchers from the University of Oxford found.

Being fat ‘as risky to health as smoking’

Obese teenagers are just as likely to die early as people who smoke more than ten cigarettes a day. A premature death was more than twice as likely compared to normal weight youngsters and about a third more for those who were overweight, a study found. 'The need for effective prevention of smoking and obesity remains significant,' a Swedish report said.

OK, if you work shorter hours and earn less money, what on earth are you supposed to do in your spare time? No gaming, drinking, eating or smoking, it would seem. The obesity/smoking comparison is a classic - seeing as smoking keeps you thin, it seems to me it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

* Remittance Man took a closer look at those numbers here, concluding that if every woman in the UK stopped drinking it would postpone 1,000 deaths a year.