CAM

Study finds home births comparatively safe for low-risk women, infants
The largest study ever conducted in the United States of planned home births found that 93.6 percent of the 16,924 women in the study had spontaneous vaginal births, and only 5.2 percent required a cesarean section for delivery.
Both mortality figures and the cesarean rate are lower than those reported at U.S. hospitals, which is to be expected the researchers say because the women in the study were primarily healthy and the pregnancies low-risk. Importantly, however, the numbers reported in this study are consistent with other large home birth studies conducted in Canada and Europe. Results of the study are being published this week in the Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health. A companion article provides evidence of data validity. MedicalXpress

Vitamin C and E supplements hampers endurance training
Vitamin C and E supplements may blunt the improvement of muscular endurance – by disrupting cellular adaptions in exercised muscles – suggests a new study published today [3 February] in The Journal of Physiology. As vitamin C and E supplements are widely used, understanding if they interfere with cellular and physiological adaptations to exercise is of interest to people exercising for health purposes as well as to athletes. Eurekalert!

Featured in NEJM Journal Watch: Diet and the Microbiome
The human gut microbiome can be altered quickly by dietary modification, according to a study in Nature.

ID specialist Richard Ellison comments: "This work has extensive implications for our understanding of nutrition, normal gut physiology, and the pathogenesis of multiple conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease. It also gives hope that a rational approach can now be used to develop effective probiotics that could correct the deleterious effects of antibiotic therapy on the human microbiome." Journal Watch

Blue light may fight fatigue around the clock
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that exposure to short wavelength, or blue light, during the biological day directly and immediately improves alertness and performance. These findings are published in the February issue of Sleep.

"Our previous research has shown that blue light is able to improve alertness during the night, but our new data demonstrates that these effects also extend to daytime light exposure," said Shadab Rahman, PhD, a researcher in BWH's Division of Sleep Medicine and lead author of this study. "These findings demonstrate that prolonged blue light exposure during the day has an an alerting effect." Eurekalert!