Flu shot does not cut risk of getting pneumonia
A flu shot doesn’t appear to protect you against getting pneumonia, according to new research from the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle. According to a study of almost 4,000 people over 65, those who had contracted the flu even after getting a flu shot were just as likely to have developed pneumonia as those who did not get a flu shot and got the disease. The results of the study were reported in the journal The Lancet.
The researchers recommended that people continue to receive flu shots. More than 30,000 people over 65 die of the flu each year.
Livers from donors over 60 are effective in transplants
Transplant patients who receive livers from donors over 60 are not more likely to have trans-plant failure, reject the organ or die, according to new research from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Their data published in Archive of Surgery showed that survival rates for the recipients were 85 per-cent after one year and 69 percent after five years. There was virtually no difference in survival rates for those who received livers from donors over 60 years old. The researchers concluded that the donor pool could safely include older liver donors.
Researchers are closing in on understanding hair growth
Scientists at the New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center have found a key trigger that tells hair when to start growing. Although the research was done on mice, the researchers believe their discovery may be the key to understanding—and eventually curing—hair loss in men and women, including hair loss associated with chemotherapy.
The same researchers had previously found that a molecule called laminins 511 was important to hair growth, but their latest research has uncovered how the molecule reacts with the hair follicle to tell the hair actually when to grow. The findings, which may be particularly relative to an eventual treatment for male-pattern baldness, are reported in the journal Genes & Development.
Sleeping less may be normal as you age, new study finds
Can’t sleep? Maybe that’s because after you’re 60 you just need less sleep than you did when you were younger, according to new research from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
In a controlled study of sleep in a group of men and women between 18 and 32 and a group between 60 and 72, researchers found that the older group slept 1.5 hours less a day: 7.5 hours versus 9 hours. Participants in both groups were healthy and had no sleep disturbance issues.
 The findings, published in Current Biology, may indicate that older people, who expend less energy during the day, simply need less sleep and that what some older people consider to be insomnia is a nor-mal age-related shift in their internal clocks, the authors speculated.
Garlic supplements, potassium offer drug-free hypertension help
Two separate studies have found that garlic supplements and an increase in potassium in your diet may be just as effective in treating high blood pressure as some drugs currently being prescribed.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide in South Australia reviewed 11 studies on garlic supplements and found that people who took 600 mg to 900 mg daily for 12 to 23 weeks had essentially the same drop in high blood pressure as people who took beta blockers and ACE inhibitors, two widely prescribed drugs for hyper-tension. Their study was reported in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders.
Meanwhile, researchers from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville reported in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension that they found if Americans would increase their intake of potassium (found in fruits and vegetables) and lower their sodium, the number of people with hypertension would fall by 10 percent. The typical American diet contains twice the sodium and half the potassium recommended in guide-lines. FP

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