Health Briefs: Good dental tip to chew on

NUTRITION BITE

ACCORDING to a study review in the British Dental Journal, sugar-free gum, sweets and cold drinks can damage teeth, cause gastric problems and are unlikely to promote loss of weight.

The study claims that these sugar-free products contain acidic additives like polyols (sugar alcohols), which can lead to the erosion of tooth enamel and cause gastric disturbance and osmotic diarrhoea.

BREAKTHROUGH OF THE WEEK

STAND up too quickly and you might see tiny flashes of light called phosphenes.

If certain areas of the brain that process visual information are activated - by a blow to the head, for example - tiny stars of light appear in vision.

People experience such phosphenes even if their eyes are closed or they are blind.

Peter Schiller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge is analysing the area of the brain that creates these tiny flashes of light and his experiments might help blind people to see.

His goal is to pair electrical stimulation of the visual cortex with a small camera - this would allow researchers to stimulate the visual cortex with a pattern of activity that translates the information captured by the camera, giving a kind of sight to blind people.

BIZARRE OF THE WEEK

ACCORDING to a study conducted by Craig Roberts at the University of Stirling in the UK, women who are on the pill are significantly less attracted to their partners and are less sexually satisfied but are extremely satisfied with non-sexual aspects of their relationship, such as financial support and partner loyalty.

The research states that one explanation is that during the fertile cycle phases, women are attracted to traits such as masculine faces, which are associated with good genes but also infidelity. But women on the pill don't have such hormone shifts, so they may be more sensitive to traits associated with fidelity and those that lead to longer relationships.

DRIVE slower. Even though vehicles have evolved to become safer and go faster with ease, the human body is still in the slow lane.

Our reaction times have not evolved and our bodies are no better at withstanding the forces involved in a crash.