Health Buzz: Newborn's Cries Mimic Mom's Language and Other Health News
Study Finds Newborn's Cries Mimic Mom's Language
A new study suggests that babies begin to learn language in the womb and can mimic their parents' patterns of tone and pitch soon after birth, Science News reports. Researchers studied the cries of 60 newborns, half of them with German-speaking parents and the other half with French-speakers. Analyzing differences in pitch, they found a marked difference between the cries of the two groups. When compared with pitch changes that are recognizable in German and French speakers, the babies' cries matched those of their native tongue, according to Science News. The study appears in Current Biology.
[Read: Babies Can Comprehend 'Canine' Language and Is Your Baby Smarter Than You Are?]
Rihanna Embraces Her Role as a Poster Girl for Domestic Violence
Pop star Rihanna is finally speaking out about the domestic assault inflicted upon her in February by her then boyfriend Chris Brown. She told Diane Sawyer in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America that the brutal beating—for which Brown pled guilty in June—was "a wake-up call for me. Big time." She added that it was "wrong" that she initially went back to Brown after the attack, U.S. News's Deborah Kotz reports.
Can Rihanna be an effective spokesperson for educating women about domestic violence? Absolutely, says Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, who watched yesterday's TV interview. "Where she can make the most impact is with young people, a group that we have difficulty reaching," she says.
Smith says that love is a huge factor in sending women back to their abusers. "They think, 'I love him; we can work on it, and he's not always abusive; there are really good things that drew me to this person in the first place.'" She adds, "These women also think they can work with their partners to end the abuse by fixing something that's wrong in the relationship." Trouble is, she explains, the only culprit is the one inflicting the violence, and the abuser rarely takes responsibility and gets professional help. Read more.
[Read: Doctors May Be Able to Predict Domestic Abuse and Domestic Abuse Linked to Poor Health, Years Later.]
6 Common Myths and Misconceptions About Diabetes
Every day, more than 4,000 adults are diagnosed with diabetes and about 200 people die from the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to figures released last year, nearly 24 million Americans have diabetes. It is one of the major causes of heart disease, stroke, new cases of adult blindness, and leg and foot amputations not caused by injury. Those are facts.
Yet there are many mistaken beliefs about diabetes, U.S. News's January Payne writes. The American Diabetes Association recently surveyed more than 2,000 Americans about the most common ones. Sue McLaughlin, president of healthcare and education at the ADA, offered her opinion of what she says are the 6 most common myths and misconceptions about diabetes.
One false notion is that being overweight causes diabetes. Just because a person gains weight doesn't mean she's going to get type 2 diabetes, Payne writes. Having a body mass index over 25 is just one of several risk factors for diabetes, but there are many overweight people who don't get the disease, McLaughlin says. Read more.
[Read: Exploring Misconceptions About Diabetes and Diabetes and the Flu: 6 Things You Should Know.]
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