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If policy makers want to put a stop to heart attacks, they should focus on improving air quality, a new study suggests. The study, which is published in The Lancet, is one of the first to rank the relative contributions of 14 triggers - including cocaine and alcohol use, irritation, and physical exertion -- to heart attacks in the common population. Fine particles in the air that are generated by traffic and power plants, researchers establish, trigger about the same number of heart attacks as experiencing negative emotions, heavy physical exertion like shoveling snow, and heavy alcohol. The researchers strain that on an individual level the risk that air pollution will trigger a heart attack is relatively low. But when those small risks are applied to a large number of people, the danger becomes more evident. The analysis is not very difficult, but nobody has ever done that before, says Andrea Bacciarelli, MD, PhD, an associate professor of environmental epigenetic in the department o...

As the severe toll from the Christchurch earthquake continues to rise, New Zealand's shattered southern city has been rattled by a series of aftershocks. Buildings again shudder under the power of unpredictable underground forces and for a few seconds walls and windows shudder. At first there is a crash like distant thunder before the earth shifts underfoot, and then within a few seconds all is still. Some of the jolts have measured up to magnitude 4.5, far less threatening than Tuesday's quake, which witnesses say made the streets of Christchurch roll and rise like a wave. But more than 100 aftershocks have made an anxious city even more scared. Even the little tremors bring back the horror of the big one," said Roger Marshall, 32, who had brought his young family to a migration centre set up at the Burnside High School in Christchurch. Roger Marshall and his family saw the house opposite fall down in ground. Here the down-and-out have sought shelter as they swap terrible...

Michael Jackson's estate has generated $310 million in profits from album sales, a film, merchandising and other products since the "Thriller" singer died in 2009, according to court papers filed on Thursday. His estate's administrators have used $159 million to pay along the pop star's debt, which when Jackson died amounted to more than $400 million, court records show. "Although there remain unresolved creditor claims, pending proceedings  and additional challenging business, tax and legal issues, and the estate is not yet in a condition to be closed, the executors have made considerable progress in reducing the estate's debt," the documents state. The records, which were made public as part of the estate's probate proceedings, are the most detailed accounting  so far of the finances of Jackson's estate from his death until December 31, 2010. Beneficiaries of the estate are Jackson's children, his mother and various charities. Legal rep...

Awful news for soda drinkers. A new study shows the caramel coloring in soda could cause cancer. The chemicals in the caramel coloring cause cancer in mouse, according to a new study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. More studies have to be done before the link is confirmed. The pests were given extremely high doses of the substance. The FDA and the World Health Organization are conducting studies on the substance to see what effects the caramel coloring has on humans in normal doses. Just last week, another study recommended that diet soda could cause stroke and heart attack. The study followed more than 2,500 New Yorkers for nine-plus years and found that the diet soda drinkers, who partook in diet beverages daily, had a 61 percent higher risk of vascular problems including stroke and heart attack, as opposed to those who completely stayed away from diet drinks. The study was presented in front of the American Stroke organization at last week�s International Stroke Co...

Ideally, babies are exclusively breast-fed for the first six months of their lives. Then, solid food � really, a misnomer since �solids� consists to begin with of soupy rice or barley cereal � is introduced. But a quarter of U.S. infants are introduced to solid foods before they hit four months. Why parents disregard the advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the World Health Organization to hold off on solids until six months and what that means for these babies down the road is the subject of two new studies in the AAP journal Pediatrics. One study, published Monday by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University, shows that introducing solids before a baby's 4-month birthday is linked to a six fold increase in that baby becoming obese by the time he is 3. This was true for infants whose mothers never breast-fed them or weaned them before four months. Researchers tracked 847 children � two-thirds of whom were breast-fed � and found that 7...