Health Highlights: Dec. 20, 2007

Countries facing a possible meningitis outbreak are: Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.

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Study Suggests Nervous System/PMS Link

A depressed nervous system may contribute to severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS), suggests a Japanese study in the journalBioPsychoSocial Medicine.

The researchers studied 62 women and found that those with PMS had decreased activity in the autonomic nervous system each month just before menstruation. This was most pronounced in women with the most severe PMS symptoms,BBC Newsreported.

The findings suggest that women with lower autonomic nervous system function may be more vulnerable to PMS symptoms, said researcher Dr. Tamaki Matsumoto.

The study results are interesting, but more research is needed before it could lead to a real breakthrough in PMS treatment, Professor Shaughn O'Brien, an obstetrics and gynecology expert at Keele University Medical School in the U.K., toldBBC News.

"If the newly published work did prove to be clinically useful it has the potential at least to provide a relatively non-invasive method to distinguish women with PMS from those who have different non-hormonal types of mood disorder," O'Brien said.

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High-Strain Jobs Linked to Absenteeism, Less Productivity

High levels of work strain lead to increased employee absenteeism and decreased productivity, according to a new Statistics Canada study that looked at data from a 2002 national health survey,CBC Newsreported.

Work strain takes into account pace of work, psychological effects, and control over decision-making.

Compared to men with low-strain jobs, those with high-strain jobs were 1.7 times more likely to have performed less work due to a long-term health condition, and were 1.5 times more likely to have taken at least one disability day in the two weeks prior to the survey, the study said.

Women were more likely (28 percent) than men (20 percent) to report having high-strain jobs, and about one-third of women reported being a bit or extremely stressed most work days, compared with about 29 percent of men,CBC Newsreported.

Shift workers (29 percent) were more likely to say they had high-strain jobs than other employees (20 percent).

"A supportive environment both at and away from work may help prevent reduced work activities by mitigating the effects of work-related stress," the study concluded.

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