A round-up of other health stories in brief.
PRIVATE HEALTHCARE: Ireland's inaugural private healthcare conference, The Business of Health, takes place tomorrow at the Berkley Court Hotel, Dublin.
Noel Daly, conference chairman and managing director of The Health Partnership, said: "The impetus for development in the private healthcare sector is being driven by success of the traditional providers; Government incentives; the National Treatment Purchase Fund; potential Public Private Partnership arrangements; and consumer-driven desire for speedy access to modern healthcare facilities."
The conference is aimed at clinicians, service providers, bankers, private health sector and companies providing services to that sector.
For further details contact 01 7008507 or log on to www.privatehealth.ie.
INTELLIGENT GROWTH: Smart children have a different rhythm in their heads - a see-saw pattern of growth that lags years behind other children - a new study claims.
Seeking a link between neural anatomy and mental ability, researchers at the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) and McGill University in the US discovered brain development in children with the highest IQs peaked four years later than among average children.
Philip Shaw at the NIMH periodically scanned the brains of 307 healthy children from age five through to age 19.
He and his team discovered telltale waves of change in the cortex of the brain, depending on IQ and age. In the most intelligent children, the cortex was thinner in early childhood, grew thicker, then thinned more rapidly than in other children.
STROKE TALK: The Irish Heart Foundation has invited members of the public to a talk on stroke to mark the 40th anniversary of the foundation.
The second annual Irish Heart Foundation Mick Doyle lecture takes place at the Imperial Hotel, Cork, tomorrow from 8-9pm. The guest speaker is Cork businessman Vivian Nathan who will talk about his own experience of stroke.
The event will include a panel of medical experts who will answer questions on stroke. The lecture will be preceded by a reception in Thomas Crosbie Holdings' offices on South Mall and is open to all attendees.
BENEFICIAL BACTERIA: Natural bacteria living in soil can attack and kill the drug-resistant superbugs such as MRSA, scientists claim.
Researchers say this breakthrough will enable them to forge ahead with antibiotics to fight hospital-acquired infections. The drugs could be available in five-10 years.
The discovery, made at the John Innes Centre near Norwich, in the UK, was led by Prof Tony Maxwell. He said a harmless strain of soil bacteria, streptomyces, had been "persuaded" to make potentially more effective antibiotics, hopefully capable of killing lethal superbug strains.
The research is published in the latest edition of scientific journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
VACCINE SETBACK: Plans to protect the United States from a potential bird flu pandemic have suffered a setback with the first study of a human vaccine showing even a massive dose failed to protect nearly half of those inoculated.
The vaccine for avian flu strain H5N1 was far less effective than the standard flu vaccine, which protects 70-90 per cent of recipients, according to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The experimental bird flu vaccine also required four times the dose of the seasonal inoculation, effectively cutting the nation's stockpile to about four million courses, enough to inoculate only some healthcare and vaccine workers.
TEEN CANCERS: Adolescent growth spurts and hormones could be behind some teen and young adult cancers, a leading scientist has claimed.
Prof Jillian Birch, a Cancer Research UK fellow at the University of Manchester, said she had identified a number of "true" cancers that specifically affect the age group.
Mrs Birch said her analysis of more than 16 million cancer cases revealed a category of cancers that peak in incidence between the ages of 13-24, including: Hodgkin lymphoma, which affects the lymphatic system; osteosarcoma, the most common type of bone cancer; and Ewing sarcoma, a form of malignant bone cancer.
SHIATSU WORKSHOP: The Irish School of Shiatsu is holding a workshop on Saturday from 10.30am-4.30pm. It will be held in the Herbal Clinic, 5 Lower Mount St, Dublin. Enquiries to 01 2865997.