Study Links Weather to Migraine Headaches
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
A
migraine headache can cause disabling pain. People may not feel back to normal
for hours or even days.
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Migraine
headaches are most common among young adults and middle-aged people. In the
United States, about eighteen percent of women and six percent of men report
having migraines.
People who suffer from migraines can find that different
“triggers” in different people may get a headache started. Stress can
act as a trigger. So can chocolate in some people.
Many
migraine sufferers say hot weather and low barometric pressure can act as
triggers. But researchers say they did not have much scientific evidence of
that — until now.
In
a new study, a team examined the medical records of seven thousand hospital
patients. The patients had visited the emergency room at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, because of a headache. More than two
thousand of them had been found to have a migraine.
The
team then compared those records to weather conditions in the twenty-four hours
before the hospital visits. For every increase of five degrees Celsius in air
temperature, the patients had a seven and one-half percent higher risk of
migraine. Decreases in barometric pressure two to three days before the visit also
appeared to trigger headaches, but to a lesser extent.
The
researchers found no evidence that air pollution influenced headaches. But they
could not rule out the possibility of a smaller effect similar to that seen
earlier for strokes.
Kenneth Mukamal of Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard
Medical School led the study, reported in the journal Neurology.
A
separate study has found that age, gender and where a person has extra body fat
may affect the risk of migraine. It found that overweight people between the
ages of twenty and fifty-five may have a higher risk. On average, those who
were larger around the middle were more likely to have migraines than those of
the same age with smaller waistlines.
The study involved twenty-two thousand people. It was
led by Lee Peterlin of Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. She says early results suggest that losing weight in the stomach
area may help younger people who experience migraines, especially women. The
findings will be presented in a few weeks at the American Academy of Neurology meeting
in Seattle, Washington.
And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report,
written by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.
Studying in the US: Helping Foreign Students Feel at Home
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Being
a new student in school can be a little scary. Being a new student in a new
country can be even scarier.
A
college or university’s international student office is a good place to start
getting to know the school and the country. This week in our Foreign Student
Series, we talk about support services for international students in the United
States.
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| Members of the International Students’ Assembly at the University of Southern California |
Our example is the University of Southern California in
Los Angeles. U.S.C. has had the most international students of any American college
or university for the past seven years. So says the Institution of
International Education in New York.
U.S.C.’s
Office of International Services says the number of students this year is about
seven thousand five hundred. The University of Southern California has more
than thirty-five thousand students total.
The
Office of International Services helps explain student life at the university. It
also organizes programs to help foreign students feel more at ease in their new
surroundings. For example, there are trips to explore the Los Angeles area.
Most American colleges
and universities have a similar office that helps international students. These
offices look for ways to get students involved in school life and make American
friends. Their job is not always easy. International students often want to
spend their free time with friends from their own country or group.
India,
China, South Korea, Japan and Canada sent the most students to the United
States during the last school year. Next came Taiwan, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia and Thailand.
The office
at U.S.C. also assists family members who come to the United States with international
students. The family members can take English classes and go on trips to places
like museums.
The Office of
International Services also organizes other activities. For example, a State of
the World Seminar takes place each semester. A group of international students
and a professor discuss current social and political issues and take questions
from the audience. The most recent seminar, held earlier this month, dealt with
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And
that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our
series on studying in the United States will continue next week. Earlier
reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. Click on Foreign Student Series. You can
write comments and read what other people are saying. I’m Steve Ember.
Global Recession Hits the Developing World
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
Both
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund expect the world economy to
shrink this year for the first time since World War Two. As recently as
January, the I.M.F. had predicted growth of one-half percent. But this week its
chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said the world has entered what he called “a
great recession.”
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| A trader reacts last week to a fall in the value of South Korea’s currency, the won |
A
new World Bank report says the recession may hurt the developing world the most.
Those countries depend on trade for economic growth. But world trade is
expected to fall at the fastest rate in eighty years.
East Asia has been hardest hit. In
February, exports from China fell twenty-six percent from a year ago.
Rich
nations are expected to borrow heavily in world credit markets to finance
spending at home. But investors are demanding very high returns if they are
willing to lend to the developing world at all. Jeff Chelsky, a World Bank senior
economist, says investors are avoiding higher risk debt in a flight to quality.
The bank estimates that up to three
trillion dollars of public and private loans in developing countries must be
repaid this year. Some nations have enough foreign currency reserves, but
others will struggle to find new financing to pay their existing debts.
The
World Bank estimates that developing nations will need between two hundred
seventy and seven hundred billion dollars in financing. The amount depends on the
depth of the recession.
The
I.M.F. is seeking to expand its lending ability. And World Bank President
Robert Zoellick has called on rich nations to put some of their economic
recovery spending into a crisis fund to help poor countries.
Bank
economist Jeff Chelsky says the poorest countries are in the greatest danger.
They cannot borrow in credit markets and they depend on exports of commodities
like crops or minerals. But falling commodity prices mean they now depend more
than ever on foreign aid.
Finance ministers and central bankers from
major industrial and developing countries meet this weekend outside London to
discuss the financial crisis. President Obama wants all countries in the Group
of Twenty to coordinate their separate efforts to strengthen their economies. But European Union officials have rejected
American calls to spend more.
There was some good news this week, including
better-than-expected reports on spending by Americans in January and February. And
financial stocks rose after Citigroup reported a profit for those two months.
And
that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I’m
Steve Ember.
