A weekly round-up of news affecting your health.
MORNING BUZZ
People who wake up from surgery feeling groggy and jetlagged can blame general anaesthesia.
That's the finding from a trial involving bees conducted by researchers at the Department of Anaesthesiology at the University of Auckland.
Because bees have their own internal sun compass, their sense of time can be measured by the angle at which they're flying.
The scientists found when they drugged the bees with anaesthetic and then woke them after six hours, their sense of time was thrown out of whack, leading to the conclusion anaesthetic triggers post-surgery jetlag.
The researchers are now testing whether shining a bright light on an anaesthised patient while they're sleeping can counter the chemical effects of the drug.
LESS PAIN, LESS CANCER
Getting good pain relief after surgery or dosing up on morphine could help prevent the spread of breast cancer, research shows.
A team at the Mater Research Institute in Queensland has found easing pain helps breast cancer patients because high pain levels weaken the body's immune system.
Their research also suggests morphine can help decrease the number of enzymes produced by cancer cells when they spread.
"When we treated mice with morphine and then injected breast cancer cells, it was found the mice that received morphine had a lower tumour count," researcher Dr David Sturgess said.
The scientists will now test their findings on human blood samples and say the findings could apply to other cancers as well.
LETTING THEIR GUARD DOWN
The popular usage of HIV-prevention drugs has made sectors of the gay community more lazy and complacent about AIDS, a leading researcher says.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis, (or PrEP) is a HIV prevention method where people at very high risk for HIV take HIV medicines daily to lower their chances of getting infected.
Burnett Institute medical researcher Mark Stoove says the method has led to some sectors of the gay community taking more risks with unprotected sex.
That has has led to an epidemic of syphilis and gonorrhea among gay men, he says.
"At a community level PrEP is being interpreted as a new dawning of the age of free love."
"They're translating this view that things are less risky and overlaying that onto their own lives without actually taking individual responsibility for protecting themselves."
TATTS NEVER A SAFE OPTION
Getting a tattoo is no longer taboo but an Australian doctor is urging people not to forget about the long-term health consequences.
She says the cosmetic procedure can cause long-term pain if not done correctly and people should keep that in mind before going under the needle.
"As the process of getting a tattoo breaches the skin, there will always be the possibility of allergic reactions, skin infections and various other complications," Dr Alexandra O'Neill told a Royal Australasian College of Surgeons congress in Brisbane this week.
She's calling on people to wake up to the dangers of getting inked.
"The reality is as more people are getting tattoos, we are also seeing more people presenting to medical facilities experiencing complications."
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