People are being warned that some salons are offering hair extensions that are not applied properly, and that these can end up damaging your scalp.

Racoon International, a major hair company has stated that they’re seeing more and more botched jobs with painful consequences. Leading hair specialist Barry Stevens says he’s seen an increase of women who are now suing salons over their extensions.

There has been a 500 percent rise in the number of salons offering hair extensions since 2002.

Being overweight or obese is not just a personal issue; it is a public health issue that impacts other people in society.

A new study reveals that the extra Medicare cost associated with overweight elderly people could place a significant financial burden on taxpayers, and could cost hundreds of billions of dollars across the entire current Medicare population.

Treating the health needs of an overweight or obese elderly person costs Medicare 6 to 17 percent more over a lifetime than treating an elderly person with a healthy weight. The extra demands amount to Medicare spending on average an extra $15,000 on overweight elderly individuals, and an extra $26,000 on obese individuals.

With soaring food prices sparking protests in many countries, and more than 800 million people going hungry every day worldwide, U.S. food portions are under scrutiny.

Portion sizes in the United States not only exceed those in less-developed countries, but also in the developed world. Americans have the highest per capita daily consumption in the world, eating 3,770 calories a day.

One fast-food chain calls its massive burger a “monument to decadence”.

“We’ve looked at large portion sizes almost entirely in terms of whether it’s healthy for us, and now we have to consider is that sort of a demand going to be sustainable,” said Paul Roberts, author of The End of Food. “It would probably be a way to take pressure off of grain markets if we somehow convinced people to take smaller portion sizes.”

People who eat at irregular times run a greater risk of developing insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, a condition which includes multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The chances of developing the components of the syndrome, such as abdominal obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and glucose intolerance, are affected by several lifestyle factors, of which diet is thought to be one of the most important.

Researchers have now shown for the first time that the frequency of meals, regardless of their content, affects the chances of developing metabolic syndrome. The study was based on a survey and medical examination of over four thousand 60-year old men and women.

Tobacco companies manipulate menthol levels in cigarettes to appeal to newer, younger smokers, as part of a deliberate strategy to get younger people hooked.

Menthol can make cigarettes more palatable to a novice smoker. Internal tobacco-industry documents which show that companies researched how menthol levels could affect sales among different demographic groups. Cigarettes with milder menthol levels appeal to younger smokers. The deliberate manipulation of menthol levels was accompanied by more focused advertising of mentholated cigarettes.

A bill pending in Congress would give the U.S. FDA power to regulate menthol and other additives in cigarettes.