Supplements containing flaxseed or borage oil may protect skin against reddening and improve skin health from within, suggests new research from Germany and France.

The omega-3 and omega-6-rich oils from flax and borage respectively also led to a decrease in skin roughness and so-called skin scaling, according to findings published in the British Journal of Nutrition .

Açai berries (pronounced ah-sigh-ee) have long formed part of the staple diet of Indian tribes. With the appearance of a purple grape and taste of a tropical berry, it has been shown to have powerful antioxidant properties thanks to a high level of anthocyanins, pigments that are also present in red wine.

Extracts of St. John’s wort are effective in reducing the symptoms of major depression, according to a new review in the prestigious Cochrane Systematic Review.

The review, by scientists from the Centre for Complementary Medicine at the Technical University of Munich and the University Medical Center Freiburg, also supports earlier research that showed the plant extract is effective against mild to moderate depressive disorders.

OTTAWA - Canadian scientists have discovered that the human brain undergoes a seasonal depletion of the “happy hormone,” a finding they believe explains why moods get darker as days get shorter. State-of-the-art brain scans taken at different times of the year reveal that in the autumn and winter, people have significantly higher levels of a protein that removes serotonin from the brain than they do in spring and summer. Serotonin is a key brain chemical that manipulates mood, energy and sleep. The finding, the first of its kind in the living human brain, “has the potential to explain seasonal changes in normal and pathological behaviours,” the researchers report in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Getting children to consume a Mediterranean-style diet may reduce their risk of asthma by up to 40 per cent, suggests new research from Spain and Mexico.

The cross-sectional survey of 1,476 children aged between six and seven in Mexico found that a higher adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet was also associated with significant reductions in wheezing, sneezing, and itchy-watery eyes.