Caution: socks can damage your health As can tights. And trousers, and

Caution: socks can damage your health As can tights

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Caution: socks can damage your health As can tights. And trousers, and beanbags, leaves, tea cosies, place mats, bread bins, clogs and false teeth Not to mention vegetables Caution: socks can damage your health As can tights. And trousers, and beanbags, leaves, tea cosies, place mats, bread bins, clogs and false teeth. Not to mention vegetables. This is the warning from the Government in its latest compilation of domestic accidents reported by hospitals, which finds that home is where the hurt is.The data in the Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System report shows that in 1999 there were 10,773 cases of people treated in hospital for accidents "caused by" socks and tights, 5,945 caused by trousers, 1,317 by beanbags, 1,171 by leaves, 787 by sponges and loofahs, and 37 by tea cosies. The numbers were similarly worrying for many other household objects 933 people had to attend accident and emergency departments after unscheduled and injurious encounters with false teeth.New Scientist magazine says today: "It is our favourite government report. It makes it clearer than ever that our homes are full of unacknowledged dangers."But the Department of Trade and Industry, which collates the information, was reticent about the precise nature of the injuries."The report doesn't go into detail," a spokeswoman said.

"That's not the purpose.The statistics are pulled together to help inform our consumer safety policy."The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, which helped the DTI, professed itself mystified about the dangers of these apparently harmless objects. A spokeswoman made an (unrepeatable) suggestion as to how vegetable accidents occurred, and said people often slipped on household objects."Someone might go to casualty and be asked about how something happened, say where they cut themselves, and they would say 'It was the mushrooms', and that would get written down," she said But she admitted. "We've drawn a blank on how you could injure yourself with false teeth.". A vaccine to protect against Alzheimer's disease, which proved encouraging on animals, is now being tested on humans. A vaccine to protect against Alzheimer's disease, which proved encouraging on animals, is now being tested on humans. The potential vaccine is being tested on a group of 80 patients, all aged over 60, who have developed the first symptoms of the degenerative brain disease.

It is hoped that the first phase of the clinical trials will be completed this summer. If the vaccine proves successful, it could transform the way the illness is treated.Dr Mike Hall, an Alzheimer's specialist, said: "It's too soon to say if it will be successful but it's potentially very exciting because it may be that we'll be able to prevent Alzheimer's."Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, affecting nearly 500,000 people in the UK and 12 million worldwide. But the total is forecast to rise to 22 million by 2025 as the over-65 population doubles.Three drugs have been approved for prescription on the NHS, all of which aim to stabilise early symptoms such as memory loss, confusion and personality change. But there are concerns that patients are being denied the drugs because some health authorities are reluctant to pay the high costs.A successful vaccine would hold out the prospect of screening people for Alzheimer's and immunising those at most risk, or possibly vaccinating everyone as they reach middle age.Experiments on mice have already shown that the vaccine can prevent the build-up of protein deposits in the brain, called plaques, which are believed to cause Alzheimer's.In a study published last year, researchers demonstrated how the vaccine prevented memory loss and arrested the disruption of nerve cells in mice which were specially bred to mimic the onset of the disease.Now the vaccine, being developed by Elan Pharmaceuticals, is undergoing parallel trials in the UK and America to see if it produces any adverse reactions and to investigate whether it triggers the production of protective antibodies. If the vaccine passes these tests, it will have to undergo full-scale clinical trials which means at least another five years before it could be licensed for public use.Dr Richard Harvey, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said: "We're hoping to hear this summer whether the vaccine has worked, whether it's generating antibodies, then a decision will be taken about moving up to the next phase."News of the trials came as the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry released a report charting medical research into 13 potential new drugs to treat the condition, the possibility of developing a urine test to diagnose the disease and progress with the vaccine..

The theory that heart attacks cause irreversible damage to muscle tissue was challenged yesterday by scientists who said that cells were capable of large-scale regeneration. The theory that heart attacks cause irreversible damage to muscle tissue was challenged yesterday by scientists who said that cells were capable of large-scale regeneration. Specialists from New York Medical College studied the hearts of 13 patients who had suffered cardiac arrest and found that muscle cells in two regions of their hearts had replicated themselves.Dr Claude Lenfant, director of the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, said the findings provided "the most dramatic and clear-cut demonstration to date of heart cell regeneration after cardiac injury". He added: "We have a new understanding of the heart that opens up the possibility of repairing heart muscle damage after a heart attack."Cardiologists who detected the repair mechanism studied the division of myocytes (heart muscle cells) near the site of the heart attack, and at a more distant site. Compared with normal hearts, the number of myocytes multiplying in diseased hearts was found to be 70 times higher in the border zone and 24 times higher in the remote myocardium.Dr Piero Anversa, who led the research team, said the dividing cells could be a sub-population of known heart cells or primitive stem cells which targeted damaged regions of the heart. "If we can prove the existence of cardiac stem cells and make them migrate to the region of tissue damage, we could improve the repair of damaged heart muscle and reduce heart failure," he said..

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