The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet are well-known. As well as being healthier, a recent article concludes that the menu traditionally eaten in Spain leaves less of a carbon footprint than that of the US or the United Kingdom.

If parents consume alcohol, it is more likely that their children will drive under its influence. This is one of the conclusions of a new study analysing the data of more than 30,000 students and their relationship with drinking and driving. The results have been published in the “Adicciones”journal.

Young men are more likely to injure themselves on the road or crossing a street than women, but among the elderly females are more vulnerable. This is according to a study on injuries and citizen mobility undertaken by researchers from the Barcelona Public Health Agency.

Blood pressure modulates a person’s tendency to worry and can be associated with a “tranquilising” effect when elevated. This is indicated in a new study, led by Spanish researchers, that reflects how we can implicitly learn to increase our blood pressure as a way of alleviating tension and emotional unease.

A new study analyses the risk factors and excess mortality among heroin and cocaine consumers admitted to treatment in Spain. The results reveal that the fatality rate among consumers of both drugs is 14.3 times higher than for the general population, while among those only using cocaine, it is 5.1 times higher.

An analysis based on the first Spanish National Sexual Health Survey, carried out in 2009, confirms that socioeconomic factors affect sexual satisfaction. People with a lower economic status claim to be less sexually satisfied, particularly women.

A European study analyzes the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and the risk of mortality. As previous research has already suggested, this study concludes that fruit and vegetable consumption reduces all-cause mortality, and especially cardiovascular disease mortality.

Although in the late 20^th century it was maintained that eating more than two eggs a week could increase cholesterol, in recent years experts have begun to refute this myth. Now, a new study has found that eating more eggs is not associated with higher serum cholesterol in adolescents, regardless of how much physical activity they do.

A recent study analyses cases of drowning attended to in 21 hospitals in Spain during the summers of 2009 and 2010. 60% of the victims were younger than six years old and more than 70% did not know how to swim and were not using flotation devices when they drowned. Furthermore, in eight in every ten cases their carers admitted to having supervised them less attentively.

Pregnancy and infancy are the periods of greatest vulnerability to the use of household insecticides. This if one of the findings of the first study of its kind to be carried out in Spain, which concludes that more than half of expectant mothers routinely use these chemical compounds.