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Taking cod liver oil early in life appears to reduce the chances that children will develop insulin-dependent ("type 1") diabetes, researchers report. "In Norway, Cod Liver_Oil is an important source of dietary vitamin D and the long-chain n-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)," according to Dr. Lars C. Stene, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in Oslo, and colleagues. All these nutrients "have biological properties of potential relevance for the prevention of type 1 diabetes," they explain in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Full article

The genetic differences between individual human beings are much greater than was previously thought, according to research that offers a fresh explanation for the unique physical and psychological characteristics of every person. A revolutionary map that compared the genomes of 270 people has shown that humans are not 99.9 per cent genetically identical as assumed, but that much more of our DNA varies between one person and the next Whereas previous analysis of the human genome had suggested that no more than 0.1 per cent of it underlaid all the genetic differences between individuals, the new findings indicate that at least three times more DNA actually varies. More