Parents might also consider sending their children out with some fruits or nuts as snacks.

"Discuss with children what constitutes a reasonable number of treats to consume when they get home and be cautious with homemade treats -- if you are unclear about the source of the treat, throw it away," Elisabetta Politi, nutrition manager at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, said in a prepared statement.

Falls are among the most common Halloween-related injuries, noted Claudia McCormick, program director of the Duke Trauma Center. Parents need to make sure that costumes won't cause children to trip. Children should wear well-fitting shoes. Don't send them out in floppy shoes or shoes with high heels. And they should walk in well-lit areas.

The debut issue of Get Active magazine includes features on the life-enhancing powers of exercise, how to begin an exercise regimen, how fitness can boost your finances, how to flex your political muscle, and an interview with Catherine Oxenberg and Casper Van Dien, stars of the Lifetime television reality series, I Married a Princess. In addition, the magazine will provide tips on training, nutrition, gear, and choosing a personal trainer. Every edition of Get Active magazine will also consist of feature stories covering a variety of topics and the magazine will tell the personal stories of health club members who have achieved positive results in their fitness routines.

"There's so much fluctuation in body weight due to fluid that you lose or gain, and that can represent two, three, sometimes four pounds," notes Harry DuVal, Ph.D., associate professor of exercise science and director of the fitness center at the University of Georgia in Athens. "You get all excited, thinking, 'Look what I lost!' and then you go and replenish your fluids and, bingo, you're right back up to where you were -- if not higher -- so you get discouraged."

The scale can also be inaccurate, particularly if you're strength training, because of the change in your muscle mass.

Of course, you've probably heard a million times that muscle weighs more than fat -- but just how much does that affect the number on the scale? "If you're doing a vigorous form of resistance training at any age, you can gain lean muscle mass," says DuVal. "And it takes very little gain in muscle mass to equate to pounds gained. You can still be losing significant body fat, but if you're gaining just a little bit of lean muscle mass, it doesn't show up as a loss on the scale."

While most Siberian flocks don?t try to cross the Pacific to North America, some do cross the narrow Bering Strait to Alaska.

If those birds mingle with birds from Alaska, "there is the possibility the virus could be transmitted to waterfowl or shorebirds that make their way here next fall," Brand said.

While many severely infected birds usually die within a few days and are unable to fly very far, other hardier varieties could carry the disease.

Among the Arctic species under suspicion are hardier, long-distance fliers like eiders, gulls and geese. "It probably will be spread by one that isn?t killed very easily by it," Brand said.

For the new study, researchers measured how well 3,718 people did on simple tests, such as recalling details of a story. The participants, all Chicago residents 65 and older, took the tests three times over six years. They also filled out a questionnaire about what they ate that included 139 foods.

"We found that people who ate one fish meal a week had a 10 percent slower annual decline in thinking," said co-author Martha Clare Morris, an epidemiologist at Rush University Medical Center. "Those who ate two fish meals a week showed a 13 percent slower annual decline."

A parrot that died in quarantine in the UK has tested positive for avian flu, the government has said.

The Department for the Environment, Fisheries and Food (Defra) has not said if it is the lethal strain H5N1.

It is the first case of avian flu in Britain - it has been found in Romania, Turkey and Greece after apparently being carried from Asia by wild birds.

Maliuc joins the Danube delta village of Ceamurlia de Jos as the second place in Romania to have confirmed it has the virus.

Preliminary tests suggest bird flu has also arrived in European Russia, west of the Ural mountains, having been found in Asian Siberia already.

Russian laboratories said H5N1 had been detected in birds in Tula, about 220km (137 miles) south of Moscow.

Candy

Kids will be less likely to overload on candy if they eat something before they go out. And they'll be more likely to do that if you make it fun. One idea: host a make your own jack o' lantern pizza party. Give each child a miniature pizza and allow him to create a masterpiece. You can use onions, peppers, or olives for eyes, and mushrooms for a toothy grin.

Before Halloween, decide -- with your children -- on a specific number of candies they can eat per day, and how long that should go on. After that cut- off date, donate the excess candy or put it away and take it out for special treats throughout the year. Set a treat calorie limit for yourself as well. Of course, make sure your child knows not to eat any treats until you've checked them to make sure the safety seal hasn't been tampered with.

Costumes

Costumes are an essential part of Halloween fun, but hazardous situations can arise if a costume is made from the wrong materials or does not fit properly. "Every Halloween we see children brought to our emergency department with problems related to costumes. Masks that are ill-fitting interfere with vision, and outfits that are baggy or extend beyond ankles lead to trips and falls," said Harvard Health Letter advisory board member Dr. John T. Nagurney, who is an attending physician in emergency services at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Children who will be trick-or-treating after dusk should have reflective tape on their costumes and treat bags, and should carry flashlights with fresh batteries.

Jack-O'-Lanterns

Carving Jack-O'-Lanterns is a Halloween tradition that the whole family can participate in, though small children should never do the actual carving. Let them draw a face with markers, and then you can do the cutting. Under parents' supervision, children aged 5 to 10 can carve with pumpkin cutters that have safety bars.

Home safety

Keep your own home safe for visiting trick-or-treaters by removing anything that a child could trip over and by replacing any burned-out outdoor light bulbs.

Greece said on Monday it had detected one turkey with bird flu on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, becoming the first EU country where the virus has spread to.

"The Center for Veterinary Institutes has informed us that one of nine poultry samples has tested positive to bird flu (H5) antibodies," the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

State-run television quotes authorities as saying first bird flu case has been confirmed in Greece and tests and for the deadly H5N1 strain are pending.

An individual would be able to tell within 20 minutes whether they had the infection or not, in the privacy of their own home.

Many have expressed fears that people who find out in this way may kill themselves and hence testing should be supervised and counselled face to face.

Home HIV testing kits are banned in the UK for such reasons. However, some buy unapproved kits over the internet.

The researchers cited other studies that showed that at age 11, 25% of boys and 14% of girls report bullying others. And at least 22% of boys and 26% of girls report being bullied.

"While bullying once was seen as an activity of boys, there has been a burgeoning increase in the number of girls who bully," Wright says. "Girls now threaten, use innuendos, and tease others about their clothes as ways to interact together. They are joining in. Many are bullying through the format of 'cyber bullying' through emails, instant and text messaging, and camera phones."

Styles of bullying range from the direct of pushing, punching, spitting, and tripping to the more indirect of threats of teasing, spreading rumors, and shunning, he says.

Bullying is associated with higher rates of frequent fighting and injuries and weapon carrying, with the associations being stronger for bullies than targets, he told those attending the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition.

"The burning question is, you know, will there be a human influenza pandemic?? said Dr. Lee. ?I believe, on behalf of WHO, I can tell you that there will be. And right now the only one condition missing is the virus that is rapidly transmitted from human to human."

And the bird flu keeps spreading. In the past few days, the avian flu was detected in two European nations. Officials restricted access to a Romanian village after three ducks were found dead from the virus. And in Turkey, 3,000 turkeys and chickens were culled after another 1800 turkeys died of the disease last week. To prevent the further spread of the disease, Turkish officials have indicated they will continue to kill poultry in the affected area for the next three weeks.

Leavitt said "containment" was the first line of defense against the illness, encouraging countries to step up development and production of vaccines and strengthen efforts to detect any cases of human-to-human transmission early.

"Anywhere, the sooner we know, the faster we can respond and the more lives that will be saved," he said.

H5N1 has infected 116 people in Asia, killing 60 ? but experts are more worried the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between people. That could trigger a human flu pandemic.

The best defense against a pandemic is to stamp out any outbreak in birds before the virus has a chance to change.

The dead birds were first noticed in the remote eastern village of Ceamurlia de Jos near the Black Sea in late September, Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said. Samples were sent to a lab in Bucharest, where scientists found antibodies to bird flu.

Scientists are reporting Friday that the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing cervical cancer and precancerous changes tied to two types of a common sexually transmitted virus.

"It's a very impressive finding," Christopher Crum, director of women's and perinatology pathology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said Thursday.

Dr Wilma Scholte op Reimer, of the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who led the study, said it was "unbelievable" so many carried on smoking after a life-threatening event for which the habit is a major risk factor.

"It makes me wonder if they are truly aware of the risk that they are taking," she said.

Dr Scholte op Reimer said there may be a difference between patients having the general knowledge that smoking is a bad habit, and understanding the risk they themselves faced.

She said it was important smokers had access to support from stopping-smoking programmes, and access to nicotine replacement therapies, if necessary.

Just when we thought we couldn't get any fatter, a new study that followed Americans for three decades suggests that over the long haul, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women will become overweight.

Even if you are one of the lucky few who made it to middle age without getting fat, don't congratulate yourself -- keep watching that waistline.

Half of the men and women in the study who had made it well into adulthood without a weight problem ultimately became overweight. A third of those women and a quarter of the men became obese.