Family Halloween Safety Can Be Fiendishly Simple

(HealthDay News) -- With Halloween right around the corner, many parents are wondering how they can help keep their kids safe.

According to Meridith Sonnett, director of pediatric emergency services at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, taking a few precautions can help make Halloween a happy and safe occasion for everyone.

She particularly recommends limiting trick-or-treating to familiar neighborhoods and neighbors.

Here are more tips parents should keep in mind for Halloween:

• Accompany your children when they go trick-or-treating.
• Examine all candy before letting your children eat it
• Have your children discard any unwrapped foods.
• Make sure your children's costumes are non-flammable and short enough so that they don't trip.
• Make sure the eye holes in masks are the right size and in the right place for clear vision.
• If your children are old enough to trick-or-treat without a parent, have them go in groups.
• At night, make sure your children wear costumes that are bright in color, or have them wear reflectors.
• If the streets are dark, have your children take a flashlight.
• Accompany your children in apartment buildings.
• Have your children use proper street-crossing safety.
• Do not allow your children to enter a stranger's home; have them ask for treats and wait outside the door.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more about Halloween safety.

3 Nice Things I’m Going to Do for My Boobs Today

By Anne Krueger

1. I’m going to join the army. The Army of Women, that is. It’s a partnership between Avon and the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, designed to help women and scientists unite to find ways to prevent and cure breast cancer.

“Over and over I’ve heard scientists lament how difficult it is for them to find the volunteers they need for research studies. By responding to this need, the Army of Women will change the face of breast cancer research,” says founder Susan Love, MD.

I love this idea because it gives me a chance to help beyond just sending in a tax-deductible donation. I’ll fill out a questionnaire, and if the Army needs me to be part of a study on healthy women, they’ll let me know. I may be called upon to contribute a blood or urine sample, or fill out a survey. My volunteering will help researchers learn more about how cancer starts and how to prevent it. Read More

Purple Tomato Extended Lives of Cancer-Prone Mice

(HealthDay News) -- Tomatoes genetically modified to be rich in antioxidants called anthocyanins appeared to extend the life spans of cancer-prone mice, a European study finds.

The modified tomatoes were created by adding two genes (Delila and Rosea1) from the snapdragon flower. The anthocyanins, which belong to the flavonoid class of antioxidants, gave the tomatoes a peculiar purple color.

"The two genes we have isolated are responsible for flower pigmentation and, when introduced in other plants, turned out to be the perfect combination to produce anthocyanins, the same phytochemical found in blueberries," study author Eugenio Butelli, of the FLORA project, said in a news release.

Chemical tests revealed that the "purple tomato has a very high antioxidant activity, almost tripled in comparison to the natural fruit," making it very useful to study the effect of anthocyanins, Butelli said.

The researchers fed a powder obtained from the purple tomatoes to mice that lacked the p53 gene, which helps protect against cancer. These mice had an average life span of 182 days compared to 142 days for p53-deficient mice fed a standard diet.

The findings were published in the Oct. 26 issue of Nature Biotechnology.

The study authors emphasized this is a preliminary study, and much more research needs to be done before there's any possibility of human trials.

More information
The American Dietetic Association has more about antioxidants.