Washington, Mar 10 : Depression, anger and hostility may be red flags of increased risk of heart disease, warns a new study.

According to Journal of the American College of Cardiology study, the `hate emotions' are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease.

"Anger and hostility were found to predict a 19 percent and 24 percent increase in CHD events among initially healthy people and those with pre-existing CHD, respectively," says Yoichi Chida, M. D., Ph. D., Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College, London, UK.

Washington, Mar 10 : Challenging the notion that keeping baby in the womb for full time is beneficial, scientists have now said that use of drugs to delay preterm labour may actually be harmful for both mother and child.

The Dutch study claimed that preterm labour is the main cause of perinatal illness and death in the developed world.

London, Mar 10 : A team of US researchers trying to understand the neural basis of religious belief has obtained strong evidence that religiosity is managed by the same parts of the brain that are used every day to interpret other people''s moods and intentions and to analyse experiences.

"We''re interested to find where in the brain belief systems are represented, particularly those that appear uniquely human," New Scientist quoted lead author Jordan Grafman of the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, as saying.

Washington, Mar 10: Men who consume higher levels of vitamin C are less likely to develop gout, a painful type of arthritis, says a new report.

"Gout is the most common type of inflammatory arthritis in men," the authors write as background information in the report in the March 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Washington, Mar 10 : Researchers from University of Southern California have identified an area of hypothalamus in the brain, which is key to animals'' fear of territorial rivals and predators.

The team of neurologists led by Larry Swanson found that mice lose their fear of territorial rivals when a tiny piece of their brain is neutralized.

Brain's amygdala region has long been studied by researchers as the region of fear. However, the new study has shown that primal fear responses do not depend on the amygdala, but on an obscure corner of the primeval brain.

During the study, the researchers examined the brain activity of rats and mice exposed to cats, or to rival rodents defending their territory.

Washington, Mar 10 : Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco have found that older men with higher levels of fat are more likely to experience declines in cognitive function, but the same link does not appear to occur in women.

For the study, Alka M. Kanaya, M. D., of the university and colleagues looked at 3,054 elderly individuals enrolled in the Health ABC Study.