Health Highlights: Sept. 23, 2009

Sept. 24 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Food Production Must Increase 70 Percent By 2050: U.N.

A 70 percent increase in global food production will be needed to feed the 9.1 billion people who will be on the Earth in 2050, says the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Currently, the world's population is 6.8 billion.

While the FAO said it was "cautiously optimistic about the world's potential to feed itself by 2050," there will be a number of significant challenges, said FAO Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem, Agence France Presse reported.

In its forecast, the FAO said most of the world's population growth will occur in developing countries. "Sub-Saharan Africa's population is expected to grow the fastest (up 108 percent, 910 million people), and East and South East Asia's the slowest (up 11 percent, 228 million)."

The FAO also predicted that about 70 percent of the world's population will live in cities or urban areas by 2050, compared with 49 percent today, AFP reported.

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Green Tea May Protect Bones: Study

Chemicals in green tea may help slow bone breakdown, according to a Chinese study.

Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong exposed cultured bone-forming cells (osteoblasts) to a number of major ingredients of green tea for several days. One of the compounds, epigallocatechin, increased the activity of an enzyme that promotes bone growth by as much as 79 percent, United Press International reported.

Also, high concentration of epigallocatechin blocked the activity of osteoclasts, which are cells that break down or weaken bones. There was no evidence that epigallocatechin had any toxic effects on bone cells, the news service said.

The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.