Asian shares drop on Fed minutes, dollar extends gain

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Friday, tracking overnight weakness in global equities after senior Federal Reserve officials expressed concerns about continuing to expand stimulative bond buying, but the dollar extended gains as U.S. debt yields rose.

Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting released on Thursday showed some voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee were increasingly concerned about the potential risks of the Fed's asset purchases on financial markets, even if it looked set to continue an open-ended stimulus program for now.

The Fed's asset-buying policy has been pivotal in underpinning investor risk appetite and supporting global equities, so the more hawkish Fed minutes unnerved financial markets on Thursday, driving benchmark U.S. Treasury yields up to a near eight-month high and weighing on equities and oil, while lifting the dollar.

The dollar was also bolstered by data showing U.S. private-sector hiring improved in December, raising hopes for a strong monthly payrolls report due later in the day, a key gauge to the U.S. economy and the Fed's future policy course.

The rise in the dollar hit precious metals and oil on Friday as a firmer dollar makes dollar-based assets more expensive for non-dollar holders.

The Fed's minutes prompted investors to book profits from rallies immediately after U.S. lawmakers earlier this week narrowly avoided falling off the "fiscal cliff" of automatic taxes increases and spending cuts, which risked derailing the economy.

"Market moves largely reflect positioning after the recent rallies and before the nonfarm payrolls, which could tip the markets either way," said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> slid 0.8 percent, after scaling its highest since August 2011 on Thursday.

Australian shares <.axjo> slipped 0.4 percent, retreating from a two-day rally which took shares to their highest in more than 19 months on Thursday. Hong Kong shares <.hsi> tumbled 0.8 percent but Shanghai shares <.ssec> inched up 0.2 percent.

The dollar hit its highest since July 2010 against the yen at 87.78 while the euro fell to a three-week low of $1.3019 on Friday. The U.S. dollar <.dxy> also touched a near four-week high against a basket of major currencies.

"Dollar-positive momentum is solid as the fiscal cliff was averted, the overnight data was good and yields were rising. I won't be surprised to see the dollar rise to 90 yen soon," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan for UBS in Tokyo.

"Despite repeated Japanese intervention, the dollar had refused to strengthen in the past, but now, it's advancing without any action, suggesting the direction has completely changed to support continued dollar buying," Maeba said.

The yen's tumble pushed Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> up 2.6 percent to its highest since March 2011, outshining the Asian regional bourses. Japanese markets were closed from December 31 to January 3 for the new year's holidays. <.t/>

Japanese government bonds skidded on their first trading day of 2013, with benchmark yields hitting a 3 1/2-month high in line with surging Japanese equities and a drop in U.S. Treasuries prices.

FISCAL CLIFF VS DATA

U.S. President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans face tough talks on spending cuts and an increase in the nation's debt limit as the hard-fought deal to avert the fiscal cliff covered only taxes and delayed decisions on expenditures until March 1.

But investor sentiment was supported by recent data showing activity in China's services sector and at U.S. factories expanded in December, which brightened the outlook for global growth.

"The minutes have added a fresh degree of uncertainty into the investment climate, which is likely to mean a steeper yield curve. But equity investors should take heart from the fact that the Fed's perception is qualified on an improving economy," Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York, said in a note to clients.

China's services sector saw its slowest rate of expansion in nearly a year and a half in December, a private sector survey showed on Friday, but underlying growth revival remained intact, even if it were modest.

The U.S. economy likely added 150,000 jobs in December, according to a Reuters survey, up from 146,000 in November. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.7 percent.

Resolution of the U.S. fiscal cliff crisis could spell trouble for some Asian assets as investors could start to shift some money out of overpriced Asian investments in favor of the U.S. on brightening prospects for American stocks.

U.S. crude fell 0.8 percent to $92.17 a barrel while Brent shed 0.7 percent to $111.38.

U.S. gold futures for February dropped more than 1 percent to around $1,645 an ounce on Friday while spot gold also fell 1 percent to around $1,645, dragging silver down more than 2 percent to $29.48.

Despite the decline in equities markets, sentiment in Asian credit markets remained upbeat, with the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index narrowing by two basis points.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Eleven dead in Damascus gas station blast

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - At least 11 people were killed and 40 wounded when a car bomb exploded at a crowded petrol station in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, opposition activists said.

The station was packed with people queuing for fuel that has become increasingly scarce during the country's 21-month-long insurgency aimed at overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad.

The semi-official al-Ikhbariya television station showed footage of 10 burnt bodies and Red Crescent workers searching for victims at the site.

The opposition Revolution Leadership Council in Damascus said the explosion was caused by a booby-trapped car.

There was no immediate indication of who was responsible for the bombing in the Barzeh al-Balad district, whose residents include members of the Sunni Muslim majority and other religious and ethnic minorities.

"The station is usually packed even when it has no fuel," said an opposition activist who did not want to be named. "There are lots of people who sleep there overnight, waiting for early morning fuel consignments."

It was the second time that a petrol station has been hit in Damascus this week. Dozens of people were incinerated in an air strike as they waited for fuel on Wednesday, according to opposition sources.

In northern Syria, rebels were battling to seize an air base in their campaign against the air power that Assad has used to bomb rebel-held towns.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the uprising and civil war, the United Nations said this week, a much higher death toll than previously thought.

DRAMATIC ADVANCES

After dramatic advances over the second half of 2012, the rebels now hold wide swathes of territory in the north and east, but they cannot protect towns and villages from Assad's helicopters and jets.

Hundreds of rebel fighters were attempting to storm the Taftanaz air base, near the highway that links Syria's two main cities, Aleppo and Damascus.

A rebel fighter speaking from near the Taftanaz base overnight said much of the base was still in loyalist hands but insurgents had managed to destroy a helicopter and a fighter jet on the ground.

The northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said the rebels had detonated a car bomb inside the base.

The government's SANA news agency said the base had not fallen and that the military had "strongly confronted an attempt by the terrorists to attack the airport from several axes, inflicting heavy losses among them and destroying their weapons and munitions".

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain, said as many as 800 fighters were involved in the assault, including Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful group that Washington considers terrorists.

Taftanaz is mainly a helicopter base, used for missions to resupply army positions cut off by the rebels, as well as for dropping crude "barrel bombs" on rebel-controlled areas.

Near Minakh, another northern air base that rebels have surrounded, government forces have retaliated by shelling and bombing nearby towns.

NIGHTLY BOMBARDMENTS

In the town of Azaz, where the bombardment has become a near nightly occurrence, shells hit a family house overnight. Zeinab Hammadi said her two wounded daughters, aged 10 and 12, had been rushed across the border to Turkey, one with her brain exposed.

"We were sleeping and it just landed on us in the blink of an eye," she said, weeping as she surveyed the damage.

Family members tried to salvage possessions from the wreckage, men lifting out furniture and children carrying out their belongings in tubs.

"He (Assad) wants revenge against the people," said Abu Hassan, 33, working at a garage near the destroyed house. "What is the fault of the children? Are they the ones fighting?"

Opposition activists said warplanes struck a residential building in another rebel-held northern town, Hayyan, killing at least eight civilians.

Video footage showed men carrying dismembered bodies of children and dozens of people searching for victims in the rubble. The provenance of the video could not be independently confirmed.

In addition to their tenuous grip on the north, the rebels also hold a crescent of suburbs on the edge of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces that control the center of the capital.

On Wednesday, according to opposition activists, dozens of people died in an inferno caused by an air strike on a petrol station in a Damascus suburb where residents were lining up for fuel.

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that rose out of uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.

Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup. The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls.

The West, most Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey have called for Assad to step down. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ruth Pitchford and Giles Elgood)

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Judge rejects part of Apple App Store suit vs Amazon

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected part of Apple Inc‘s lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc‘s use of the term App Store, ruling Apple cannot bring a false advertising claim against the online retailer.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted Amazon‘s motion for partial summary judgment, which only challenged Apple’s false advertising allegations. Apple leveled other claims against Amazon, including trademark infringement.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment, and an Amazon representative could not be reached immediately.

Amazon has stepped up competition against Apple in recent years, launching its cheaper Kindle tablet computer to go after the dominant iPad and trying to lure mobile application developers to its Kindle platform.

One of the first public clashes in their tussle was Apple’s 2011 lawsuit.

Apple accused Amazon of misusing what it calls its APP STORE to solicit developers for a mobile software download service. However, Amazon said its so-called Appstore has become so generic that its use could not constitute false advertising.

In a legal filing last year, Amazon added that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and his predecessor, Steve Jobs, used the term to discuss rivals. Cook commented on “the number of app stores out there” and Jobs referred to the “four app stores on Android.”

In her ruling on Wednesday, Hamilton wrote that the mere use of “Appstore” by Amazon cannot be taken as a representation that its service is the same as Apple’s.

“Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement (express or implied) of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience,” Hamilton wrote.

A trial on Apple’s remaining claims is scheduled for August.

The case is Apple Inc v. Amazon.com Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-01327.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Jennie Garth Wants to Date a Man with 'Positive Energy'

01/02/2013 at 07:10 PM EST

When it comes to her current love life, Jennie Garth has a new mantra.

"I'm learning to date again," the actress, who split from husband Peter Facinelli in March 2012, tells Health in its January issue, "[and] looks aren't important to me anymore. ... I like positive energy."

The actress, who dropped 30 lbs. last year, plans to keep her health a priority in 2013.

"Every day, I just renew my healthy choices," she says. "I feel really good about myself now, and I don't want to do anything to change that."

That means avoiding trendy diets or weight-loss gimmicks.

"My biggest regret is putting my body through fad diets: Atkins, cleanses, the hCG diet," Garth, 40, says. "I lost like 18 lbs., but it came right back. The worst was fasting with colonics for three or four days. It was the most horrifying experience ever."

In addition to her body, Garth says she's trying to maintain a positive outlook, even when times are tough.

"When I'm in excruciating pain, like with what I've been through with my breakup and that grief and loss that's just immobilizing, it helps to remember that it only lasts for 13 to 15 minutes, max," she tells Health. "And then it's over."

"Your mind is ready to go to something else," Garth continues. "You might come back to it, but it helps to just know that that pain is not going to last forever."

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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Asia stocks eke out gains on China hopes, oil eases

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Most Asian stock markets edged higher on Thursday on hopes of a steady economic revival in China although oil gave back some of the previous session's strong gains as investors took some money off the table and braced for more U.S. budget battles.

The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index of stocks <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.3 percent following Wednesday's 2 percent jump on relief that U.S. politicians had averted the "fiscal cliff". Japan's Nikkei 225 <.n225> rose 0.7 percent.

Data from China showing the services sectors expanded in December continued to underpin expectations of an economic recovery that has helped spur a strong rally in Hong Kong-listed Chinese shares <.hsce> over the past month.

The China Enterprises index <.hsce> rose 0.4 percent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index <.hsce> was up 0.2 percent and hovered near its highest since June 2011.

"China looks like its improving at the margin and the market has momentum that could last for at least a few months," said Christian Keilland, head of trading at BTIG in Hong Kong.

"Investors seem to have accepted that reforms are underway but they're going to happen at a slower pace," said Keilland.

Onshore Chinese markets will resume trading in the new year on Friday.

Australian stocks <.axjo> rose for a second straight day and were up 0.6 percent at a 19-month high, with mining giants Rio Tinto up 2 percent and BHP Billiton up 0.5 percent, among the top boosts on the benchmark index.

But South Korea's Kospi <.ks11> underperformed the region, falling 0.4 percent as automakers and exporters slumped on a stronger Korean won, which hit a 16-month high against the dollar overnight.

In other currency markets, the Japanese yen bounced after hitting a 29-month low versus the dollar earlier in the day but analysts warned that any strength is likely to be short-lived.

"Technically dollar/yen looks somewhat overbought here. It's gone a long way in a very short time," said Callum Henderson, global head of FX research for Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, adding that the dollar could see some consolidation in the near term before heading higher.

The euro which in overnight trading was close to a 8-1/2 month high against the dollar, slipped 0.1 percent.

The U.S. dollar rose 0.3 percent <.dxy> against a basket of major currencies.

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans face even bigger budget battles in the next two months after the hard-fought deal halted a round of automatic fiscal tightening that threatened to push the world's largest economy into recession.

Strength in the dollar and profit-taking pushed oil prices lower with Brent crude slipping below $112 a barrel and U.S. crude futures down 57 cents to $92.55.

"After the initial excitement, reality sets in," said Victor Shum, oil consultant at IHS Purvin & Gertz. "There will be other negotiations and the deal is a compromise."

(Reporting by Vikram Subhedar; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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Central African Republic rebels halt advance, agree to peace talks

DAMARA, Central African Republic (Reuters) - Rebels in Central African Republic said they had halted their advance on the capital on Wednesday and agreed to start peace talks, averting a clash with regionally backed troops.

The Seleka rebels had pushed to within striking distance of Bangui after a three-week onslaught and threatened to oust President Francois Bozize, accusing him of reneging on a previous peace deal and cracking down on dissidents.

Their announcement on Wednesday gave the leader only a limited reprieve as the fighters told Reuters they might insist on his removal in the negotiations.

"I have asked our forces not to move their positions starting today because we want to enter talks in (Gabon's capital) Libreville for a political solution," said Seleka spokesman Eric Massi, speaking by telephone from Paris.

"I am in discussion with our partners to come up with proposals to end the crisis, but one solution could be a political transition that excludes Bozize," he said.

Bozize on Wednesday sacked his Army Chief of Staff and took over the defense minister's role from his son, Jean Francis Bozize, according to a decree read on national radio, a day after publicly criticizing the military for failing to repel the rebels.

The advance by Seleka, an alliance of mostly northeastern rebel groups, was the latest in a series of revolts in a country at the heart of one of Africa's most turbulent regions - and the most serious since the Chad-backed insurgency that swept Bozize to power in 2003.

Diplomatic sources have said talks organized by central African regional bloc ECCAS could start on January 10. The United States, the European Union and France have called on both sides to negotiate and spare civilians.

Central African Republic is one of the least developed countries in the world despite its deposits of gold, diamonds and other minerals. French nuclear energy group Areva mines the country's Bakouma uranium deposit - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.

RELIEF IN BANGUI

News of the rebel halt eased tension in Bangui, where residents had been stockpiling food and water and staying indoors after dark.

"They say they are no longer going to attack Bangui, and that's great news for us," said Jaqueline Loza in the crumbling riverside city.

ECCAS members Chad, Congo Republic, Gabon and Cameroon have sent hundreds of soldiers to reinforce CAR's army after a string of rebel victories since early December.

Gabonese General Jean Felix Akaga, commander of the regional force, said his troops were defending the town of Damara, 75 km (45 miles) north of Bangui and close to the rebel front.

"Damara is a red line not to be crossed ... Damara is in our control and Bangui is secure," he told Reuters. "If the rebellion decides to approach Damara, they know they will encounter a force that will react."

Soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs, rocket propelled grenade launchers and truck-mounted machineguns had taken up positions across the town, which was otherwise nearly-abandoned.

Some of the fighters wore turbans that covered their faces and had charms strung around their necks and arms meant to protect them against enemy bullets.

Chad's President Idriss Deby, one of Bozize's closest allies, had warned the rebels the regional force would confront them if they approached the town.

Chad provided training and equipment to the rebellion that brought Bozize to power by ousting then-president Ange Felix Patasse, who Chad accused of supporting Chadian dissidents.

Chad is also keen to keep a lid on instability in the territory close to its main oil export pipeline and has stepped in to defend Bozize against insurgents in the past.

A CAR government minister told Reuters the foreign troop presence strengthened Bozize's bargaining position ahead of the Libreville peace talks.

"The rebels are now in a position of weakness," the minister said, asking not to be named. "They should therefore stop imposing conditions like the departure of the president."

Central African Republic is one of a number of countries in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local soldiers track down the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group which has killed thousands of civilians across four nations.

France has a 600-strong force in CAR to defend about 1,200 of its citizens who live there.

Paris used air strikes to defend Bozize against a rebellion in 2006. But French President Francois Hollande turned down a request for more help, saying the days of intervening in other countries' affairs were over.

(Additional reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana in Bangui and Jon Herskovitz in Johannesburg; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Janet Lawrence)

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Armed robbers hit Paris Apple store

PARIS (Reuters) – Armed robbers targeted an Apple Inc store in central Paris on New Year’s Eve, taking thousands of euros (dollars) worth of goods, a police official said on Tuesday.

The robbery took place at about 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Monday, three hours after closing time at one of Apple‘s flagship stores behind the Paris Opera which sells products ranging from iPhones and iPads to Mac computers.

The police official declined to comment on reports the thieves walked away with about 1 million euros ($ 1.32 million) of loot, saying the company was still evaluating the loss.

Christophe Crepin from the police union UNSA told reporters four masked and armed individuals forced their way into the shop and afterwards escaped in a van.

“They were well prepared. As the majority of police were busy watching the Champs Elysees (for New Year’s Eve celebrations), the robbers took advantage of this opportunity,” he said.

($ 1 = 0.7585 euros)

(Reporting By Thierry Leveque and John Irish; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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Asia stocks at five-month high as fiscal cliff crisis ends

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks hit a five-month high and the dollar fell as a last-minute deal ended the U.S. "fiscal cliff" crisis that threatened a U.S. recession and roiled world financial markets.

The U.S. Congress approved a rare tax increase on Tuesday that will hit the nation's wealthiest households in a bipartisan budget deal that stops the world's largest economy from falling into recession.

Early on Tuesday the U.S. Senate passed a bill that aims to avoid the cliff's automatic implementation of $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases.

The bill's passage in Congress allayed earlier concerns over complaints from a number of Republicans that spending cuts were still not adequately addressed.

Asian stock markets cheered the developments as a major risk for investors, namely a slump in global growth, appeared to have receded for now.

The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index of stocks <.miapj0000pus> jumped 1.7 percent. Chinese shares in Hong Kong <.hsce> jumped 2.9 percent as last month's rally spilled over into the new year.

"If the fog caused by the fiscal cliff disappears, there will probably be moves toward putting risk back on," said Satoshi Okagawa, senior global markets analyst for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Singapore.

In South Korea, where data showed manufacturing activity rose for the first time in seven months in December, the KOSPI index <.ks11> was up 1.5 percent.

Asian stocks outside Japan rose nearly 20 percent last year as a combination of improving economic data from China, easing worries about a euro zone blow-up, and global central bank easing that encouraged investors back into equity markets.

Sakthi Siva, Asia strategist for Credit Suisse, said in a note to clients that 2013 could see similar returns for Asian equities, given a solution to the fiscal crisis.

"As we move into 2013 we retain our bullish bias, and our theme is whether markets could catch up with earnings," said Siva, adding that markets in China and India could offer the most upside given the mismatch between index levels and earnings expectations.

OIL, EURO UP

Risky assets across the board got a lift with crude oil futures up 0.8 percent and copper futures in London jumping 1.7 percent.

The euro rose to $1.3267 against the U.S. dollar.

The safe-haven U.S. dollar edged lower, falling 0.4 percent against a basket of major currencies <.dxy>.

The Australian dollar, a currency that tends to benefit when optimism about the outlook for the global economy increases, rose to $1.0470.

The Japanese yen continued its slide as investors wagered the Bank of Japan would have to take ever-more aggressive easing steps to support the economy and satisfy the new government.

The yen fell to 87.17 against the dollar to its weakest level since July 2010.

The Japanese currency also dropped to depths not seen in more than four years against the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in SYDNEY and Masayuki Kitano in SINGAPORE; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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