Do you talk to yourself? Scientists say you're not alone. And the ways in which you chatter to yourself are changing what neuroscientists know about the brain. There are two ways of chatting yourself up. In "inner speech," you speak to yourself without making sound. With "private speech," you do the same thing, just out loud. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scanner, researchers studied the brains of people who talked to themselves internally. The team noticed that spontaneous inner speech activates a different part of the brain than words the participants were asked to say aloud. And people whose self-talk takes the form of a monologue seem to activate different brain areas than those who carry on a dialogue in their heads. The research suggests that self-talk could clue scientists in to how different regions of the brain work, alone and in concert.

Drinking may lower diabetes risk

Moderate consumption of alcohol may be tied to a reduced risk for Type 2 diabetes, a Danish study has found. Researchers used data on 28,704 men and 41,847 women free of diabetes at the start who reported how often they drank and the amounts of alcohol consumed. They followed the group for an average of five years. After adjusting for diet, family history of diabetes, high blood pressure, physical activity, smoking and other factors, they found that compared with abstainers, men who drank 14 drinks a week had a 43 percent lower risk of diabetes, and women who drank nine drinks a week a 58 percent lower risk. The mechanism is unknown, and the study could not distinguish between different types of drinks. Consuming alcohol three to four days a week, compared with only once, was also associated with a lower risk, even after adjusting for the amount of alcohol consumed.

Gum disease tied to some cancers

Periodontal disease in older women is associated with an increased risk for cancer, a new study concludes. Researchers followed more than 65,000 women, average age 68, participating in a larger health study. They gathered information on periodontal disease with self-reports, and over an average of eight years of follow-up, they found 7,149 cancers. The study controlled for a variety of factors. Gum disease was associated with an overall 14 percent increased risk for cancer, and a 12 percent increase even in women who never smoked. The increased risk from periodontal disease was highest for esophageal and gallbladder cancers, with increased risk also for cancers of the breast and lung and for melanoma of the skin. But gum disease was not associated with cancers of the pancreas, liver or lower digestive tract.