January 19, 2004 Health

	photo essay
	Animal Attraction There's more than one way to make hay, as birds, bees and bonobos know
	graphic
	Where Our Sex Drive Comes From Mapping the origins of sex drive on the human body
	remedies
	Love Potions A guide to some of the medical treatments available for what ails our libidos
	self-test
	The Passionate Love Scale Determine just how you feel about that special (or ex-special) someone

— S —
S A R S
The first reports of an unusual and severe form of pneumonia came in February, from doctors in Hong Kong. In March, the brand-new disease SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome—claimed its first victim in the island city. Soon SARS was suspected to have infected more than 7,600 people in 30 countries, including Taiwan, Canada and the U.S. Travel was restricted, schools were shut down, and panicked residents of hard-hit countries wore masks outside their homes if they went out at all. But by April, with a swiftness the World Health Organization called stunning, scientists had identified the novel virus at the root of SARS—a member of the coronavirus family, which usually causes nothing more than a bad cold—and sequenced the new pathogen's genome. Chinese health officials were roundly criticized when it became clear that the bug had actually made its first appearance late in 2002 in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong; a more timely alert might have helped stem its spread. By year's end, U.S. researchers had successfully tested an experimental SARS vaccine in monkeys.

S M A L L P O X
Although smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, the U.S. government remains concerned that stocks of the virus might fall into terrorist hands and be unleashed on the public. To counter that scenario, federal scientists are testing a new generation of safer vaccines (the old one is the most lethal vaccine around, killing an estimated one or two of every million who take it) and helping to fund a multimillion-dollar effort to create a pill to treat and possibly prevent infection. The Bush Administration last year offered a version of the old vaccine, on a voluntary basis, to key civilian health-care workers. The initiative ground to a halt in June after just 38,000 of the 500,000 intended subjects were inoculated. There just weren't enough doctors and nurses willing to risk a potentially fatal reaction.

S M O K I N G
Cigarettes are still bad for you, and it's still as hard as ever to quit. But researchers have found two more good reasons—particularly for women—to tough it out. A study of 3,000 smokers, ages 40 years and older, showed that female smokers had twice the risk of lung cancer as their male counterparts, independent of age or the amount they smoked. Further, in a separate study of 5,300 smokers, scientists found that giving up cigarettes benefits women more than men. In the first year after quitting, the women's lung function improved more than twice as much as the men's, and it stayed better throughout the five-year study.

— T —
T R A N S - F A T T Y   A C I D S
There's fat, and then there's trans fat (e.g., "hydrogenated" oils)—also known as trans-fatty acids. Food manufacturers began using them in place of saturated fats in the 1980s. Trans fats extended the shelf life of certain products, and foodmakers thought they made edibles safer. Turns out trans fats, like saturated fats, raise bad cholesterol (LDL) and may lower good cholesterol (HDL). As if that weren't bad enough, they may also increase the risk of diabetes. Current labeling guidelines don't require manufacturers to state how many grams of trans fats are in a product, but the FDA has called for food labels to come clean. Look for trans-fat grams on all labels beginning Jan. 1, 2006.

— V —
V A C C I N E S
The threat of bioterrorism jump-started dormant plans to create reliable vaccines against some of the world's deadliest agents. In October U.S.-government scientists began their first human trial of an experimental vaccine against Ebola, a lethal African virus that triggers severe internal bleeding and kills up to 90% of its victims. Experts have long feared that Ebola could be turned into a devastating bioweapon. Meanwhile, at Harvard, researchers created an anthrax vaccine that, unlike older vaccines, targets both the toxins created by the bacterium and the bug itself.

V I S I O N
There's a new Lasik in town. You remember the old Lasik, the eye operation that improves vision by reshaping the cornea with lasers. The new version is called wavefront-guided Lasik and depends on technology developed by astronomers to correct problems in high-powered telescopes. Wavefront Lasik uses 200 little lenses to map the cornea, taking into account all its bumps and abnormalities to produce a highly accurate, individualized prescription. Conventional Lasik, by contrast, applies one standard formula to each eye. If the old Lasik is off the rack, wavefront is a custom-fit procedure. Studies show that the new method reduces the occurrence of common postsurgical side effects, such as halos, glare and bad night vision. But the risks of eye surgery still apply. Cost: up to $3,000 per eye.

Page 5 of 6   1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6   Next > >

BACK TO TOP

Premium Content