Your Health: May 28, 2001

GOOD NEWS

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE Want to live longer? Julia Roberts and Benicio Del Toro may be on to something. A Canadian study of every actor ever considered for an Oscar shows that winning the golden guy--as opposed to just being nominated for one--increases life expectancy nearly four years. What's the lesson? Being at the top of your game is not merely gratifying, it's healthy. Just ask Katharine Hepburn. The most Oscar-winning actress of all time (four in all) this month celebrated her 94th birthday.

THUMBS UP Wouldn't it be great if you could grow your own body parts? Well, an experiment begun three years ago to do just that has proved a resounding success. After a Massachusetts machinist lost part of his thumb in an industrial accident, bone cells were taken from his forearm, placed on a thumb-shaped scaffolding made of coral and implanted on the digit. Now the coral is dissolving, new bone tissue is growing and the patient is able to write, grasp and otherwise carry on with normal activities.

BREAST VS. BOTTLE If knowing that it wards off infection and allergies still hasn't persuaded mothers to breast-feed their newborns, maybe this will. A study of 15,000 children ages 9 through 14 shows that those who were breast-fed are 20% less likely to be overweight than those who were formula-fed. That's welcome news indeed, since overweight youngsters tend to grow up into overweight adults.

BAD NEWS

THE PRICE OF FAITH? A small study of Orthodox Jewish teens suggests that more than half have significantly low bone density. Reason? The Orthodox encourage scholarly over physical activity--and favor modest clothing, which blocks sunlight, crucial for efficient calcium absorption. And because Orthodox Jews don't eat dairy products for six hours after eating meat, they have fewer opportunities to consume calcium. Recommendation: Orthodox kids should take supplements.

--By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources: Good News--Annals of Internal Medicine (5/15/01), New England Journal of Medicine (5/17/01), Journal of the American Medical Association (5/16/01); Bad News--Pediatrics (5/01)