Your Health: Apr. 22, 2002

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GOOD NEWS

FISH FOOD A fatty fish a day may keep the doctor away, say two new long-term studies. In one, women who ate fish five times a week had a 45% lower risk of deadly heart attack and a 34% lower risk of heart disease than women who ate it less than once a month. Another study compared blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids from fish and found that men with the highest levels had an 81% lower risk of sudden cardiac death than those with the lowest levels. Bottom line: eat oily fish like salmon and mackerel at least twice a week.

A GOOD CUT Women with circumcised sex partners may be less likely to develop cervical cancer than women whose partners have an intact foreskin. The difference, according to the study, was greatest among women whose mates had six or more previous partners. Women having sex with such "high risk" uncircumcised men were more than twice as likely to get cervical cancer.

BAD NEWS

ST.-JOHN'S-WON'T The herbal remedy St.-John's-wort appears to be no more effective than a placebo for the treatment of moderately severe depression, according to an NIH-sponsored clinical trial. But some psychiatrists and advocates of the supplement say the herb may still work for milder forms of the disease.

--By Sora Song

Sources: Good News--Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine. Bad News--J.A.M.A.