Your Health: Jul. 1, 2002

LESS IS MORE Sure, you bum a cigarette now and then, but you're not really a smoker, right? Wrong. When it comes to cardiovascular disease and lighting up, a little may be just as bad as a lot. Researchers looking at the lining of blood vessels were surprised to find the same damage whether the subjects smoked a pack a week or a pack a day. Meanwhile, the most comprehensive review to date of the effects of smoking firmly links it to a broad range of malignancies, including cancers of the stomach, liver, cervix and kidney.

HOLD THE PILLS Antibiotic prescriptions for children fell 40% over the past decade, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Apparently, parents and physicians are finally realizing that taking antibiotics for a bad cold "just to be safe" is not only useless (because colds are caused by viruses) but also dangerous if it leads to drug-resistant bacteria.

PAP TOO More than 80% of U.S. women have an annual Pap test, but fewer than 20% are screened for chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that, left untreated, can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and reproductive complications. Now the FDA has approved a popular Pap test, ThinPrep, to screen for both cervical cancer and chlamydia, the most common bacterial STD in the U.S. today. --By David Bjerklie

Sources: J. of the American College of Cardiology; U.N. Int. Agency for Research on Cancer; J.A.M.A.