Doctor's Orders: Aug. 29, 2005

BAD HEALTH FOR SALE: DOES ADVERTISING HIT MINORITIES HARDER?

An analysis by researchers at the University of California at San Diego found that magazines targeted at minorities, such as Ebony and Latina, had proportionally double the ads for junk food, cigarettes and alcohol and one-fourth as many health-promoting ads as mags like Good Housekeeping.

A COMMON CANCER SCREEN GETS ANOTHER VOTE OF APPROVAL

Women whose breast cancer is found by mammogram may have a 53% better survival rate than those whose cancer is discovered another way, says a study at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Reason: mammograms can better detect slower-growing tumors.

50%

Increased chance for an octogenarian to survive five years after heart-bypass surgery compared with survival chance for eightysomethings in the general population, according to a study to be published in the journal Heart.

IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY FOR BABY'S EAR EXAM

Infants may not get their hearing tested until they're 8 months old. Too late, say doctors writing in the journal Lancet. Screening babies shortly after birth, they argue, may catch thousands more cases of permanent hearing impairment, keeping language development on track. --By Sora Song