Your Health

Good News
SAFER SIZZLING It may be as American as apple pie, but barbecuing can also produce cancer-causing compounds. Now there is a tasty alternative. Researchers report that marinating beef before grilling--they chose Hawaiian teriyaki and Indian turmeric-garlic marinades--can reduce carcinogens as much as 67%. The meat was marinated overnight, but researchers think just an hour or two may suffice.

THE REAL SKINNY Eating disorders may be serious, but they are not incurable. A seven-year study of women ages 15 to 34 finds that 74% of bulimics (who binge on food and then throw up) eventually stop the behavior altogether, and 99% curtail it somewhat. Anorexics (who basically starve themselves) can get better too, though fewer do. About a third fully recover, and 83% begin eating enough to put at least some pounds back on.

Bad News
UP IN SMOKE As if there weren't enough reasons to quit, a new study links smoking during pregnancy to serious psychological problems in children. Prepubescent boys whose moms smoked are four times as likely to steal, set fires, lie or exhibit other aggressive behavior. Adolescent girls, meanwhile, are five times as likely to abuse drugs. Why? One theory is that nicotine may affect the developing brain.

HIDDEN HEPATITIS Contracting hepatitis C is bad enough. Now Italian researchers report that one-third of the hepatitis C patients they studied also harbored the hepatitis B virus--even though it didn't show up on a standard blood test. Carrying both infections makes treatment more difficult and increases the odds of complications like cirrhosis of the liver, or even death.

Sources--Good News: Nutrition and Cancer (upcoming issue); Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (7/99). Bad News: JAACAP (7/99); New England Journal of Medicine (7/1/99)