Your Health

Good News
FOOD FLIGHT The prospect of rubbery chicken and overdone pasta is enough to make frequent flyers want to grab a bite before getting on a plane. Now research shows that a snack and drink (nonalcoholic) an hour before flying reduces the odds of a heart attack or fainting spell while on board. Don't overdo it with a heavy meal, but nourishment increases blood flow, which in turn delivers more oxygen to the body's organs--including the brain and probably the heart.

EARLY DETECTION What makes ovarian cancer so deadly is that it's often caught after it has spread, partly because neither doctors nor patients look for early symptoms. That's a mistake. A study of 1,700 women with ovarian cancer found that nearly all had telltale signs, such as pelvic pain, gastrointestinal upset and bleeding, before the cancer was diagnosed. If you have symptoms and you're told it's all in your head--or stomach--get another opinion if they don't subside within a few weeks. It could increase your chances of surviving ovarian cancer from 20% to 90%.

Bad News
EXERCISE CAUTION Here's something worth working up a sweat over. If you collapse while exercising at your health club, chances are the facility won't be equipped to help. According to preliminary data, half the clubs studied have neither an emergency medical plan in place, personnel trained in CPR nor a working defibrillator. Among those that do, 90% fail to perform regular emergency drills. And one-third of clubs don't bother to screen prospective clients for medical conditions that could make unsupervised workouts risky.

THE ASPIRIN EFFECT Popping an aspirin each day to ward off a heart attack? Don't be so sure it will work. Aspirin should reduce the tendency of platelets to stick together and muck up arterial walls, but a provocative new finding suggests that high cholesterol levels may interfere with that. In 60% of patients with high cholesterol, aspirin had no effect on platelets, and is therefore unlikely to help the heart.

Sources: Good News--American Heart Association meeting; Cancer (11/15/00). Bad News--AHA meeting