Your Health: Mar. 29, 1999

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GOOD NEWS

HAPPY HEARTS The antidepressant Zoloft may be good for the heart as well as the soul. A preliminary report suggests that Zoloft thins blood in depressed patients. That's especially helpful because depressed folks seem to have blood platelets that clump together more readily--a major risk factor for heart attack. Indeed, after taking Zoloft for six weeks, patients ended up with platelets comparable to those of folks with no sign of the blues.

PROTEIN POWER Scientists have isolated a protein called lysozyme in the urine of pregnant women that seems to be a powerful anti-AIDS agent. Though the research is still preliminary, it may explain why HIV is rarely transmitted through saliva and tears--where lysozyme is also abundant. The finding may eventually lead to new, natural therapies against HIV.

BAD NEWS

SMOKING GUN If lung cancer, heart disease and stroke aren't enough to scare you off smoking, maybe this will. A study of 4,000 Danish men shows that mothers who smoke a pack or more a day are twice as likely to produce criminally violent sons. There even appears to be a dose response: those who smoked fewer cigarettes had less violent boys. Why the correlation? No one is sure, but chemicals in smoke may somehow damage the fetal brain.

YO-YO, NO Losing weight and then gaining it back is not just frustrating, it may be downright harmful. Data on 47,000 women show that yo-yo dieting can increase the risk of gallstones. Women who put on and take off 10 to 19 lbs. are 16% more likely to require gallstone surgery; at 20 lbs. or more, the risk shoots up 68%. Gallstones are usually made of cholesterol, which may be affected by fluctuations in weight.

--By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources--Good News: American Psychosomatic Society meeting; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (3/16/99) Bad News: Archives of General Psychiatry (3/99); Annals of Internal Medicine (3/16/99)