Your Health: Apr. 26, 1999

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GOOD NEWS

BOTTOMS UP Here's a reason to belly up to the bar. A German study shows that moderate amounts of alcohol (one or two drinks daily) can kill off H. pylori, bacteria that scientists think cause stomach ulcers. Wine seems to do the job best; those who drank it reduced their odds of an H. pylori infection 42%. For beer drinkers, the risk was reduced 25%.

THE WRITING CURE Sounds like fiction, but researchers say writing about stressful experiences can improve symptoms in rheumatoid arthritis and asthma patients. And though patients wrote only 20 minutes a day over three consecutive days, about half of them experienced positive effects that seemed to last for months. The study is more evidence that the mind plays an important role in chronic illnesses.

BAD NEWS

MATTERS OF THE HEART Sorry guys, but for reasons unclear, among people with advanced congestive heart failure, men don't seem to live as long as women do. According to a new study, they survive only half as long as their female counterparts. Researchers also found that hardening of the arteries is more likely to lead to heart failure in men than in women.

NOT SO SPECIAL DELIVERY While having a baby is thought to protect a woman against developing breast cancer, a new study suggests that if the child is born prematurely and the mother is over 40, her risk of breast cancer actually goes up 17%. The finding applies to first-time mothers only. What's behind it? Researchers think that the abrupt change in hormones that follows a premature delivery may be partly to blame.

--By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources--Good News: Epidemiology (5/99); Journal of the American Medical Association (4/13/99); Bad News: the Lancet (4/10/99); Circulation (4/13/99)