Your Health: Dec. 25, 2000

GOOD NEWS

AN ANTI-SHOPPING PILL Drug companies are always alert for new and profitable uses for their products, and now Forest Laboratories reports--just in time for the holidays--that its antidepressant Celexa is effective against compulsive-shopping disorders. Shop-till-you-drop seems to be a real syndrome; sufferers consumed by the need to buy are often plunged into debt as a result. Now research financed by Forest shows that within three months of taking Celexa, nearly 80% of the 21 patients studied experienced improved symptoms.

CHOPSTICKS, PLEASE It may make your eyes tear, but wasabi, that fiery green stuff served with sushi, could be good for your teeth. Japanese researchers find that an ingredient in the Asian horseradish (no, it's not mustard) seems to inhibit the growth of bacteria linked to cavities. If raw fish doesn't hold much appeal, the cavity-fighting compounds, called isothiocyanates, are also present in cabbage.

BAD NEWS

DON'T INHALE In case anyone is still wondering, air pollution kills. A study shows that in large cities, every 1% increase in the concentration of a type of pollution known as fine particulate matter results, on average, in one more death a day. The fine particles, each less than one-fifth the width of a human hair, come from gasoline engines and power plants. Researchers urge the government to crack down and call on the rest of us to do our part. For starters: take mass transit, not your car.

HARD FACT You would think calcium supplements would strengthen nails, but don't bet on it. Doctors compared the toenails and fingernails of postmenopausal women who took the supplements with those who didn't. Result? There was no difference in nail strength, appearance or rate of growth between the groups. Turns out that nail quality has more to do with protein content and the arrangement of certain cells than the amount of calcium in the diet.

--By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources: Good News--Forest Laboratories; American Chemical Society meeting. Bad News--1 & 2, New England Journal of Medicine (12/14/00)