Your Health

Good News
LESS IS BETTER Menopausal women who find the cure for hot flashes and night sweats worse than the symptoms, take heart. A study has found that low-dose hormone-replacement therapy--0.3 to 0.45 mg of estrogen, instead of the traditional 0.625 mg--is just as effective and has fewer side effects. Combined with progestin, researchers say, low-dose HRT poses no increased uterine-cancer risk and may reduce any potential increased breast-cancer risk. Although the FDA has yet to approve a packaged low-dose formula, doctors can get creative with available tablets.

GOOD IS GOOD As if we needed another reason to exercise, eat well and quit smoking, new research shows that people with high levels of HDL--the "good" cholesterol that can be increased by living right, drinking moderately, perhaps even taking prescription drugs--have a 47% reduced risk of the most common kind of stroke. About 600,000 strokes are suffered in the U.S. each year, making it the country's third leading cause of death.

HEARTWARMING A team of scientists armed with a high-powered microscope and new investigative techniques has challenged decades of medical dogma by reporting that the heart can, in fact, regenerate new muscle cells after a heart attack. Too few cells are created to repair all the damage, however, and any new therapies tapping into this regenerative ability are many years away.

Bad News
GIRLS AND MATH Why do girls do more poorly in math than boys? Part of the answer may be iron. A study of nearly 5,400 children found that those with an iron deficiency were more than twice as likely to score below average on math tests--and 8.7% of adolescent girls are iron deficient, compared with 0.9% of boys. More studies are needed to determine whether treatment can help raise scores. Until then, children should eat plenty of iron-rich foods, such as meat, nuts, eggs and green vegetables.

Sources: Good News--Fertility and Sterility (6/01), Journal of the American Medical Association (6/6/01), New England Journal of Medicine (6/7/01); Bad News--Pediatrics (6/01)