Health Report

By Janice M. Horowitz

THE GOOD NEWS

MOVE IT! A major 20-year study on exercise confirms it: you've got to get off the couch. The research, conducted on twins, shows that just half an hour of vigorous exercise twice a week can cut in half the risk of early death.

CLEARING UP A BAD SMEAR What should a college-age woman do if her Pap smear is abnormal? Maybe nothing. A bad Pap is often caused by infection with the human papillomavirus. But in many young women the infection disappears on its own--and along with it, the abnormal cervical cells.

E. COLI BEGONE! An experimental vaccine seems to prevent infection with the E.coli bacteria that cause food poisoning.

Sources: Journal of the A.M.A.; New England Journal of Medicine; Journal of Infectious Diseases

THE BAD NEWS

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EARS Parents, snuff it out already! Children under age three who breathe secondhand smoke at home are twice as likely to get persistent middle-ear infections as kids who aren't exposed.

UNFILTERED, PLEASE Doctors often surgically insert a tiny mesh filter into a patient's groin to prevent a blood clot in the leg from traveling to the lung. Now research suggests that people with the filter may get as many lung clots as those without it.

ANTIHISTAMINE ALERT Never take Hismanal with the anti-depressant Prozac, the antibiotic Biaxin--or grapefruit juice. It could have serious, even fatal, side effects.

Sources: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; New England Journal of Medicine; Jenssen Pharmaceutica

--By Janice M. Horowitz