Your Health

By Janice M. Horowitz

GOOD NEWS

INTESTINAL RELIEF Crohn's disease packs quite a wallop. The chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract can cause abdominal cramping, fatigue and diarrhea so severe that some patients can't leave home. And just when sufferers think it's gone, the disease returns. Now two studies offer new hope. One finds that the cancer drug methotrexate may prevent a relapse in those in remission. The other suggests that growth hormones combined with a high-protein diet can significantly ease symptoms, with only minor side effects.

HEARTTHROB Viagra may be O.K. even if you have heart disease but are otherwise in good shape. Yes, the pills have been linked to heart attacks, some fatal. But a small study on men with severely clogged arteries shows that the drug has no direct detrimental effect on the ticker. The old rule, though, still applies: no Viagra if you're on medication containing nitrates or have recently had a heart attack.

BAD NEWS

JOURNALIST, HEAL THYSELF! An analysis of 180 newspaper articles and 27 television reports diagnoses health coverage as inadequate. Among the shortcomings: 85% of the stories used statistics that exaggerated a drug's benefit. (A report might say, for example, that an osteoporosis drug can reduce the risk of hip fractures by 50%, but not say that without it fractures occur in only 2 out of 100 people.) More than half the coverage also failed to mention harmful side effects. Omitted too was other important info, like financial ties between researchers and drug companies. Implicit message: quiz those doctors harder.

SMOKING GUM Doctors have known there's a relationship between smoking and gum disease, but until now they haven't known just how strong the link really is. A report on 12,000 adults shows that smoking quadruples the risk of periodontal disease and is responsible for more than half of all cases of severe gum disease. The only bright spot: quitting can bring a smoker's risk down to that of someone who has never lit up--though it may take 10 years.

--By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources: Good News--New England Journal of Medicine (6/1/00). Bad--NEJM, Journal of Periodontology (5/00)