Your Health

By Janice M. Horowitz

GOOD NEWS

CATCH YOUR BREATH You don't have to work up a sweat for a healthy heart. A major study on 72,500 middle-aged women finds that walking briskly for 30 minutes a day can cut the risk of heart attack up to 40%. That's about the same benefit as from jogging and other vigorous exercise for half that amount of time. A stroll through the mall won't do: you have to move at least 3 m.p.h.--or about a block a minute.

CHEERS! You may not need Dutch courage after all. Research on patients with "social phobia"--a disorder that leaves people terrified of everyday human interaction--shows that the idea of drinking may relieve anxiety just as well as actual drinking does. Patients in a study who thought they were guzzling vodka prior to speaking in public reported less fear and anxiety than those who thought they were handed a placebo--regardless of what was in the glass.

BAD NEWS

HIGHWAY PATROL A word of warning to people with diabetes. Nearly 50% of the time, diabetics say they would get behind the wheel of a vehicle even when their blood-sugar levels were low enough to cause loss of coordination or blacking out. If your blood glucose drops below 65 mg/dL, don't drive. AIDS ALERT There's no longer room for debate about whether an HIV-positive mom should breast-feed or bottle-feed an infant. New research shows that infected breast-feeding moms run at least a 10% risk of transmitting the virus to their babies over the course of two years. The greatest chance of infecting a baby: during its first five months of life.

--By Janice M. Horowitz

Sources--Good News: New England Journal of Medicine (8/26/99), American Journal of Psychiatry (8/99); Bad News: (1 & 2) Journal of the American Medical Association (8/25/99)