Health Tips

By Elizabeth Manning

NEW TICK-BORNE DISEASE FOUND: Four people in Missouri have been diagnosed with a dangerous and potentially fatal tick-borne disease that researchers previously believed could only infect animals like dogs and cattle. The new disease is a form of ehrlichiosis (''air-LICK-ee-oh-s sis''), first found in the U.S. in 1986. Until this discovery, scientists thought ehrlichiosis was caused by one of two bacteria carried by ticks. Now Dr. Gregory Storch and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis add a third bacterium to the list. The bacterium, called Ehrlichia ewingii, has been known but never seen in humans before. Symptoms appear seven to 10 days after an infected tick bites, and resemble the flu. But this disease can damage the liver and lungs, even cause them to fail, if left untreated. Fortunately, says Storch, most ehrlichiosis infections can be treated with antibiotics.

TREAT HEPATITIS B TWICE AS LONG: Treating chronic hepatitis B with the standard therapy -- four months of a drug called alpha-interferon -- only cures about 30 percent of patients. But researchers in The Netherlands announce that giving the same drug, but for up to twice as long, significantly increases a person's chance of being cured. Dr. Harry Janssen of Rotterdam's Erasmus University Hospital decided to administer the alpha-interferon to patients according to levels of hepatitis B virus remaining in their blood, not simply according to the calendar. Extending the therapy to up to eight months can double the cure rate, says Janssen. He adds that alpha-interferon's side effects, which can include fatigue, muscle pain and depression -- do not get worse during the longer course. The results of his group's findings are published in the journal Hepatology. Over one million Americans and 300 million people worldwide are infected with the hepatitis B virus.

A HEALTHY-RELATIONSHIP HORMONE?: A hormone that stimulates contraction of the uterus during the birth process may have a role in fashioning healthy relationships as well. University of California, San Francisco investigators report in the journal Psychiatry that women's levels of the hormone oxytocin were strongly associated with their tendencies to have low-anxiety relationships -- including one with themselves being alone. When asked to remember an unpleasant episode in a relationship, for example, women whose oxytocin levels fell the most also reported greater difficulty with close relationships. Lead author Rebecca Turner says the study is one of the first to examine the biological basis of human attachment and bonding. She notes that both men and women make oxytocin, and that ''our study indicates that oxytocin may be mediating emotional experiences in close relationships.''

CHEAP DRUG BLOCKS HIV IN BABIES: Federal health officials have announced a cheaper, more effective and more practical treatment to prevent HIV-infected moms from passing on the AIDS virus to their newborns. Researchers heralded the early results of the U.S.-Uganda joint study, saying the drug, nevirapine, will have a major impact on developing countries hit hardest by the disease. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says, ''This study will have profound effect in many developing countries on where they will put their limited resources for treatment.'' NIAID sponsored the trial. A single oral dose of nevirapine given to an HIV-infected woman in labor, with another given to her baby within three days of birth, reduces the transmission rate of the disease by half, compared to AZT. The total cost of the drug for both mother and child is less than $4. Some 600,000 or more babies are born HIV-positive every year in developing countries. It is expected this treatment could cut that number in half.