Take it easy. Heart attacks are more deadly during the winter because cold temperatures can increase blood pressure and strain on the heart, Scottish researchers report in the journal Heart. Winter heart-attack sufferers are 19 percent less likely to survive.
Folks say it works: Head cold dragging you down? Put skunk grease on your chest. Got an aching tooth? Hold a bag full of hot ashes next to it. Those are a few Appalachian folk remedies used earlier in the century and collected by Clarke Ridgway of West Virginia University's School of Pharmacy.
Pin-point pain relief: The good news on pain is that acupuncture relieves it and a scan of brain activity proves it. Reporting to the Radiological Society of North America, doctors at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey said: ``So many people with pain, whether from cancer, headache or a chronic, unexplained condition, rely on medications, such as morphine, which can become addicting. Acupuncture has no side effects, and the pain relief it provides can last for months.''
Healthy cooking: Selected from 1,500 nominations, The Mayo Clinic/Williams-Sonoma Cookbook was named the world's best health cookbook last month at the Versailles World Cookbook Fair near Paris. Revenue from the $29.95 book supports the clinic's research and education programs.
Hepatitis veterans: Military veterans might have a far higher rate of infection with potentially deadly hepatitis C than the general population. A study in the San Francisco area found 19 percent of veterans using the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Hospital were infected with the virus, compared with 2 percent in the broader population.
Breathing new life: Lung transplants can extend the lives of patients with cystic fibrosis and advanced lung disease, British doctors say. ``If you select the patients for transplant carefully then on average you can extend their lives. Although the results are still poor, patients live longer with transplants,'' Paul Aurora of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London reports in The Lancet medical journal.
