Health Watch
Laughter: A hearty har-har
Laughter, it turns out, really is good medicine. Researchers found that a good laugh makes the blood flow better. The downside: Emotional stress slows it down. The small study, presented last week at a session of the American College of Cardiology, tracked volunteers as they watched funny scenes from Kingpin and There's Something About Mary and as they viewed emotional, anxiety-producing scenes from movies like Saving Private Ryan. Laughing appeared to cause the inner lining of the blood vessels, known as the endothelium, to open wider, increasing the blood flow. Sad or scary stuff brought on emotional stress that caused the tissue to temporarily shrink, and that slowed the flow.
What does it matter? A dilated endothelium "produces chemicals that can do good things--regulate blood flow, prevent clotting [and] blood thickening, and keep a positive balance," says study leader Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. But a narrowing endothelium can "produce chemicals that do the opposite, cause blood to clot and lead to fat deposits in the heart."
Miller's conclusion? "I think that movies that produce negative emotions may not be good for heart health," he says. Ditto for TV shows.
The happy solution: Find a funny friend and watch Comedy Central, or go for the couch potato favorite, a Seinfeld marathon. But remember, one size of funny doesn't fit all. The Three Stooges may do nothing for your spouse's blood flow. Perhaps it's best to take two DVDs and call us in the morning. -Katy Kelly
Aspirin: Gender differences
Women over 65 could benefit from taking regular doses of baby aspirin to prevent heart disease. And while younger women who take it seem to be protected from a common type of stroke, they don't get the same protection from heart attacks that men do. That's the finding from the nation's first women-only study of heart-disease prevention in healthy women, published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine . The study followed nearly 40,000 women ages 45 and older for 10 years, half of whom took 100 milligrams of aspirin every other day (that's about one third of a regular Bayer tablet) and half of whom took a placebo. Those who took the aspirin had a lower risk of ischemic stroke, the kind caused by a blocked blood vessel, and, in women over 65, a lower risk of heart attack as well. Because there are side effects from taking aspirin, such as gastrointestinal bleeding, each woman should decide with her physician whether she should take it. Before this study, says Julie Buring, one of the coauthors, "the recommendations have really been based on the evidence in men, with the idea that it would work in women, too." -Elizabeth Querna
Immunizations: Risky tardiness
If you feel your infant has become a human pincushion, you're not imagining it; the U.S. government now recommends babies get as many as 20 vaccinations before the age of 18 months. While overall vaccination levels are very high, delays mean kids go unprotected for months. Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University reported that 37 percent of the nearly 15,000 kids they studied were more than six months late on at least one immunization and 21 percent were that far behind in at least four vaccines.
"We're most worried about diseases that are likely to cause outbreaks," like whooping cough and measles, says the CDC's Elizabeth Luman, an author of the study. Parents should protect their children, and others, by sticking to the recommended schedule. Joel Ward, director of the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Vaccine Research, says healthcare providers could help parents by creating tracking systems to remind parents when shots are due.
This story appears in the March 21, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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