Health Report

GOOD NEWS

Staying healthy may be easier than you think:

-- Moderate exercise like walking and gardening helps older people avoid bleeding in the stomach and intestines.

-- Exercise alters body chemistry in such a way that people end up burning more fat than usual. So a light snack after a workout is less likely to show up on the bathroom scales.

-- Even if they don't exercise regularly, people who manage to avoid overeating and thereby gaining weight in middle age are much less likely to develop heart disease and diabetes later in life.

BAD NEWS

-- People who smoke have more trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, according to a survey of 3,500 adults. Women smokers complained of greater daytime drowsiness, while men reported that they were more susceptible to nightmares.

-- Puberty appears to be so stressful that girls who start developing before age 12 are more apt than their peers to alleviate the symptoms with cigarettes and alcohol.

-- The level of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, rises an average of 10% for women going through menopause. The increase was not as great for women who were on hormone-replacement therapy.

[TMFONT 1 d #666666 d {Sources: GOOD: Journal of the American Medical Association; Seventh International Conference on Obesity; Seventh International Conference on Obesity. BAD: Preventive Medicine; Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; Seventh International Conference on Obesity.}]