Health News Roundup

Having Many Friends Is Good for Your Physical and Mental Health
In a 2006 study of cancer survivors, "proximity and the amount of contact with a friend wasn’t associated with survival. Just having friends was protective."

Fructoses Raises Your Bad Cholesterol and Triglycerides
"The researchers found that those study participants consuming fructose beverages had significantly increased blood levels of triglycerides and [bad cholesterol] compared to those consuming drinks sweetened with glucose."

Living Near a Highway Linked to Arthritis
"Researchers found that the women who lived within 55 yards of a large road had a 31 percent increased risk for rheumatoid arthritis compared with those living 220 or more yards away."

Even Skinny People Sporting a Gut Better Watch Out for Their Hearts
"The researchers found that a four-inch increase in waist size was associated with about a 15 percent increase in risk for heart disease, both in people of normal weight with a B.M.I. of 25 and in the obese with a B.M.I. above 30."

The Heart Can Grow Back...But Just a Little Bit
"About 1 percent of the heart muscle cells are replaced every year at age 25, and that rate gradually falls to less than half a percent per year by age 75, concluded a team of researchers."

Women Are Really Good at Smelling Body Odor
"For women, only two [fragrances] worked [to block their ability to smell] female odor, and none worked to hide male odor."

Breast-Feeding Benefits a Mother's Health
"Most doctors agree that breast-feeding is best for babies’ health. Now a large study suggests that the practice benefits mothers as well: women who have breast-fed, it says, are at lower risk than mothers who have not for developing high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular disease decades later, when they are in menopause."