GOOD NEWS

Wine and women

Wine and women may truly make a lovely combination. According to a report in the journal Heart, drinking wine may help women fight heart disease by maintaining a healthy rhythm for heart beat. The study showed that women with a heart disease who drank wine had increased heart rate variability, which is a marker of the changes in time intervals between heartbeats. Decreased heart rate variability has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease and death. Wine also has a beneficial effect on cholesterol levels.

Malaria antidote

Putting tiny crustaceans (crab-like arthropods with shells) in water tanks and wells to eat the mosquitoes that carry dengue fever is helping control the disease, reports a new study published in The Lancet. 'We've had almost total success in 37 communes,' says Brian Kay of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia. The mosquito-control programme set up with the entomologists of the ministry of health in Hanoi, Vietnam, has protected over 380,000 people from the disease which causes high fever and painful muscle cramps.

BAD NEWS

Old isn't gold

A paper in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine says that older doctors aren't necessarily better. A group of researchers, including Niteesh Chowdhury from the Harvard Medical School, write, 'Physicians who have been in practice longer may be at risk for providing lower-quality care.' An accompanying editorial adds, 'Only practice does not make [a treatment] perfect, it must be accompanied by an ongoing active effort to maintain competence and quality of care.'

Secret burden

A secret affair may look very tempting in soap operas, but in real life it's not so good, says a paper in the journal Personal Relationships. According to the authors of the paper, Craig Foster and W. Keith Campbell, 'While romantic secrecy may appear to be mysterious and exciting, it may also interfere with the quality and closeness of an ongoing romance.' Hush-hush romances are more of a pain than a pleasure, and the researchers report that the logistics involved in the secrecy are ultimately a turn-off.