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High on health
LIVING HIGH may mean living longer. A study published in The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reveals that residents of a Greek village at an altitude of 3,100 feet,live longer and have less coronary artery disease compared with residents of two similar villages at sea level.
Nikos Baibas of the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology of the University of Athens was the lead author on the study, which examined 1,198 village residents. The three villages are about 125 miles from Athens.
Mortality from heart disease in the mountain village of Arahova in the Parnassos region was 54 per cent lower for women and 61 per cent lower for men, even though the mountain residents on average had higher blood pressure, higher total cholesterol and higher triglyceride levels than those in the two low-lying villages, Zevgolatio and Aidonia, in the Peloponnesus region.
Death rates from all other causes were also lower in the mountains. The moderate degree of oxygen deficiency, or hypoxia, experienced at the higher altitude may actually have had healthful effects.
Exercising at high altitudes has been found to improve endurance in athletes, and the authors speculate that the daily effort of living in thinner air produces similar health benefits.
Don't be
a turkey
FOR HUNTERS, the most dangerous game may be turkeys, at least in Pennsylvania. An analysis of hunting accidents in that State has found that more turkey hunters are accidentally shot than hunters of deer, pheasant, grouse, rabbits or squirrels.
Turkey hunters in the fall shot themselves and one another at the rate of 7.5 per 100,000 hunters, compared with a rate of 1.9 gunshot wounds per 100,000 for grouse hunters.
Part of the problem may be the techniques turkey hunters use. They wear camouflage clothing and make turkey-like sounds to draw their prey, but get the attention of other hunters as well.
In all, 234 fall turkey hunters were shot during the period, 13 of them fatally. When fluorescent orange clothing rules went into effect in the early 1990's, injury rates declined sharply, then gradually rose beginning in 1995, when regulations were relaxed.
Hunters under 20 had the highest accident rates, and deer hunting accidents were the deadliest: 10.3 percent of those injured died. Hunters in pursuit of all six species shot themselves at approximately equal rates. Education did not seem to help, since most hunters had been through training.
Airborne
germs
EVEN THOUGH diseases as serious as SARS and tuberculosis have been spread on airline flights, the air in a jetliner is probably no more likely to carry infections than most other closely confined spaces, a review of studies has found.
The air outside an airplane at typical cruising altitude is sterile, and modern jetliners draw outside air into the cabin where it is heated, compressed, cooled and circulated through the cabin.
Most commercial planes circulate air across the cabin, with little front-to-back movement, a pattern that limits exposure.
About 85 per cent of airliners in the United States fleet that carry more than 100 passengers use HEPA filters, which may absorb some microbes.
Still, there are ways to catch something while flying. The study reports that if you sit within two rows of a contagious passenger for more than eight hours, the chances of infection increase.
The study also noted a report of the spread of SARS as far as seven rows from the infected passenger.
Mark A. Gendreau, an emergency medicine specialist in Burlington, Mass., and a co-author of the paper, says the danger is exaggerated.
"The studies clearly show that the risk of transmission in airplanes is low," he said. "It's no worse than in the average office building."
Still, Dr. Gendreau recommends washing your hands frequently and using the overhead vent. "Turn it on a low setting," he advises, "and blow it gently in front of your face."
The New York Times
The New York Times
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