Health in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

Healthy eating habits can mean 14 extra years

LONDON — To get an extra 14 years of life, don’t smoke, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, exercise regularly and drink alcohol in moderation. That’s the finding of a study that tracked about 20,000 people in the United Kingdom.

Kay-Tee Khaw of the University of Cambridge and colleagues calculated that people who adopted these four healthy habits lived an average of 14 years longer than those who didn’t.

“We’ve known for a long time that these behaviors are good things to do, but we’ve never seen these additive benefits before,” said Susan Jebb, head of Nutrition and Health at Britain’s Medical Research Council, which helped pay for the study.

“Just doing one of these behaviors helps, but every step you make to improve your health seems to have an added benefit,” said Jebb, who was not involved in the study.

The benefits were also seen regardless of whether or not people were fat and what social class they came from. The findings were published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal.

Millions of young people abuse cough medicine

WASHINGTON, D.C. — About 3.1 million people between the ages of 12-25 have used cough and cold medicine to get high, the government reported.

The number of young people who abused over-the-counter cold medicines is comparable to use of LSD and much greater than that for methamphetamine among the age group, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The agency’s 2006 survey on drug abuse and health found that more than 5 percent of teenagers and young adults had misused cough and cold medicines and indicated that these people also had experimented frequently with illicit drugs.

Nearly 82 percent also had used marijuana. Slightly less than half also used inhalants or hallucinogens, such as LSD or Ecstasy, the agency said.

Drug spending raises U.S. health care tab

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seniors and the disabled flocked to the pharmacy counter in 2006 with their new Medicare drug cards, fueling a 6.7 percent increase in health spending, the federal government reported Monday.

In most other areas of health care, there was a welcome slowdown in spending. It still cost more to go to the hospital or doctor, but the increase was not as great as in the previous year.

The $2.1 trillion spent on health care in 2006 came to an average of $7,026 a person. Health care represents 16.1 percent of the economy.

The increase in drug spending occurred even as consumers relied more on generic drugs and as prices remained relatively stable for many brand-names. Nearly two out of every three prescriptions filled were generics, which helped restrain drug expenditures.

Girls who feel unpopular gain weight, study says

CHICAGO — Where a teenage girl sees herself on her school’s social ladder may sway her future weight, a study of more than 4,000 girls finds. Those who believed they were unpopular gained more weight over a two-year period than girls who viewed themselves as more popular. Researchers said the study showed how a girl’s view of her social status has broader health consequences.

The girls in the study were still growing — their average age was 15 — and all of them gained some weight. However, those who rated themselves low in popularity were 69 percent more likely than other girls to increase their body mass index by two units, the equivalent of gaining about 11 excess pounds. (The body mass index, or BMI, is a calculation based on height and weight.)

Girls who put themselves on the higher rungs of popularity also gained some excess weight, but less — about 6 1/2 pounds.

Both groups, on average, fell within ranges considered normal. But a gain of two BMI units over two years is more than the typical weight gain for adolescent girls, the researchers said.

San Francisco program fine for now, court rules

SAN FRANCISCO — A city program that provides health care to the uninsured and is partly funded by businesses can continue at least until a lawsuit challenging the program is resolved, a federal appeals court ruled.

A lower court in December struck down key provisions of the program, dubbed Healthy San Francisco, which requires companies with at least 20 workers to provide health coverage or pay the city a fee to help offset the program’s estimated $200 million price tag.

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a powerful lobby, sued the city, arguing that the mandatory contributions the city sought placed a costly burden on members already struggling to make a profit.