A survey revealed that 14 percent of drivers tested positive for driving under the influence of drugs, compared to 7.3 percent of drivers testing positive for alcohol. (Beej Jorgensen/Flickr Creative Commons)
HIV rates among children worldwide are on the decline, reports the BBC, signaling that the pace of progress against the disease is quickening. In 2011, there were 330,000 new infections in children, which marked a 24-percent drop since 2009.
A new study found that more Californians drive high than drunk, reports the Los Angeles Times – about two times as many. A survey revealed that 14 percent of drivers tested positive for driving under the influence of drugs, compared to 7.3 percent of drivers testing positive for alcohol.
As long as you're not on the road, though, alcohol may help protect you. That's according to a new study in the journal Alcohol, which found that injured patients were less likely to die in the hospital if they had alcohol in their blood. That's not an encouragement to drink, said researchers, especially because the more you imbibe, the more likely you are to get injured. But once it's in your system, it does seem to have a "protective effect."
USA Today reports on a study which found that people who involuntarily lost their job at some point in their lives may be at an increased risk of heart attack – a risk that's on par with the ones people face from smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Expensive diagnostic tests are often repeated among Medicare beneficiaries, say a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, which researchers called a "major determinant" of a doctor's ability to care for new patients and contain health care costs. By the numbers: Up to 50 percent of the diagnostic tests the report's authors looked at were needlessly repeated within a three-year period.
Reuters has news a study that found that the longer Mexican immigrants and their children spend in the U.S., the greater their chances of becoming obese. Compared to their counterparts living in Mexico, the grandchildren of immigrants living in the U.. were three times more likely to obese as adults.
One in seven people takes supplements, says HealthDay – things like fish oil, ginseng, echinacea – but one 30 percent of them had it recommended to them by a doctor. Supplements aren't vitamins or minerals, and patients often take them without telling their health provider, even though they're taking them to treat serious issues like high blood pressure, arthritis or depression.
Even if you can't stop smoking outright, cutting back can still help. That's according to research appearing in the American Journal of Epidemiology, which found that folks who reduce their smoking habits can still cut their risk of death by 15 percent.
And finally: The happier you are as a child, the more likely you are to be wealthy as an adult. Researchers couldn't prove a cause-and-effect link, but did note in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that happy people are more likely to graduate from college, find work and get promoted quickly than gloomy people.
Photo by Beej Jorgensen via Flickr Creative Commons.
