Starches raise diabetes risk

Starchy foods such as white rice and bread raise the likelihood of diabetes for both black and Chinese women, but adding some whole-grain foods may reverse the risk, researchers reported.

Two studies -- the first to look at this aspect of diabetes risk in non-white women -- both show that eating refined carbohydrates can boost rates of diabetes.

One of the studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that women who ate the most fiber had the lowest risk of diabetes.

And both support the theory of glycemic index, which holds that certain types of carbohydrates such as sugars and refined grains can cause a spike in blood sugar that damages the body's ability to use insulin and process sugar.

For one study, researchers studied over 40,000 U.S. black women who filled out regular questionnaires every two years starting in 1995.

Over eight years, 1,938 of the women developed type 2 diabetes. The women who ate the most foods with a high glycemic index had a higher risk of diabetes. But women who ate 5.9 grams of fiber a day or more had an 18 percent reduced risk of diabetes compared to the rest of the women.

In a second study of 64,000 Chinese women, those who ate the most carbohydrates had a 28 percent higher risk of diabetes than the women who ate the least -- and those who ate the most bread, noodles and rice were 78 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who ate the fewest carbs.

Alzheimer's linked to blood pressure

Having high blood pressure reduces blood flow in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, making them more vulnerable to the effects of the disease, researchers reported.

Researchers used a magnetic resonance imaging technique to measure blood flow in the brains of 68 older adults. They found cerebral blood flow was substantially decreased in all patients with high blood pressure and was the lowest in Alzheimer's patients with high blood pressure.

"What we think may be happening is hypertension reflects an extra hit to the brain," said Cyrus Raji of the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study.

Hand washing best to control viruses

Physical barriers, such as regular hand washing and wearing masks, gloves and gowns, may be more effective than drugs to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses such as influenza and SARS, a study has found.

The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, came as Britain announced it was doubling its stockpile of antiviral medicines in preparation for any future flu pandemic.

Freezing tumors eases cancer pain

Freezing tumors may help relieve the extreme pain of cancer that has spread to the bone, which is often untouched by narcotics or radiation, U.S. researchers said.

This freezing process, called cryoablation, is often used to destroy kidney, prostate and other tumors, but researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found it eased cancer pain in 80 percent of patients in a small study, and the effect lasted for up to six months.

Illegal immigrants not a health burden

Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the U.S. health care system as some critics have contended and in fact get less care than Latinos in the country legally, researchers said.

Such immigrants tend not to have a regular doctor or other health-care provider yet do not visit emergency rooms -- often a last resort in such cases -- with any more frequency than Latinos born in the United States, according to the report from the University of California's School of Public Health.

Higher testosterone protects men

Higher naturally occurring levels of the male hormone testosterone appear to protect men from fatal heart attacks or strokes and death from all manner of causes, researchers in Britain said.

But the researchers cautioned men not to begin testosterone supplementation based on the results of this 10-year study, saying the benefits and risks are unclear.

MRI scans show second-hand smoke damage to lungs

One third of people who breathe in high levels of secondhand smoke have damage to their lungs similar to that seen in smokers, doctors reported. They used a special kind of magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scan to look at the lungs of non-smokers who had high exposure to other people's cigarette smoke and found evidence of the kind of damage that causes emphysema.

Men: Don't give up on impotence pills

A third of men with erectile dysfunction could not perform after taking their first tablet of an impotence drug and gave up sex entirely, according to a study presented at the European Society of Sexual Medicine.

The findings show the importance of the first-time pill for erectile dysfunction patients who could potentially see better results by switching tablets or increasing the dose, Dr. David Edwards, a general practitioner in Oxfordshire in England, and colleagues said.

Susan Stevens