Health bulletin

A lousy marriage might literally make you sick.

Marital strife and other bad personal relationships can raise your risk for heart disease, researchers reported.

What it likely boils down to is stress -- a well-known contributor to health problems, as well as a potential byproduct of troubled relationships, scientists said.

In a study of 9,011 British civil servants, most of them married, those with the worst close relationships were 34 percent more likely to have heart attacks or other heart trouble during 12 years of follow-up than those with good relationships. That included partners, close relatives and friends. The study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"What we add here is that, 'OK, being married is in general good, but be careful about the kind of person you have married.' The quality of the relationship matters," said lead author Roberto De Vogli, a researcher with University College in London.

Vaccine helps ward off pneumonia

The pneumonia vaccine might not prevent pneumonia, but it strengthens the body's ability to ward off the worst of the illness that kills 10,000 Americans each year, researchers said.

A study of more than 3,400 mostly elderly patients admitted to six Canadian hospitals with community-acquired pneumonia found those who had previously been vaccinated were 40 percent less likely to die or end up in the hospital's intensive care unit.

"We speculate that even when the antibody response following vaccination is not sufficient to prevent pneumonia, the hosts' response may still be sufficient enough to moderate outcomes once pneumonia establishes itself," said the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

In the study, 10 percent of those who had been vaccinated either died or were sick enough with pneumonia to be admitted to the intensive care unit, compared to 21 percent of those who had not been vaccinated.

Prostate surgery saves more lives

Men have the best chance of surviving prostate cancer in the long run if the gland is removed, particularly if they are younger or the cancer is aggressive, a study said.

The finding came from Dr. Arnaud Merglen and colleagues at Geneva University in Switzerland who studied data from a cancer registry for 844 Swiss men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer beginning in 1989 and whose history was traced for a number of years.

Men with prostate cancer generally have a number of options. The study found that in the short-term, up to five years, there was little difference in survival.

After 10 years, however, survival rates were 83 percent for removal, 75 percent for radiation, 72 percent for watchful waiting, 41 percent for hormone therapy and 71 percent for other treatment.

Irregular periods linked to asthma

Women who have irregular menstrual periods with unpredictable flow are more likely than other women to have abnormal lung function and asthma, according to a new report.

"Physicians should be aware that women with menstrual irregularity seem to be at greater risk of asthma and impaired lung function," Dr. Francisco Gomez Real from Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway, said.

Stopping statins is risky after a stroke

Patients who stop statin therapy after they have a stroke have high mortality rates over the next 12 months, according to a report in the current issue of the medical journal Stroke.

"Our study is the first one to show that in ischemic stroke survivors, statin therapy discontinuation doubles the risk of premature death," Dr. Furio Colivicchi from San Filippo Neri Hospital, Rome, said.

Meditation boosts attention, mood

Recent studies have suggested that months to years of intensive meditation can improve attention and lower stress.

Researchers now believe that in less than one week of meditation practice with the integrative body-mind meditation training method can produce noteworthy improvement in attention and ones' state of mind.

The study of 40 Chinese undergraduates found that participation in 20-minute integrative meditation sessions over 5 days showed greater improvement in attention and overall mood, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue, compared with students in a control group who participated in relaxation training.

Susan Stevens