For Your Eyes' Sake
People battling the effects of age have yet another incentive to get off the couch: Exercise may protect against the most severe form of age-related macular degeneration. Writing in the current British Journal of Ophthalmology, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that regular exercise seems to stave off the "wet" form of AMD, in which blood vessels in the eye leak fluid, eventually causing vision loss. They monitored almost 4,000 people and discovered that those who engaged in regular physical activity at least three times a week were 70 percent less likely to develop the condition. (Exercise didn't affect the "dry" kind of AMD, in which the retina thins and debris is trapped under it.) The study doesn't prove conclusively that working out will prevent the disease, says Michael Knudtson, biostatistician and coauthor, but he adds that it certainly won't hurt.
If Baby Is Elusive, You Might Try Iron; Always Tired? It's Not in Your Head; Taking the Measure of Prostate Cancer
If Baby Is Elusive, You Might Try Iron
Could infertility actually be reversed by taking a simple supplement? Maybe, in some cases. A study released last week in Obstetrics and Gynecology found that infertile women who consumed an average of 76 milligrams of iron daily had a 60 percent lower risk of ovulation failure than those who ingested the lowest amounts of iron. Women who took in the most iron from supplements, fortified foods, legumes, and green leafy vegetables had the greatest protection; interestingly, the benefits didn't apply to women who got most of their iron from animal sources like red meat. Lead author Jorge Chavarro, a research fellow in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, recommends that would-be moms take a prenatal supplement containing at least 40 mg of iron for three months before attempting to conceive. - Deborah Kotz
Always Tired? It's Not in Your Head
If your normal state seems to be crushing exhaustion, the problem may be more than just the job plus the kids. Last week, concerned that chronic fatigue syndrome is an underappreciated public-health problem, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched a $4.5 million campaign to educate physicians and the public about it. Symptoms include profound fatigue, joint pain, impaired memory, problems sleeping, and often depression. The cause isn't known (although serious stress may contribute) and there's no cure, but drugs and other therapies can ease distress. "The most important thing to understand is that the fatigue component creates a significant disability," says Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC. In addition, the National Institutes of Health last week awarded grants to seven researchers studying CFS's relationship to the immune and neurological systems. Experts think the condition affects about 1 million Americans, of whom 80 percent have not been diagnosed. - Sarah Baldauf
Taking the Measure of Prostate Cancer
If a man has the beginnings of aggressive prostate cancer, an early-warning test that measures the amount of a protein called PSA might not detect it. A new study suggests that the speed at which PSA levels are rising is a far better indicator. The study, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, shows that when the PSA level is climbing faster than 0.35 billionths of a gram per milliliter of blood (ng/mL) a year, a biopsy is a good idea-even if the amount doesn't reach 4 ng/mL, a common threshold of concern. Indeed, study subjects who died of prostate cancer had an average PSA level during the 10 to 15 years prior to their diagnosis of only 1.9 ng/mL, but it was rising fast. "You cannot assure someone with a low PSA that they will never get cancer," says lead author H. Ballentine Carter, director of adult urology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Carter advocates PSA checks starting at age 40 rather than 50, as existing guidelines recommend for men of average risk. - Avery Comarow
This story appears in the November 13, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.