Multiple wellness programs lead to healthier lifestyle

Participation in multiple wellness programs may be the key to improve personal health, according to research at the Health Management Research Center.

By examining the lifestyles of 12,984 General Motors Corp. employees participating in the UAW-GM LifeSteps Health Promotion program, researchers found the program helped to reduce health risks in high-risk employees and helped low-risk employees remain healthy.

Risk factors, including physical inactivity, smoking, not wearing safety belts, excessive drinking, high blood pressure, obesity and poor psychological status, defined whether a person was at high or low risk.

To be high risk, an employee must have three or more risk factors.

The program assesses people over a two year period, and offers employees a nurse advising phone service, a self-care book, audiotape health information and a web page for the program.

Researchers found that people involved in the program and other healthy lifestyle endeavors dropped from high risk to low risk over the course of a year or two.

Other participants only traded off certain risk factors for others.

Accuracy of store-bought pregnancy tests in question

Ten percent of pregnancies in 221 women went undetected by sensitive methods on the first days following a missed period, leading researchers at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to conclude that commercial pregnancy test kits may not be accurate.

The natural variability in ovulation and the time in which an embryo attaches to the lining of the womb causes pregnancies to go unnoticed.

To prove effective, the tests must be taken approximately nine days after fertilization, which typically takes six to 12 days.

Researchers found that if women wait an extra week to take a pregnancy, the number of false readings decreased to three or less percent versus 10 percent without waiting.

With American women spending a total of $230 million in 1999 alone on 19 million commercial pregnancy kits, researchers hope their findings will save women money and help them take necessary precautions if they are pregnant.

AIDS vaccination undergoes tests in Washington

One year after the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases opened their Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center, researchers have begun clinical trials on the first AIDS vaccine.

Each day, 7,000 people die from the AIDS virus and 15,000 contract the disease, causing researchers to speed up the clinical implementation of the vaccine.

Unlike normal vaccines, which contain weakened or killed forms of the disease they protect against the DNA vaccine only contains genetic material.

The genetic material contains part of the HIV protein core and three enzymes necessary for replication of the HIV virus.

The vaccine doesn"t contain genetic material for the entire virus, so recipients cannot contract the disease, but researchers want to ensure that the body will produce an immune response to the proteins.

The vaccine is currently being tested on 21 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 to 60, who have little to no risk of contracting the virus.

Compiled by Daily Staff Reporter Lisa Hoffman.