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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 2002)
8B Thursday, February 28, 2002 SCI|H THE BATTAL Study predicts heart risks WHY WOULD ANYONE PAY MORE? CALL FOR LOCAL DIAL-UP NUMBERS. No Contracts! Not Pre-Paid! Billed Monthly! ^1 FREE Unlimited E-Mail Accounts FREE 300 Megabytes of Web Space <^l I No Busy Signals - Unlimited Access & Usage <^i I FREE 24hr Tech Support & Software 56k or ISDN - Same Low Price I /^Everyones Internet E k WWW.ev1.n6t for complete details Additional fees apply. See our website for complete details. CHICAGO (AP) — Middle- age Americans have a 90 per cent chance of eventually devel oping high blood pressure, a new study estimates. But experts say many can still beat the odds with diet and exercise. The study, published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, prompted warnings from the nation’s top health authorities, including Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Dr. Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “Ninety percent is a stagger ing statistic and cause for con cern,’’ Thompson said. “This finding should energize Americans to take steps to pro tect themselves against high blood pressure.” Lenfant, whose agency helped fund the study, said Americans “cannot adopt a wait-and-see approach. If they do, chances are they will find themselves with high blood pressure, and that puts them at increased risk for heart disease and stroke.” High blood pressure is esti mated to affect 50 million Americans. The study, among the first to calculate the lifetime risk of developing the condition, involved mostly whites. Lifetime risks may be even higher for blacks, who are dis proportionately affected by high blood pressure. The findings are based on an analysis of 1,298 men and women taking part in the con tinuing Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948 and has examined participants every two years. The JAMA study involved participants who had not developed high blood pressure by 1975. The authors estimated the lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure among 55-year- olds and 65-year-olds over a fol low-up period of 20 to 25 years. Nearly 85 percent of the par ticipants eventually developed at least mildly high blood pres sure — readings of 140 over 90 or more. Heart risk higher at middle a Middle-age Americans face a 90 percent lifetime risk of deve hypertension, defined as abnormalfy high blood pressure, acct to a study. The risk generally increases between the ages and 65. ■ Age 55 ■ Age 65 Hypertension (Over 140/90) Women ■■■■!■■■■ 91 % >89 Men Mild high blood pressure (Over 140/90) Women 86% i63 Men 188 84 Moderate or severe his* blood pressure (Over 16C Women ■■■■■139% ■■■■■■44 Men ■■■■■35 Optimal adult blood pressure is less than 120/80. Ways to help your heart 1 A Maintain yTx a healthy Follow a healthy /'•A If you V-Ly drink ('2y , p. 'O'haw weight. eating plan, alcoholic blood pres /XX Be physi- cally active. which includes beverages. and are foods lower in do so in prescribe: salt and moderation medcatK' sodium. it as direc? NOTE: Fm&nps art bmsad on an armfya/a of IJt vno rtw ongoing Framingham Heart Study, wtoch bag* participants ovary two years Tho JAhtA study mvc d&vatopod high btood prossura by 1975. on and vomer ss i 194& and Nutx •d participants who hie i SOURCES Journal o> the Amencan Medea! Association. National Heart Ux and Blood Institute NEWS IN BRIEF Drug triggers negative reaction in HIV patients SEATTLE (AP) — Genetic testing can reveal whether a widely used AIDS drug is likely to trigger a life-threatening reaction that occurs in about 5 percent of all people who take it. The drug, known generically as abacavir, was approved in 1998 and is a mainstay of AIDS treatment, typically used in com bination with other medicines to hold HIV in check. Doctors have long suspected that some genetic factor was involved in the adverse reaction, which often occurs after patients have taken it for about two weeks. % est finding should help doctors awe problem by screening patients in w.r for the telltale gene. The discovery that particular genes * seem to be involved is the latest an emerging field of medical stuifc pharmacogenetics. The r milesto dents c It is < undersl Texas / Battalic race foi Barto d effoi In po Barton Bryan-( The d can be reshm ladder i Capitol l/Vashin Barton al leads of trans The t ffectivi \ , v : \ \%. \ It’s In the Air, j ■ "X SKECHERS* men's GB fisherman . . 'V JV'Ai-'V" • -■ OKSl SKECHERS; -- . dramatic SKECHERSI womens rhinestone ]r. sweets y i ' / / Space mission faces last minute probler CAPE CANAVERAL. Fla. (AP) — With just one day left before launch, NASA scrambled Wednesday to investigate a potential problem with the land ing gear on space shuttle Columbia, poised to take off for a service call to the Hubble Space Telescope. The space agency also braced for unusually cold weather that could force a flight delay. Temperatures were expected to drop to 38 degrees at the time of Columbia's planned 6:48 a.m. launch on Thursday. The landing gear issue arose during a high-level meeting of mission managers on Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday morn ing, three engineering teams were working on the problem in hopes of getting “comfortable” with it in time for Thursday’s launch, said NASA spokesper son George Diller. Eight wheel bearings in Columbia’s main landing gear evidently were treated with 300- degree heat before installation, rather than the 500 degrees intended to keep them from breaking during touchdown, Diller said. Engineers were try ing to determine if the tempera ture difference may have weak ened the bearings. “They’re starting to get com fortable with it, but there's still a lot more data analysis to do,” Diller said. Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said a wheel bearing failure during landing could be disastrous. “If you lose the bearing, its ability to take the load in the bearing, then your wheel isn’t going to turn very well and it could lock up under heat or fric tion and then you’ve problem going down tfiffl at landing at 2 (l Dittemore said. “The wheel doesi stalls to skid. That wcv.w| : real bad day.” Replacing the bear:® necessary, would require l"* back in the of work hangar. Forecasters said there 40 percent chance Thursday’s cold couldde launch. Warmer weafc' expected Friday. Extreme cold could c: some shuttle systems, ine the extensive fuel plumbir; could increase the I on the external fuel lanl concern is that chunks f could fall off during lifte% strike Columbia. NASA has been wan.'' weather ever since the Challenger disaster. Thete' ature was 36 degrees January morning Challenger lifted ^A/ficc 1 been well below freezing ^ the night. The cold cai)-0rit0l' ring seals to fail in the. solid-fuel booster rockq Xv allowed blazing hot gas tov Redesigned booster h Deutsch now have heaters to prevef ■ . rubbery O-rings fromdtr^ ^ mg in cold weather. ,, Once they arrive at Hs ; . , ' Columbia’s astronaUts /ead^ ^ install an advanced cafliL <! refrigerator system to ^ pot>es tate a disabled infrared X. ' 1 15 new steering mechanis®]/! 5 Cs _ power-control unit, and^ ^ ,r P ra solar wings for genera®^ 6 , hei more electricity. The flifV, s ' 1 last 11 days. ,ake J mistakes Attention All Members of NSCS National Society of Collegiate Scholars “Mor has n yersi When: February 28, 2002 Where: Rudder 308 Time: 5130 p.m. ' In res pot for/ves' feb 27 r Last meeting before Spring Brea j While t ally lyins 'The For more information, contact us at: nscs_tamu@yahoo.com v CCarth’ rtainly resent