Depressed Folks Eat More Chocolate

Both men and women who had higher depression scores consumed almost 12 servings of chocolate per month.
--Men and women who had lesser depression scores ate about eight servings of chocolate per month.
--Men and women with no depression had five servings of chocolate per month.
--No differentiation was made between dark and milk chocolate; a medium serving of chocolate was one ounce, which is slightly less than an average chocolate candy bar.
Source: University of California, San Diego School of Medicine

Breast Cancer Death Rate Continues to Drop
A new report from the American Cancer Society finds the breast cancer death rate in the United States continues to drop more than 2 percent per year, a trend that began in 1990, and that over the last 10 years the rate of decline among African American and Hispanic women is similar to the drop among white women.
The report also found that:

The CDC's latest study on STDs found:

* 1.2 million cases of chlamydia were reported in 2008, up from 1.1 million in 2007.

* Nearly 337,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported.

* Adolescent girls 15 to 19 years had the most chlamydia and gonorrhea cases of any age group at 409,531.

* Blacks, who represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for about 71 percent of reported gonorrhea cases and almost half of all chlamydia and syphilis cases in 2008.

* Black women 15 to 19 had the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Women and Surgery Mix Quite Well !
From Jama:
Most women surgeons would choose their career again, although many would favor more options for part-time or other alternative work schedules, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

More primary care physicians have closed their practices to new patients, continuing a trend from prior years.

The percentage of family medicine physicians who are no longer accepting new patients has increased over the past three years from 30 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2009. 40%!

The percentage of internal medicine physicians no longer accepting new patients has also increased, from 49 percent in 2007 to 56 percent in 2009. 56%!

Stay-at-Home Moms are More Likely Younger, Hispanic and Foreign-Born Than Other Mothers

A new report released by the U.S. Census Bureau finds that the 5.6
million stay-at-home mothers in 2007 were younger and more likely to be Hispanic and foreign-born than mothers who were in the labor force. Nearly one-fourth of all married-couple families in the U.S. had a stay-at-home mother.
The term “stay-at-home” is used to describe the father or mother in a
family who stays home to care for the children while the other spouse is in the labor force.

Age at sexual debut varies by sex, race, and ethnicity.
Until now, no study has been large enough to provide satisfactory data on age at sexual debut in the four largest racial or ethnic groups in the U.S. Now, researchers analyzed data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (conducted from 1999 through 2007) to determine age at first coitus in 66,882 black, Latino and Latina, white, and Asian students in grades 9 through 12.
Based on self-reported data, probability for coital debut by a student's 17th birthday was
82% for black males, 74% for black females

From the CDC:
U..S. life expectancy reached an all-time high of 77.9 years in 2007 — up from 77.7 years in 2006 — according to preliminary data from the CDC. The data were taken from roughly 90% of national death certificates for 2007. Among other findings:
• Life expectancy for males was 75.3 years and for females, 80.4.

• For black males, life expectancy reached a record 70 years.

• In the past decade, overall life expectancy increased by 1.4 years.