Contrary to previous research, a new study out today finds that people with lower IQs are not necessarily more likely to die prematurely.

Previous studies have found low IQ to be associated with a greater risk of dying young. To try to examine that more closely, Tomas Hemmingsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues analyzed data about 43,283 people born between 1949 and 1951. For military service, the men underwent extensive testing, including an IQ test and screening for physical and mental health problems. The researchers then followed the men through 2003. It's the largest study of its kind.

When those who died during the study period were analyzed by IQ alone, the researchers found a clear pattern: the lower the IQ the greater the chance of dying between the ages of 40 and 54. In fact, those with the lowest IQ were more than three times more likely to die early in middle age than those with the highest score.

But when the researchers took other risk factors into consideration, such as childhood social circumstances including socioeconomic status, adolescent behavior and mental health and adult social circumstances, the association between IQ and premature death disappeared, the researchers reported in a study that will be published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The researchers say the findings indicate that it's not IQ per se that increases someone's risk of dying prematurely. Instead, it could be that lower IQ leads to poorer socioeconomic status or other circumstances that are really to blame.

The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it is requiring the smoking-cessation drugs Chantix and Zyban to carry the strongest type of safety warning possible to alert patients that the medications can cause serious mental health problems, including depression and suicide.

The agency said it took the action requiring "boxed warnings" after finding a surprisingly high number of reports of problems involving changes in behavior among people taking the medications, including depression, hostility, suicidal thoughts and attempted and successful suicides. The agency had received 98 reports of suicide among patients taking Chantix and 188 reports of attempted suicide, and 14 suicides and 17 suicide attempts among patients taking Zyban, officials said.

Agency officials said they were unsure why the drugs would cause these problems and noted that many of the symptoms can occur from nicotine withdrawal as well. The agency is requiring the companies that make the drugs to conduct follow-up studies to try to explore how commonly mental health problems occur.

The agency previously had issued warnings about mental health problems among patients taking Chantix, and required similar warnings on Zyban when it is sold as Wellbutrin and in generic forms for use as an anti-depressant.

The move is the latest in a serious of actions the FDA has taken after becoming concerned about psychiatric side effects of medications, including anti-depressants. The agency recently issued similar warnings about drugs used to treat epilepsy.

The FDA stressed that it was not advising people against using the medications because smoking causes serious health problems and quitting smoking is important. But patients taking the drugs and their doctors need to be aware of the potential problems and monitored closely, officials said.

The Food and Drug Administration is pondering what to do about the wildly popular painkiller in Tylenol, Excedrin, Vicodin, Percocet and many other commonly used drugs to treat aches and pains and alleviate fevers.

That's after an FDA panel called for sweeping changes yesterday at the conclusion of a a two-day meeting the agency convened to review the safety of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in those drugs.

Acetaminophen is generally very safe and effective, but in excess doses it can cause liver failure. And because acetaminophen is so common -- more than 24 billion doses were sold last year in the United States -- even rare side effects can add up to a lot of problems. Acetaminophen overdoses are the leading cause of liver damage in the United States. The FDA estimates that more than 400 people die each year from overdoses and thousands more are hospitalized.

Because years of public education efforts have failed to alleviate the problem, the panel recommended reducing the highest dose of acetaminophen allowed in over-the-counter medications. The drug is an ingredient in so many products that people often don't realize they are getting multiple doses that could exceed the safe levels. The panel even went as far as to narrowly recommend pulling Vicodin, Percocet and similar products that combine acetaminophen with powerful narcotics from the market altogether.

Now, while the FDA usually follows the advice of its advisory panels, it doesn't have to. And officials say they're not sure yet exactly what they'll do, especially given how split the panel was about pulling drugs like Vicodin, Percocet --and how important these drugs are to so many millions of people. More than 200 million doses of those drugs that combine acetaminophen with narcotics were sold last year in the United States, making them the most common prescribed class of drugs.

The agency could leave drugs like Vicodin and Percocet on the market with stronger, more prominent warning labels. They could also work out a compromise with the companies that make these products where they voluntarily reduce the dosages and take other steps to make them safer.

In the meantime, officials say consumers should pay careful attention to how much acetaminophen they are getting from various products to reduce the chances of suffering complications.

For a good explanation of some of the issues, take at look at this Q&A from the FDA.

(Photo: Ivan Iannoli)

My blog last week about musician Peter Tork's taking his current battle with a rare form of cancer to the pages of Facebook drew passionate responses from readers, many of whom thought I'd been unfair to Mr. Tork. So I invited Tork (my favorite former Monkee) to write about his experience with cancer and his decision to talk about it on Facebook for The Checkup. Here's what he had to say.

CORRECTION: Peter Tork has had only had one course of radiation, which he is currently in the midst of. This blog entry incorrectly stated that he had had two courses.

By Peter Tork

Late last year, after a few months of my not swallowing in a normal way, a friend mentioned that my voice sounded funny, kind of squawky and nasal. I'd meant to get it checked out, but her observation pushed me to doing something about it sooner rather than later. I went to an ear, nose and throat doctor, who sprayed my nostrils with anesthetic and sent a length of fiber-optic cable up my nose and down my throat. He came back with bad news. There was a growth on the lower region of my tongue. He suspected squamous cell carcinoma.

I don't count myself as being afraid to die, but the news hit me like a fist to the chest.

A subsequent biopsy and pathology exam showed that I had adenoid cystic carcinoma.

Adenoid cystic carcinoma, ACC to the cognoscenti, is a relatively rare cancer, usually occurring in the salivary glands. Mine occurred on the lower part of my tongue; that's even rarer. I wound up in New York at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where one Dr. Jatin Shah told me I should get surgery as soon as possible. I thought about it a second and said I wasn't doing anything that afternoon....

Dr. Shah laughed and amended: as soon as practicable. That turned out to be the following Wednesday, which was March 4. I woke up from that surgery with another tube up my nose and down my throat -- this one for feeding me. About three months later I began a follow-up course of radiation at a high-tech hospital in Boston, where they rev up a cyclotron and pipe protons down the hall and through a giant metal tube into my throat. (Remember electrons, neutrons and protons? Those.)

My friend Therra Gwyn, who is also my editor and publicist, suggested that if the news of my cancer seeped out without my having a say in it, it would most likely get so distorted that there'd be 30 stories out there, none of them with more than a tangential relationship with the actuality. Better she said -- and I agreed -- to tell the story myself, as best I could. Besides making sure the record was straight, telling the story out loud on a Web site and Facebook page might help the world (or that part of it that was interested) relax some fears about cancer in general and might boost attention to adenoid cystic carcinoma in particular. Also, it might just help me keep a right-sized attitude about life and myself. Otherwise, you know, it'd be like: I'm a celebrity, get me offa this planet! Can't have that.

As of this writing, I'm just beginning to feel the effects of the second course of radiation, a bit of soreness on the tongue, some unpleasant effects when swallowing. So far, not too bad.

I have a couple of performance dates lined up, which I've opted not to cancel. I know I'm taking a chance here, because one of the side effects of the radiation is supposed to be hoarseness. The radiologist told me, "Well, you play guitar and you sing. Perhaps you won't sing, but maybe you'll play guitar a lot more."

I recovered very quickly after my surgery, and I've been hoping that my better-than-average constitution will keep the worst effects of radiation at bay. My voice and energy still seem to be in decent shape, so maybe I can pull these gigs off after all. Just in case, though, I've invited some friends to join me, including my friend Lauren, a world-class slide guitar player. People will be so dazzled by her that they won't notice whether I'm doing well. I'm also bringing in belly dancers, and I'm expecting a fly-over by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Maybe elephants.

I mean to do those shows.

Julia Child's classic vinaigrette calls for stirring shallots with mustard and salt before adding liquid ingredients. (Photo by Charlie Huget)

When you buy a bag of Cheetos, you know just what to do with it: Rip it open and devour the DayGlo-colored contents.

But it's harder for some of us to figure out what to do with a bag of fresh brussels sprouts, green beans or other offerings from the local farm stand or farmer's market. As Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, notes in today's "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy" column, it's great to encourage folks to eat swiss chard and kale. But if they don't know how to turn those vegetables into a tasty dish, they may never try them again.

Whisking oil into the vinegar mixture drop by drop creates an emulsion. Instead of whisking, you can just shake everything together in a jar. The result's not as pretty but tastes great. (Photo by Charlie Huget)

Doiron, who's helping mount a campaign to get people to celebrate Independence Day by eating locally produced foods, says knowing how to make a simple vinaigrette is a good step toward learning to enjoy fresh-picked vegetables. Sprinkled atop a bed of greens or drizzled on lightly steamed or grilled veggies, a vinaigrette brings out produce's flavor without overpowering it.

Because it's so simple, though, vinaigrette depends on your using quality vinegar and oil. It doesn't take a lot of either ingredient, so you should splurge on buying the best-tasting kinds you can afford.

Here's my whisked vinaigrette, ready to meet a salad! (Photo by Charlie Huget)

Doiron recommends Julia Child's recipe, which tweaks the classic vinaigrette proportions (one part vinegar to three parts oil) in favor of going light on the vinegar, at least at first. As he notes, you can always add more, but you can't remove it once it's in there. (You can of course add more oil to compensate, but it's easier just to work with one variable here.)

It's up to you to decide which other tastes you like in your vinaigrette, from shallots to scallions, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, and in what quantities. It's fun to play around and come up with a mix that suits you best.

When making vinaigrette, there's the classic way -- slowly whisk the oil into the other ingredients, drop by drop, creating a stable emulsion -- and there's the shortcut -- throw everything into a jar and shake till it's blended. I tried both the other day, and though the whisked version was prettier (its color was lighter), both tasted pretty much the same. I didn't add salt to either, as I find Dijon mustard salty enough, but you might want to add a dash.

If you have a favorite vinaigrette (or other home-made dressing), please share your recipe in the comments section.

With the recent rise in teen pregnancy, it's clear that efforts to get young people to either abstain from sex or use birth control are falling short.

Any ideas as to how to fix the problem are welcome, so it's not surprising that a program that aims to get girls through high school without getting pregnant is getting a lot of media attention. In short, the young women in the College Bound Sisters program at the University of North Carolina Greensboro are offered a simple bargain: They're paid a dollar for every day they don't get pregnant.

The program, funded through a state grant and private donations, is open only to girls ages 12-18 who have an older sister who had a baby as a teen. Participants have to express interest in attending college, can never have been pregnant themselves and are required to attend an hour-and-a-half-long weekly meeting at the university (so they have to live nearby). And they don't get to spend the money right away; it's socked away and disbursed upon the girls' enrolling in a college.

Seems fine to me -- even though nobody ever paid ME not to get pregnant. But some folks have raised objections, saying offering incentives for behaving well isn't appropriate; one source likened it to offering kids cash for not smoking pot. (I remember being jealous of friends who got paid for good grades; my parents told me they expected me to get good grades without being bribed.)

One odd thing about this story: The program is not new -- it's been around at least since 2002 and probably before -- and I can't figure out why it's suddenly in the news. I tried to contact the folks who run the program but hadn't heard from anyone yet. I want to know, for instance, how successful the program's been over the years and how many participants in fact go on to college, among other things. I'll post an update when I get return call.

What do you think? Is this dollar-a-day idea a good one that perhaps deserves to be implemented more broadly, or is it just a bribe?

The current ad for Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli shows a kid eating a bowl of the stuff while his mom tries to prevent his dad from saying what the voice-over eventually announces: "There's a full serving of vegetables in every bowl of Chef Boyardee. Just don't tell them."

The first ingredient listed on the can is indeed "tomatoes." Leaving aside the fact that tomatoes are, technically, fruits, let's look at what else the label says. Each one-cup serving -- there are two per 15-ounce can -- contains 240 calories (70 of them from fat), 8 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber -- and 900 milligrams of sodium. A serving provides 6 percent of the Daily Value of Vitamin A, 2 percent of the DV for calcium, and 10 percent of the DV for iron.

For comparison's sake, a medium-sized tomato, at 27 calories (zero of them from fat), delivers 2 grams of fiber, 1 gram of protein, and just 7 milligrams of sodium. The tomato also offers 25 percent of the DV for Vitamin A, 32 percent of the DV for Vitamin C, 1 percent of the DV for calcium and 2 percent of the DV for iron. (I got my numbers from NutritionData.com.)

Of course, few kids are likely to choose a tomato over beef ravioli. But if you're going to serve your child a bowl of canned pasta thinking it's just like giving him a nice healthful vegetable, you might want to look hard at the nutrition facts. Vegetables shouldn't pack a bunch of sodium, for one thing. And what on Earth did Chef Boyardee do with the Vitamin C that tomatoes naturally contain?

I don't really have anything against Chef Boyardee products. What I do object to is the notion that we parents have to be secretive about sneaking healthful foods into our kids' diets. The Boyardee tag-line "Obviously delicious. Secretly nutritious." paired with the ad-mom's outlandish efforts to keep her son from hearing that the food he's eating is good for him is kind of insulting to the kid, isn't it?

I know, it's supposed to be funny, and perhaps I should lighten up. But by encouraging kids to associate yumminess only with foods that aren't good for them, are we doing them any favors?

For years, we've been hearing that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest way to eat. People who to consume diets that are rich in whole grains, olive oil, nuts, fruits and vegetables, fish, cheese and moderate amounts of wine seem to live longer, healthier lives. But is there any particular part of the diet that is really key? The first study to try to dissect the Mediterranean diet suggests that there is.

Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard School of Public Health and his colleagues analyzed data collected from more than 23,000 men and women who participated in the Greek part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

For the study, participants answered detailed questionnaires about their diets and lifestyles and were followed for more than eight years. Interviewers asked how much physical activity they got, whether they smoked and whether they were diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and who died.

In a paper published online this week by a British medical journal known as BMJ, the researchers reported that those improved their adherence to a Mediterranean diet were about 14 percent less likely to die during the study period.

But the main benefits in terms of a reduced mortality appeared to be from consuming moderate amounts of alcohol, little meat, and lots of vegetables, fruits and nuts, olive oil and legumes. Eating a lot of cereal and fish and other seafood did not appear to play a significant role, the researchers found.

Specifically, the researchers found that moderate alcohol consumption, usually in the form of wine during meals, accounted for 23.5 percent of the benefit, whereas low levels of meat and meat products accounted for 16.6 percent, eating a lot of vegetables accounted for 16.2 percent and lot of fruit and nuts accounted for 11.2 percent. High monounsaturated fat and saturated fat caused 11.2 percent of the benefit and high legume consumption accounted for 9.7 percent.

The findings, the researchers say, should help people pick the parts of the Mediterranean diet most likely to help them live longer.

(Courtesy of Business Wire/Doubletree Hotels)

When I blogged the other day about Nestle's recalling its refrigerated Toll House cookie dough products, reader "Chasmosaur1" commented:

You know what kills me? It is SO not hard to make Tollhouse/chocolate chip cookies. I've never understood why they prepackaged cookie dough. The most expensive thing are the morsels....

I couldn't agree more. It's so easy to make real Toll House cookies at home -- using the recipe on the bag of Nestle's chocolate chips -- that there's really no excuse for buying the pre-packaged dough.

And while I'm sorry that anyone was sickened by the Nestle products (which were contaminated with E. coli bacteria), perhaps this incident may prove a turning point. Might more of us start to bake and cook more of what we eat, instead of allowing big companies to do it for us? Might more of us come to recognize that, by and large, foods we make ourselves are better for us than are processed foods we get in boxes, bags or tubs at the grocery store? And might we begin to free ourselves from the hold processed food has on us?

Lest you think I'm being preachy here, I have purchased Toll House cookie dough in the past. My kids got the idea from friends that the stuff was fun to eat straight from the package -- no baking required! -- and that mixing blobs of it into a bowl of vanilla ice cream made for a terrific dessert. (Some nutrition-writer mom, right?) But like many parents, I've learned that sometimes indulging your kids in a whim is the best way to get it out of their systems. It didn't take long for them to realize that the dough tasted artificial.

The thing is, I was counting on Nestle's dough to be artificial; had I assumed otherwise, I wouldn't have allowed the kids to eat it raw, just as I don't allow them to eat home-made cookie dough raw for fear of salmonella's lurking in the raw eggs. Now I know I should have heeded the tiny-print package warning against consuming the Nestle dough unbaked. Turns out there are actual eggs in there, after all. In any case, my kids have moved beyond that regrettable raw-dough-and-ice-cream phase.

These days, if one of the kids wants cookies, he or she gets out the butter, eggs, flour and other ingredients and makes them from scratch. I can't remember when we've last bought a package of Oreos or other baked goodies. The kids have gained an appreciation for real ingredients and for the magic of baking. They think it's fun, and they're proud to know how. Our family has joined many others in understanding that half the fun of food is in helping to prepare it.

Perhaps some of the families who've counted on Nestle to mix their cookie dough for them will be inspired by the recall to try making their own. Thus empowered, who knows what they might cook up next?

Be honest: What's your first reaction when you encounter an obese person? I'm guessing it's not sympathy.

Don't think the fat person doesn't notice. According to The STOP Obesity Alliance, a nonprofit organization headquartered at George Washington University, the stigma associated with being overweight or obese is enormous and has broad implications. According to Morgan Downey, the Alliance's policy director, society's disdain for overweight people often contributes to their feeling defeated, to a sense of "nihilism" that makes them just want to give up any efforts to lose weight.

We're not inclined to like fat folks. Just look at the flap that erupts every time a celebrity gains weight. A study released in 2007 suggests that there's a biological basis for our revulsion: The theory holds that our subconscious mind sees fat as akin to disease, something we inherently fear may be contagious.

I've been thinking about these things extra hard after writing this week's "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy" column about Kate Kane, a young woman with a genetic disorder that causes excessive hunger. Left to her own devices, Kane would eat anything that's not nailed down -- and probably pry the nails out so she could get to the rest -- and would be obese. (Kane, who once weighed more than 300 pounds, now lives in a group home where her food intake is restricted and is of normal weight.) Scientists are studying her particular condition and the endless hunger it entails in hopes of better understanding the potential genetic causes of obesity in the general public.

Learning about Kate Kane's condition reminded me that, among all the people who put on weight from eating too much and exercising too little, there may be some who simply cannot help it.

There may be no overcoming our initial, knee-jerk judgment, which, according to that 2007 study, is perhaps hard-wired in our brains. But at least we can work on what comes next. As one whose weight has fluctuated over the years, I know that being overweight can stem from all kinds of circumstances, from emotional stress to the simple fact of being relegated to sitting at a desk all day. I know I feel crummy when I'm heavier than I should be, and I can tell when other people notice my weight, too. It would be nice if we could all cut each other a break.

Here's this week's poll....

... and the results of last week's about fighting the post-grad 15. Of just 270 people voting (come on, people, get in the game!), 30 percent said they'd developed healthful diet and exercise habits only as adults, after leaving college; 20 percent admitted they'd stuck with their college-era bad habits for too long after leaving school. A lucky 24 percent said they'd eaten healthfully during college and continued to do so afterward -- just the opposite experience to what 19 percent reported, which was that they did well in college but lacked time to pursue healthful behaviors once they left school.