Research

Head noise: People with chronic daily headaches are more than twice as likely to also be chronic snorers than people with occasional headaches, says a researcher at the National Institute on Aging.

"If we can show that the snoring is causing the headaches, then we may be able to stop or lessen people's headaches by treating their snoring," said study author Ann Scher.

The study, published in the April issue of Neurology , defined chronic daily headache as people with at least 15 headaches per month. Occasional headache was defined as two to 104 headaches per year.

Researchers followed 206 adults with chronic daily headaches and 507 people with occasional headaches.

Participants were asked how often they snored and researchers classified headache types. Previous studies have validated self-reported snoring.

Chronic daily headache sufferers were more likely to be female, have a lower educational level and have been divorced, widowed or separated than occasional headache sufferers.

More research is needed to determine the link, Scher said.

Hot news

Be happy: Heart patients who reported positive emotions like happiness, joy and optimism were more likely to be alive after 11 years than those who reported negative emotions.

Dr. Beverly Brummett, a psychiatry professor at Duke University Medical Center, studied more than 800 heart patients to see if mood could predict survival.

Patients reported how often they had positive emotions.

"It could be that there's something very unique about the physiological things that go on when we experience positive emotions. There may be something in the serotonin system, something going on with blood pressure, heart rate, those sorts of things. This is such a new area of research that we just don't really know," Brummett said.

Help wanted

Recruiting: The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is seeking 400 families with twins or close pairs of siblings for a national study to identify the causes of systemic rheumatic diseases. Volunteers are needed in which one twin or one pair of siblings has rheumatoid arthritis, polyarticular juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, systemic sclerosis or idiopathic inflammatory myopathy. One twin or sibling in each pair must be free of the diseases.

For information, visit Web site or call the National Institutes of Health patient recruiting office, (800) 411-1222.

Siting

Click: Check out this Web site for an online curriculum about cancer clinical trials.

Shelf help

Menu: The Ultimate Nutrition Guide for Women (John Wiley and Sons; $19.95) by Leslie Beck looks at how women can use nutrition to prevent and manage disease.

Contact Peggy O'Farrell by phone, 768-8510; fax, 768-8330, or e-mail, pofarrell@enquirer.com