By Peggy
O'Farrell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Calendar

On screen: WPTO (Channel 14) will air A Fight to the Finish: Stories of Polio at 10 p.m. Wednesday. The documentary focuses on the battle to eradicate polio, featuring interviews with Cincinnati's own Dr. Albert B. Sabin, who developed one of the polio vaccines.

Step: Jewish Hospital's Walking Club presents "Walk Till Your Heart's Content," on how to improve walking programs, at 7:30 a.m. Friday in the Kenwood Towne Centre food court. Free. Information: 585-2273 or www.jewishhospitalcincinnati.com.

Breathe: Body Talk Fitness, 9863 Montgomery Road, offers "The Power of the Creative Breath" by Mary Schoen at 8 p.m. Friday. Information: 791-0999.

Move: Registration is open for the May round of Active for Life Classes from the Hamilton County General Health District. Classes start the week of May 10. Topics include benefits of physical activity, goal-setting and rewards, overcoming barriers and time and stress management. $15. Registration: 946-7813.

Hot news

Gender issues: Increasing lung cancer rates among women and differences in how men and women respond to treatment for the disease should guide future research, say doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Lung cancer diagnoses and deaths among women have increased 600 percent in the last 50 years, according to the study, which appears in the April 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More women smoke, and that's an obvious factor in the increased lung cancer rates, researchers say. But metabolic, genetic and hormonal factors could also play a role.

Senior author Mark G. Kris, a thoracic oncologist, points out that many women who get lung cancer "stopped smoking 20 years ago, yet still get cancer."

Dr. Peter B. Bach, co-author, says research should focus on whether lung cancer is different in men and women and how that should influence research.

Healthy living

Good feeling: Older adults who volunteer in schools help themselves as much as they help students, new research shows.

A study from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore found volunteering benefits volunteers' mental and physical health.

The study followed tutors and mentors in Baltimore's Experience Corps.

Participants, most of them African-American women, volunteered at six public schools to work with students in kindergarten through third grade. Participants were ages 60 to 86.

The study found that 44 percent of volunteers reported feeling stronger, and cane use decreased 50 percent among volunteers.

Social activity increased, while television viewing dropped.

Shelf help

Guidebook: A Field Guide to Type 2 Diabetes (American Diabetes Association; $14.95) offers advice on every aspect of the disease, from diagnosis to complications and prevention.

---

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