Minerva

Entering the unresolved debate between alcohol consumption and bladder cancer, epidemiologists analysed data from an Italian case-control study and concluded that even in populations that drink a lot (in this case, wine) there is no significant association between the two. It's possible that confounding factors such as smoking, coffee drinking, and occupation (allowed for in this analysis) may have given rise to earlier inconsistent results (Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 2002;55:637-41).

Summer sunburn seems to be the norm among American teenagers despite high sunscreen use. With 72% of teenagers experiencing at least one sunburn during the summer, public health campaigns should probably be paying more attention to getting the message across about hat wearing, protective clothing, and avoiding peak exposure times in the war against skin cancer (Pediatrics2002;110:27-35).

Hope is fading fast for finding a single agent to treat the common cold. Combination therapy that includes both antiviral and anti-inflammatory components might be more successful, and a randomised, double blind, controlled trial of such a combination found that, over 4.5 days, treatment reduced daily symptom scores by 33-73% compared with placebo. The treatment was well tolerated, and the results suggest …