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The diet pills fenfluramine, dexfenfluramine and/or phentermine may increase the risk of heart valve insufficiency. This occurs when the valves do not close properly. Researchers analyzed the rate of heart valve insufficiency in 233 obese patients who had taken one or a combination of these pills and in 233 people who had not. Compared to those who did not take the pills, the risk of heart valve insufficiency was 12 times higher in obese people who took dexfenfluramine, 24 times higher in those who took dexfenfluramine and phentermine and 26 times higher in those who took fenfluramine and phentermine.

The caseload of practicing clinicians tends to be unrepresentative of the population of psychotherapy patients. This results from the fact that, although the majority of patients use relatively few treatment sessions, the majority of a clinician's time is spent with longer term cases - a minority of patients consume the majority of services. Here, a stochastic model is used to describe the development of caseloads under 4 different treatment regimens. It is shown that a psychotherapy practice will reach a steady state (a stable case mix) in relatively short time and at that this will limit the open appointment slots available each week to serve new patients. Implications for training and clinic staffing are discussed.

From 1979 through 2000 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY, 1979), we analyzed interview information on 3,750 men and 3,620 women to determine the impact of virginity at age 18 on educational, economic, social, and health outcomes in middle adulthood. Female virgins were more likely than non-virgins to have a positive financial net worth and less likely to use welfare benefits or to experience health problems. Virgins of both genders attained more education and were half as likely to experience divorce. The findings were not due to avoiding teen pregnancy or teen fatherhood, and they persisted alter controlling for ethnicity and measures of previous educational or economic disadvantage. Though the possibility of interference from unobserved variables cannot be entirely excluded, the strength, consistency, temporal direction, and plausibility of the associations suggest some causal effect. Possible explanations for the impact on divorce include the influence of pre-existing poor relationship skills as well as that of extramarital affairs. Encouraging teen sexual abstinence is expected to result in improved outcomes in middle adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]