CHECKUP : NEWS, TIPS AND TRENDS CATS MAY SPREAD SALMONELLA RESISTANT TO ANTIBIOTICS.

Cats may be spreading a drug-resistant strain of salmonella to humans, British researchers warn.

Salmonella can cause food poisoning in people.

In a study of 110 cases of salmonella infection in cats, 40 were found to be caused by a strain of the bacteria that is resistant to six common antibiotics, reported Patrick Wall of the United Kingdom Public Health Laboratory Service Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre in London.

``The finding that cats are infected with a strain of salmonella commonly responsible for food poisoning in human beings raises the question as to whether cats play a part in the spread of this strain,'' Wall and colleagues wrote.

Cats can get salmonella the same way humans do, from food infected with the bacteria. Scraps of raw or undercooked meat are likely places for salmonella to live, so cats should not be fed these foods, Wall said in a letter published in the international medical journal the Lancet.

Cats excrete the bacteria in their feces, and when they rake over their feces, the bacteria can stick to their paws, the British doctor said.

Cats should not be allowed to go near unprotected food or food-preparation areas, such as kitchen counters and table tops, he advised.

Everyone should wash their hands after petting cats or cleaning litter boxes, especially before eating, Wall said.

Naked eyes: Before contact lens wearers take a dip in the ocean or a plunge in the pool, they should be sure to remove their lenses, according to a Chicago eye doctor.

Wearing contact lenses while swimming can lead to eye ulcers or other serious eye problems, said Dr. Matthew Goren, an ophthalmologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, who specializes in contact lenses.

Taking a moment to remove the lenses before swimming can prevent painful and potentially costly ailments, Goren said.

Global sleeplessness: One in four adults around the world suffers from insomnia, according to a new report.

Twenty-seven percent of nearly 26,000 people in 15 countries said they had difficulty getting a good night's rest, according to the report, published in Sleep, a journal of the American Sleep Disorders Association and the Sleep Research Society.

The extent of insomnia varied considerably among the countries, from 7 percent of people in Japan to 40 percent of people in Brazil. In the United States, about one-third of people reported suffering insomnia.

Overall, women were more likely to complain of insomnia than men, and older people more likely than younger people, the report found.

Key causes of insomnia include arthritis, depression, disturbances in sleep cycles and behavioral factors such as ``Internet addiction,'' noted the report, which highlights findings from an international symposium on insomnia held last year by the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Sleep Research Societies.

Gear up: In-line skaters should wear a mouth guard in addition to the recommended helmet, wrist guards and knee and elbow pads, according to the Pennsylvania Dental Association.

In-line skaters - many of whom may reach speeds of 30 miles per hour - are at risk for numerous injuries, including fractured or dislodged teeth, according to the Harrisburg-based group.

Before people take up the increasingly popular sport, they should consult a dentist about an appropriate mouth guard, the dental group advises.

An estimated two-thirds of in-line skaters do not wear protective equipment. In 1995, nearly 100,000 in-line skating injuries required emergency-room treatment.

More than 19 million Americans of all ages in-line skate, up 500 percent from 1989.

Dangerous deer: Hunting deer can be as dangerous for some hunters as it is for the deer, a Michigan cardiologist reports.

Dr. Barry Franklin of Royal Oak, Mich., put portable monitors on 10 hunters with cardiac disease to record their heart rate activity while they stalked deer. He found that just trudging in the woods could drive heart rates to 108 percent of the maximum induced by treadmills. Sighting a deer could run the rate up 114 percent and hitting a deer could drive the rate to 118 percent of treadmill maximums.

A deadly risk: The death of a spouse may increase a person's risk of death, Finnish researchers report.

In a study of 1,580,000 married people in Finland, men whose spouses died were 21 percent more likely to die in the next five years than married men who were not widowed.

And widowed women were 9 percent more likely to die during the follow-up period than women whose husbands were still alive, according to the study, published in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The higher mortality among widowed men may be the result of men depending more on their spouses to keep up social ties, said the researchers, led by Pekka Martikainen of the population research unit of the department of sociology at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

``However, it is also conceivable that women are better able to cope with a stressful life event than men; men, for example, may more easily take up unhealthy stress-alleviating behaviors (smoking and excessive use of alcohol) than women,'' the researchers wrote.

For both widowed men and women, the risk of death was greatest in the six months following the death of a spouse than later on, the study found.