CHECKUP LONELINESS, ISOLATION MAY RAISE RISK OF HEART DISEASE.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

``Lonely heart,'' ``broken heart.'' These terms are not medical ones, but they may have their roots in biological truth: New research suggests that lonely people have a greater risk of heart disease, perhaps because of the way their cardiovascular systems function.

At Ohio State University in Columbus, researchers gave 99 male and female undergraduates a questionnaire to determine whether they were lonely. The researchers then monitored their blood pressure, heart rate and cardiac output while they did stressful tasks.

Blood pressure rose for both the lonely and nonlonely students during both tests. However, what happened to the lonely students' blood pressure before and after the tests may yield clues about the reasons for heart disease in people who are socially isolated or perceive themselves to be. Before and after the test, the lonely students had chronically higher levels of what's known as vascular resistance and lower levels of cardiac output. Both vascular resistance and chronically high blood pressure are risk factors for heart disease.

STUDYING THE ORIGINS OF DIABETES: Researchers are seeking pregnant women to enroll their newborns in a clinical trial that looks to delay or prevent the development of diabetes in children. To be eligible, a member of the newborn's immediate family - mother, father or sibling - must have Type 1 diabetes, which typically is diagnosed in children and young adults.

Researchers will study whether avoiding cow milk - in which proteins remain intact - during a baby's first six to eight months decreases the incidence of diabetes by age 10. Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the international collaborative study will enroll more than 2,800 children over a period of two to three years. For more information, call [phone] or e-mail research coordinator Lisa Rogers at lrogers(at)mednet.ucla.edu.