1. If you are overweight, you are at higher risk for diabetes, but now a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that those who lose weight can lower their risk. In the 13-year study of more than 200,000 overweight people, researchers observed that the more weight lost, the greater the decrease in risk. Women benefited even more than men.

2. Ginkgo biloba is heavily promoted to healthy older people with normal memory problems, though there has never been any good evidence it can help them. A study recently conducted by researchers at Williams College in Massachusetts found that ginkgo had absolutely no effect on memory, learning, attention, concentration, or verbal fluency in older people not suffering from dementia.

-- UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, November 2002. P. 1.