Red Wine: Extra Credit?
Q Does red wine count as one of my five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables?

A Ah—if only healthy eating were so intoxicatingly easy. One reason we’re always told to eat our five-to-nine-a-day is so we can be sure to get a wide variety of the nutrients found in plants. And it’s true that red wine contains some good ones, such as resveratrol, which has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease.

But it’s not really fair to count wine as a fruit, says Mary Flynn, a registered dietitian and nutrition researcher at Brown University. Most of its calories come from alcohol, while fruits and vegetables give you lots more nutritional bang for the buck, packing in carbohydrates and fiber.

So don’t hesitate to enjoy that glass of merlot—but not as a replacement for grapes, apples, mangoes, apricots, or other real fruit. (If we’re lucky, maybe someday chocolate will be reclassified as a vegetable.)

Breast Exam Dilemma
Q Are breast self-exams useful or not? I keep hearing conflicting advice.

A While regular breast self-exams (BSEs) have long been considered a crucial way to detect breast cancers, they haven’t gotten very good marks when scrutinized by researchers. Last year, in the wake of studies showing that women who did BSEs every month were no less likely to die from breast cancer than women who didn’t, the American Cancer Society changed its position: It now considers self-exams an optional, rather than necessary, element of early detection. (Breast exams by a doctor every three years beginning at age 20 and regular mammograms starting at 40 are still advised.) Many alternative practitioners recommend thermography, too.

That doesn’t mean you should leave all the responsibility for checking your breasts to your doctor. Most experts still counsel women to make a regular effort to monitor their breasts themselves, says Mairi Breen Rothman, a certified nurse-midwife in Washington, D.C. If you feel comfortable doing BSEs, by all means continue. Otherwise, get familiar with the way your breasts feel at different times of the month. If you notice anything unusual, tell your health care provider right away.

A Healthier Fireplace
Q What’s better to burn in the fireplace, processed logs or real wood?

A Surprisingly, this is one case where the heavily processed, prepackaged choice is the healthier option. “Just bringing natural firewood into the house introduces mold, dirt, and other debris into the air,” says Steve Klossner, an indoor air quality consultant with the American Lung Association. Once you start burning that wood, it releases thousands of airborne particles, which can be highly irritating to the lungs.

Manufactured logs, made primarily from compressed sawdust, burn cleaner. The cleanest-burning of all are those made without added wax (Pres-to Logs and Goodwood, for instance). The wax in the more common Duraflame type is petroleum based; in a poorly ventilated room, it could trigger headaches o...

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