Stick on a patch: If you’re gritting your teeth through hot flashes because you’re afraid that hormone therapy will cause blood clots or stroke, new research suggests that you don’t have to assume risk to get relief. Unlike estrogen and estrogen-progesterone pills (which can raise the risk of stroke by as much as 35 percent), hormone skin patches that have 50 micrograms or less of estrogen (with or without additional progesterone) do not increase the chances for stroke, a study in the British Medical Journal found. These transdermal patches are believed to be safer than pills because the estrogen goes through the skin and directly into the bloodstream. Oral estrogen, on the other hand, is filtered through the liver, where it produces enzymes associated with clotting and inflammation. "We think that bypassing the liver avoids generating the mechanisms associated with increased cardiovascular risk," explains study author Samy Suissa, PhD, professor of epidemiology at McGill University. The BMJ study did reveal a danger: Patches with more than 50 micrograms of estrogen raise stroke risk by 89 percent. "But most women will find relief with 50 micrograms," says Mary Jane Minkin, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine. (No one knows if patches reduce the small correlation between HT and breast cancer.)

Try a diuretic first: If you’ve been told you have hypertension (meaning that your blood pressure is 140/90 mm Hg or higher) and you’ve tried and failed to coax the rate down with diet and exercise, the typical next step is medication. Even though your doctor has nine types to choose from, the latest research says your best bet may be the oldest medicine: diuretics, used to control hypertension since the 1970s. Diuretics, which flush excess water and sodium out of the body, not only lower blood pressure as successfully as newer meds, such as calcium channel blockers and ACE inhibitors, but also are better at preventing stroke and heart failure, according to data from the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (aka ALLHAT). Plus, they’re cheaper: Generic diuretics cost about $20 a year, compared with upwards of $150 a year for newer, brand-name drugs. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute already recommends diuretics as first-line treatment, but Paul Whelton, MD, chair of ALLHAT, points out that physicians don’t always follow that advice. "Doctors tend to think if an agent is new and perhaps a little more expensive, it must be better," he says. "But the sensible one to start with is a diuretic."

Bring sunscreen: Drying your nails under a UV lamp at the salon is like sticking them in a mini tanning bed: Your hands are exposed to the same harmful UVA rays that prematurely age skin and potentially cause skin cancer. The Archives of Dermatology recently reported that two patients who put their hands under nail lights regularly (once a week or less) developed skin cancers on their fingers. UV lamps can also promote brown spots and crinkly skin on your hands. Protect your mitts by applying sunscreen after the manicurist has wiped off the hand cream but before she puts on the polish. Choose a product that has an SPF of at least 30 and contains a physical UV block, like zinc oxide. "Chemical sunscreens can take 30 minutes to get absorbed into the skin and take effect, but physical sun blocks work almost instantly," explains David Bank, MD, director of the Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic and Laser Surgery in Mount Kisco, New York. Or simply turn off the UV light and let air alone set your polish; this will add 10 minutes to the drying process. You can also reduce exposure by having the nail technician apply a quick-drying top liquid or nail polish, such as OPI Drip Dry or Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Fast Dry Nail Color.

Get the new health-risk score: You can already calculate your risk for developing heart disease or having a heart attack in the next 10 years with the Framingham Risk Score, which is based on your age, gender, cholesterol and blood pressure and whether you smoke or have diabetes. (The test is widely available on the Internet-for instance, on the site of the American Health Association, health.org.) Now epidemiologists at the Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City have built on the Framingham model, using scores from two common sets of blood tests, the complete blood count and the basic metabolic risk profile, to create a new tool called the Intermountain Risk Score (IMRS), which predicts how healthy you will be for the next five years. The complete blood count test (measuring, among other things, your white blood cells) provides information about factors such as inflammation and anemia, while the metabolic risk profile measures levels of many key nutrients, such as calcium, creatinine and bicarbonate, giving doctors an idea of how the muscles, lungs and kidneys are functioning. "This provides a much more accurate picture of one’s health than the Framingham score alone, especially for someone who doesn’t smoke and has normal cholesterol and blood pressure but has other things going on that haven’t been accounted for," explains Benjamin Horne, PhD, MPH, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Medical Center, who helped develop the IMRS. Although using the new risk score has not yet become standard practice, your physician can help you determine your own IMRS by ordering the appropriate blood tests and then plugging the numbers into the calculator located at intermountain?health?care.org/IMRS.

Call Mom: Simply talking to someone who makes you feel loved releases the bonding hormone oxytocin, which in turn lowers the stress hormone cortisol, according to research conducted at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "We thought you needed a physical experience to release oxytocin, such as breast feeding or orgasm," says study author Seth Pollak, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the university’s Child Emotion Lab. But his research indicated that a simple hug or phone call from their moms could soothe a group of jittery girls. The same lessons apply when we’re under stress, Pollak says. "Our primary caregivers are our source of comfort when we’re young, but as we get older, we develop close attachments with partners and friends," he explains. "After a hard day, the best thing to do is pick up the phone. Just making that contact with someone who makes you feel loved may relax you if you’re very stressed."

Spend less by spacing out your injections: In a study at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, women received shots between their brows every four months for 20 months, then stopped for six months. At that point, half the women showed no evidence of forehead wrinkling at all, and 87 percent said they were satisfied with the condition of their skin. "If regular Botox injections keep the muscle still for one and a half to two years, this appears to give the skin a chance to repair itself and become smooth," explains study author Roger A. Dailey, MD, chief of oculofacial plastic surgery at OHSU. "Once injections bring about a level of wrinkle reduction you like, you can start spreading Botox shots out from every three to four or five or, in some cases, six months."