* WINNERS: Dog owners. Medical researchers at State University of New York at Buffalo conducted a study in which various people were put into stressful situations. The least amount of tension was shown by people who were accompanied by their dog.
LOSERS: Married couples. The same study found that stress levels were highest when the people being tested were accompanied by their spouses.LOSERS: Women - for a surprising variety of reasons. Consider the following discoveries made just during the past week by a number of different researchers:
- Men have long been much more prone to abuse alcohol than women. But that gender gap is closing. Medical research at the University of Miami has found that nearly 4 mil-lion American women under the age of 30 have alcohol problems but are less likely than men to seek treatment even though alcoholism in women may cause more health problems and require different remedies.
- Women athletes suffer more knee injuries than men. Why? Research at the University of Michigan suggests the reason may be imbalances in the leg muscles of female athletes.
- Still another study suggests that a widely used test to evaluate the death risk of a patient whose heart has stopped is less accurate for women than for men.
Hmmmm! Maybe it is a man's world after all.
LOSERS: Journalists. They were imprisoned in record numbers around the world last year, according to an annual survey released this week. At the end of 1995, 182 journalists were in prison because of their work, compared to 173 in 1994.
* WINNER: The National Mental Services Knowledge Exchange Network - for setting up a new hotline for parents with mentally or emotionally disturbed children. The number is 800-789-2647. People calling it can get information about mental health services across the country U.S.