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A medium apple contains roughly 3 grams of fiber, a slice of whole-wheat bread has 1.5 grams and a stalk of broccoli about 2.7.

The report in the Archives of Internal Medicine said the benefit was strongest when the fiber came from cereals and fruit, rather than vegetables.

Add hearing loss to the list of risks linked to hormone-replacement therapy (HRT), a list that includes stroke, heart attack, some cancers and Alzheimer's disease. A small study — one researchers say will need to be verified — showed women on HRT did anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent worse on hearing tests than women of the same age not taking hormones.

Robert Frisina and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center ran three different hearing tests on 32 women ages 60 to 86 who took HRT and 32 women who did not.

The HRT group heard more poorly in general, but especially in complex situations such as understanding someone amid a loud backdrop like a cocktail party. Frisina and colleagues presented their study at a meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology in Daytona, Florida.

Crohn's disease and related problems may be helped with a drug that fights inflammation, researchers say. Sustained use of infliximab, sold as Remicade, can help close abnormal openings in the bowel that appear in many people with Crohn's, a long-term inflammation that can eat away the lining of the digestive tract, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers found that prolonged treatment with the drug closed off the openings, called fistulas, and kept them closed in 36 percent of volunteers who received it every eight weeks. The rate was 19 percent in patients who got a placebo during the yearlong study. Fistulas appear in up to 43 percent of those with Crohn's.

The study used only people who had an initial response to the drug, and 31 percent did not, and some of the researchers had financial ties to the maker of Remicade.

— Seattle Times news services

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