Risk

Uncomfortable putting your hard-earned money in stocks -- even after the recent run-up that has helped recover a portion of the last year's losses? That's probably a good sign. "When people as a group are the least comfortable is the best time to invest," said Gerald Appel, president of Signalert Corp., a money management firm in New York and publisher of investment newsletter Systems & Forecasts.

Anxiety, depression and stress over work and the economy are all unhealthful in their own right; they're also hard on the ticker. Some of the evidence: Depression, anxiety, chronic life stress and blood pressure all raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. Job pressure and excessive work hours were linked to smoking in men in a study of 1,101 Australian workers. A 33% to 40% increase in systolic blood pressure was reported among white-collar Canadian workers with high levels of cumulative work stress.

Birth control pills can protect women against ovarian cancer for 30 years or longer after they stop taking them and have prevented 100,000 ovarian cancer deaths worldwide, British researchers reported Friday in the journal Lancet. The longer women stay on the pill, the lower their risk of developing the disease, researchers said.

European leaders called Tuesday for expanded transparency in the banking system to make the risks in complicated investment vehicles and troubled loan portfolios clearer to investors and shareholders. Failure by the banking system to step forward would result in more regulation to force them to do so, the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the European Commission warned at a summit in London.

Beef: An article in Sunday's California section about the efforts of school districts to identify beef from cattle at risk of mad cow disease cited an L.A. Unified official who said schools cook meat twice in order to kill bacteria. Heat does not reduce the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, which is caused by an abnormality in a protein, not bacteria.

People in Boise, Idaho, have taken pride in favorable lifestyle rankings their city has picked up recently: No. 2 on Forbes' best places for business and careers; No. 9 on Inc.com's hottest cities for entrepreneurs; No. 1 National Geographic adventure town; and No. 8 on Money magazine's best places to live. But one title startled and baffled nearly everyone: city most vulnerable to terrorism in the Western United States.

One out of four toddlers born prematurely showed early signs of autism, and the risk was greatest among those children who were the smallest at birth, researchers reported. Premature birth and low birth weight have been recognized in earlier studies as risk factors for a number of developmental problems, including autism and other illnesses. But the study of 91 children, who were born seven to 14 weeks prematurely and weighed 3.3 pounds or less at birth, was the first to directly assess the risk of autism in this population.

My husband and I just returned from Israel and Egypt, and I want to shout from the rooftops that we had been misled about the risk of visiting these countries. We never felt afraid. The visible security in both countries is quite reassuring. I encourage people to relax and not be afraid to travel. Mona Shafer Edwards Los Angeles