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You've probably heard that a little booze a day is good for you. I've even said it at parties. "Look at the French," I've said gleefully over my own cup. "Wine all the time and they still live to be not a day younger than 82." I'm sorry to say we're probably wrong. The evidence that alcohol has any benefit on longevity or heart health is thin, says Dr. Timothy Naimi, a physician and epidemiologist at Boston Medical Center. He and his colleagues published an analysis 87 of the best research studies on alcohol's effect on death from any cause in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs on Tuesday. "[Our] findings here cast a great deal of skepticism on this long, cherished belief that moderate drinking has a survival advantage," he says. (Chen, 3/22)

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told doctors they should really, really think twice before prescribing opioids for chronic pain. And now the doctors are telling us that meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy often work better than pain meds and other medical treatments for chronic back pain. It's the latest in a series of studies saying that low-tech interventions like exercise, posture training, physical therapy and just the passage of time work better than opioids, imaging or surgery for the vast majority of people with chronic back pain. (Shute, 3/22)

Only 2.7 percent of adults nationwide have all four basic healthy characteristics, a new study found. The report, completed by researchers at Oregon State University and other universities, examined if adults were successful in four areas that fit typical advice for a "healthy lifestyle"-- moderate exercise, a good diet, not smoking and having a recommended body fat percentage. Fulfilling those characteristics reflects a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and other health problems, according to a news release from Oregon State. (Frazier, 3/22)

As scientists struggle to understand the threat posed by Zika virus, there's another viral infection that's a known danger in pregnancy and that harms 100,000 babies a year, even though it has been preventable with a vaccine since 1969. The disease is rubella, or German measles. Like Zika, the rubella virus often causes either a mild rash or no symptoms at all. ... As researchers try to figure out how much risk Zika virus poses to a fetus, Plotkin says it's deja vu for folks who lived through that extensive rubella outbreak. (Greenfieldboyce, 3/22)

You may have seen the NPR story about the University of Wisconsin, Madison scientists who are studying Zika virus. Dave O’Connor and Tom Friedrich are deviating from the ordinary method for disseminating research — publishing in a peer-reviewed journal — by posting their data as they collect it, in real time. O’Connor and Friedrich want to answer important unknowns about the virus, including how long the virus is present after infection, where in the body besides the blood it exists, and what the likelihood is that an infected mother will pass the virus on to her offspring. (Brooks, 3/22)