Health Highlights: April 19, 2008

But curiously, those differences vanish over time. Black men and black women have slightly more than a 50 percent chance of being very happy by their late 80s, while white men and white women are close behind.

The increase in happiness with age is consistent with the "age as maturity hypothesis," Yang said.

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Network Offers Experimental Treatments to Dying Cancer Patients

Great Britain has opened a government-run network of cancer clinics that will provide experimental treatments to dying cancer patients and may also speed up the drug testing process, theAssociated Pressreported.

There are clinics in France, Italy and the Netherlands that offer experimental treatments to cancer patients, but Britain is the only European country with a national network of clinics. Currently, only a few hundred patients with late-stage cancer in Britain have access to experimental drugs, but officials hope the new network of clinics will soon benefit thousands of patients.

Expanding drug tests for terminal cancer patients preys on their desperation, according to some critics of the program, theAPreported. But the process is fair as long as patients are told about potential side effects, counter some ethicists.

In the United States, cancer patients can sign up for experimental drug treatment, but there's no official national program to help them enroll. About 80 percent of American cancer patients are treated in community hospitals, while most drug trials are conducted at academic medical centers, theAPreported.

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Institute Seeks to Use Stem Cells to Heal Wounded Soldiers

A new U.S. research institute will try to develop methods to help wounded soldiers use their own stem cells to regenerate skin, muscle and even limbs,Agence France-Pressereported.

The $250 million Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine will fund and direct research by a number of universities and hospitals. The Pentagon will provide $85 million over five years, $80 million will come from participating universities and hospitals, and $100 million will be provided by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

"The new institute will work to develop techniques that will help to make our soldiers whole again," said Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker, the army surgeon general. "We'll use the soldiers' own stem cells to repair nerve damage, to re-grow muscles and tendons, to repair burn wounds, and to help them heal without scarring."

The institute will also attempt to develop ways to salvage and reconstruct damaged limbs, hands, fingers, ears and noses, and to reconstruct damaged craniums,AFPreported.