Health Highlights: April 23, 2008

April 24 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Wisconsin Leads U.S. in Drunken Driving: Survey

Wisconsin has the highest incidence of drunken driving in the nation, a new federal report finds.

More than a quarter of adult drivers in Wisconsin, noted for its beer breweries, reported driving under the influence of alcohol, according to the just-released survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Completing the worst five were: North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota, the Associated Press reported. Nationwide, 15 percent of adult drivers said they drove under the influence.

Utah had the lowest drunk driving rate, followed by West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina.

The agency, part of the National Institutes of Health, also found that blacks had significantly lower drinking rates than whites, the AP reported.

And the number of drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.08 percent or higher involved in alcohol-related crashes remained about the same over a decade -- from 12,348 in 1996 to 12,491 in 2006.

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Rate Doubles for Nasty Infection Among Hospital Patients

The number of U.S. hospital patients stricken with a nasty infection called Clostrdium difficile soared by 200 percent between 2000 and 2005, a new federal report finds.

Commonly called C difficile or "C diff," the infection can cause severe diarrhea, blood poisoning, and even death, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality said in a statement to coincide with its weekly AHRQ News and Numbers report. The infection often results when antibiotic use suppresses the bacteria normally found in the colon.

The report also found:

• There were more than 2 million cases of the illness in U.S. hospitals from 1993 to 2005.
• Two of three infected patients in 2005 were elderly.
• People with the illness were hospitalized an average of about three times longer than uninfected people.

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Social Bullying Linked to Adult Depression

The psychological effects of social bullying -- shunning a child or spreading rumors rather than threatening physical violence -- can last well into a person's adult life, a new University of Florida study concludes.