Health Highlights: April 16, 2009

April 17 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

People Who Smile in Photos Less Likely to Divorce: Study

Looking at your loved one's old photos may help you determine your risk of ending up divorced, suggest researchers who that found people who smile in pictures are more likely to stay married.

Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana, and colleagues evaluated the smiles in the school yearbook photos of 225 women and 124 men, ages 21 to 81, who were asked to provide details about their personal life, United Press International reported.

The researchers also examined youthful photos of people age 65 and older, who were asked if they'd ever been in a committed relationship or divorced.

The results showed that 11 percent of those with the biggest smiles in their photos were divorced, compared with 31 percent of people who frowned in photographs, UPI reported.

The study, published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, demonstrates that extremely small behavior clues can reveal how people will fare in marriage, Hertenstein said.

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Drug Prices Increase Well Above Inflation Rate: AARP

Prices for the most widely used brand-name drugs in the United States rose an average of 8.7 percent in 2008, well above the general inflation rate of 3.8 percent, according to the AARP's annual report released Wednesday.

The drugs that had the biggest increases included: the acid reflux drug Prevacid (30 percent), the depression drug Wellbutrin (21 percent), and the sleep drug Lunesta (20 percent), the Associated Press reported. The AARP looked at the prices of the 219 most popular brand-name drugs.

"Just about everybody in today's economy is feeling some economic pressures, and it does not help that the drugs you take to keep healthy are much more expensive than last year," John Rother, public policy director of the senior citizens' lobby group, told the AP. "I think this makes the case for health reform."