HealthWatch: Antibiotics Linked To Superbug, Divorce May Be Genetic

BOSTON (CBS) - A new study links antibiotics prescribed by dentists to the superbug C. difficile. Minnesota health officials found almost 40 percent of dentists are not following guidelines and are overprescribing antibiotics.

C. difficile is a serious intestinal infection but if patients get symptoms, they are more likely to call their doctors and not their dentist, so dentists aren't necessarily seeing the bad outcomes.

And while it's completely appropriate for a dentist to prescribe an antibiotic for a dental infection, many are still prescribing them prophylactically to patients with certain heart conditions when that practice is no longer recommended.

Patients need to let their doctors know about medications prescribed by dentists, and dentists should not be left out of the conversation about the misuse of antibiotics.

Divorce May Be Genetic

You may have heard that divorce runs in families and there may be more truth to that than you think.

In the largest study of its kind, researchers looked at thousands of adoptees and found that they were more likely to divorce if their biological parents and siblings divorced, rather than their adoptive families.

Many believe children of divorce are more likely to divorce themselves because they bear witness to the conflict between their parents and grow up replicating the same in their own relationships.

But your genes may be more responsible than your upbringing.

Some say marriage counselors should probably focus less on fostering commitment and strengthening interpersonal skills and more on targeting personality traits using cognitive-behavioral training.