TUESDAY, March 9 (HealthDay News) -- A sagging economy may be causing fewer Americans to visit their plastic surgeons for a lift -- or many other beautifying procedures, a new report finds.

In 2009, close to 10 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States, down about 2 percent from the year before, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports.

"Plastic surgery is feeling the effects of the recession, just like many other sectors of the marketplace," Dr. Renato Saltz, president of the society, said in a news statement released Tuesday. "However, repeat patients and those putting off surgery are likely the reason for the small growth in non-surgical cosmetic procedures. Growth in demand will likely return as the recession eases and baby boomers' offspring begin to explore surgical options."

Men and women between the ages of 35 and 50 made up nearly half of the appearance-minded patients last year, racking up 4.4 million procedures. Next in line were 51- to 64-year-olds, representing just over a quarter of patients.

Breast augmentation was the most popular surgical procedure, with almost 312,000 such operations performed. Among men and women, the other top procedures were liposuction (nearly 284,000 operations); eyelid surgery (about 150,000 procedures); abdominoplasty (close to 128,000); and facelifts (more than 94,000).

Broken down by gender, after breast reduction, women most often opted for liposuction, eyelid surgery, abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) and breast reduction.

Men, on the other hand, sought liposuction most often, then rhinoplasty (nose surgery), eyelid surgery, male breast reduction and hair transplantation.

Many people seeking a more youthful look opted for nonsurgical services. Practitioners reported more than 2,557,000 Botox and Dysport treatments and more than 1,313,000 hyaluronic acid treatments (Hylaform, Restylane).

After the injectables, laser hair removal, microdermabrasion and chemical peels were most requested by men and women. For men, laser skin resurfacing was also a top seller.

In sum, Americans paid almost $10.5 billion for cosmetic procedures; $6 billion for various surgical procedures, and $4.5 billion for nonsurgical procedures, the society said.

More information

For more, visit the American Society of Plastic Surgeons  .

TUESDAY, March 9 (HealthDay News) -- People who consider themselves liberals or atheists tend to have higher IQs than those who are more religious or conservative, a new study suggests.

Higher IQs also seem to make men less likely to cheat. Men with higher IQs place a higher value on sexual fidelity than men with lower IQs, although the same association with intelligence and monogamy was not found in women, according to the study.

The reasons underlying the differences can be explained by evolution, contends study author Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In evolutionary terms, religion stems from humans' tendency to try to make sense of natural phenomenon. "Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid," Kanazawa said. "This innate bias toward paranoia served humans well when self-preservation and protection of their families and clans depended on extreme vigilance to all potential dangers."

Likewise, humans have probably also evolved to have a natural tendency toward being conservative, which Kanazawa defines as having a strong preference toward caring for relatives and friends.

The purpose of intelligence, on the other hand, is to help humans cope with and solve novel problems. Therefore, more intelligent people are more likely to have religious and political preferences that go against the grain, such as atheism or a rejection of a higher power, and liberalism, which is provisionally defined in the study as caring about people who are unrelated to you.

"More intelligent individuals are more likely to recognize and comprehend evolutionarily novel entities and situations," Kanazawa said. "Some of these evolutionarily novel entities and situations form the basis of values, preferences and lifestyles."

The study is published in the March issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

But experts were quick to question the findings.

Ilya Somin, an associate professor of law at George Mason University, took issue with the study's definition of liberalism. "Concern for others not related to you" could apply to any political outlook, including religious and social conservatives who donate large amounts of money to churches, or even libertarians, who believe unfettered market forces provide the greatest benefits to all.

"He has an idiosyncratic definition about liberals caring about people who are not genetically related to them," Somin said. "That could be perfectly consistent with being a libertarian or a conservative as well."

In the study, Kanazawa used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which began when participants were in grades 7 through 12, and the General Social Survey, another large national sample.

Young adults who identified themselves as "very liberal" had an average IQ of 106 during adolescence, compared to an average IQ of 95 for those who were "very conservative."

Young adults who identified themselves as "not at all religious" had an average IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identified themselves as "very religious" had an average IQ of 97.

Though you might suspect Kanazawa is a liberal, he's not. Kanazawa said he's a libertarian who "despises" liberals.

Nor does Kanazawa believe smarter people are more likely to be liberal because those views are more correct. Instead, "it's more likely that humans are designed to be conservative and religious," and that liberalism and atheism appeal to the intelligent because they are more contrary to people's evolutionary instinct.

As for the findings on monogamy, our ancestors were probably "mildly polygamous," Kanazawa explained, in that men were not expected to be sexually exclusive, though women were. That means being sexually exclusive is evolutionarily novel for men, but not for women. Therefore, men with higher IQs have a preference for monogamy, but intelligence makes no difference for women's attitudes toward sexual exclusivity.

There was not enough data on people who had very high IQs -- in the 140 and above range -- so it's unknown if they tend to be liberal non-believers who'd never cheat on their wife.

If you're a fan of Fox News or an avid churchgoer and are feeling put out by the findings, Kanazawa said you shouldn't be. "One should never take scientific findings personally, because they are empirical generalizations and there are always individual exceptions," he noted.

Kanazawa is no stranger to provocative research. In an earlier study, he found that more intelligent people tend to stay up later than less intelligent people. Because early humans lacked artificial light, they tended to wake up shortly before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk, while being nocturnal is evolutionarily novel, his findings suggested.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on IQ.

FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- Some types of anti-drinking ads can backfire, suggests a U.S. study.

Researchers interviewed more than 1,200 undergraduate students after they were shown ads that used guilt or shame to warn against alcohol abuse.

Such ads might actually trigger an instinctive coping mechanism that enables people who see them to distance themselves from the harmful and potentially deadly consequences of reckless drinking, the researchers found. In other words, people believe that such consequences happen only to other people and, as a result, they might drink even more alcohol.

"Advertisements are capable of bringing forth feelings so unpleasant that we're compelled to eliminate them by whatever means possible," Adam Duhachek, a marketing professor at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and a co-author of the study, said in a university news release. "This motivation is sufficiently strong to convince us we're immune to certain risks."

The unintended negative impact of ads that use guilt and shame to try to change behavior can also occur in other health-related campaigns, such as trying to get people to quit smoking or protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases, he added.

"The public health and marketing communities expend considerable effort and capital on these campaigns but have long suspected they were less effective than hoped," Duhachek noted. "But the situation is worse than wasted money or effort. These ads ultimately may do more harm than good because they have the potential to spur more of the behavior they're trying to prevent."

He suggested that public health ads that point out serious consequences of a behavior should also include messages of empowerment, such as providing strategies for people to control their drinking.

"If you're going to communicate a frightening scenario, temper it with the idea that it's avoidable," Duhachek said. "It's best to use the carrot along with the stick."

The study will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Marketing Research.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about alcohol and health.

FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- People who grind their teeth at night appear to be more likely to suffer from stress and also likely to use escapism to cope when things become difficult, new research out of Germany suggests.

Researchers led by Maria Giraki, of Heinrich-Heine-University in Dusseldorf, studied 48 people who were known to grind their teeth at night, a condition called "sleep bruxism," and reported their findings online March 5 in the journal Head & Face Medicine.

Teeth grinding "can lead to abrasive tooth wear, looseness and sensitivity of teeth, and growth and pain in the muscles responsible for chewing," Giraki said in a news release from the journal's publisher. "Its causes are still relatively unknown, but stress has been implicated. We aimed to investigate whether different stress-factors, and different coping strategies, were more or less associated with these bruxism symptoms."

The researchers measured the overnight grinding by placing thin plates in the mouths of the study participants. No particular age range, gender or education levels appeared to be at higher risk of teeth grinding, but those who did it reported more daily stress and stress at work.

"Our data support the assumption that people with the most problematic grinding do not seem to be able to deal with stress in an adequate way. They seem to prefer negative coping strategies like 'escape,'" Giraki said. "This, in general, increases the feeling of stress, instead of looking at the stressor in a positive way."

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more on bruxism  .