Roughly 50 million Americans now log on to the Internet for health updates, with women outnumbering men among information seekers, according to the latest research by Consumer
Health Sciences (CHS), a firm specializing in pharmaceutical and disease-specific databases. Web users tend to be more proactive healthcare consumers than non-Web users - that is,
they are more likely to ask a doctor for a prescription medication and are more apt to question physician diagnoses - and are generally higher educated, with higher income
brackets. Proving that offline behavior patterns tend to migrate online, however, the Web has fueled a new trend in "cyberchondriacs," notes CHS president Jane A. Donohue. The
Internet offers a boundless supply of health information - which provides ample fodder to fuel the fears of the health-obsessed.
(CHS, 609/924-4455, http://www.consumerhealthsciences.com)