Sure old Saint Nick is jolly, but honestly, with his lifestyle, the old guy should be six feet under by now. Just look at him! He's a walking advertisement for almost every health crisis in the news - plus a few you might not even know about.

A new study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that the drug topiramate proved to be measurably better than a placebo at helping alcoholics stay away from heavy drinking. In the study of 371 alcoholics over 14 weeks, the percentage of heavy-drinking days per week dropped from 81.9 percent to 43.8 percent among those who took topiramate, but from 82 percent to only 51.8 percent among those who took a placebo. The drug isn't cheap, and of course there are side-effects, but it doesn't require you to go to rehab. Handy for Santa AND Lindsay. And Britney. And Mel. And God bless them, every one.

7. He has to be diabetic. I know all the legions of little children mean well, but all those plates of cookies in every single household! Just think of Santa's sugar numbers! And staying up all night doesn't help either. A new Columbia University study published in the journal Sleep shows that too little sleep may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Sleeping an average of five hours or less increased the odds for diabetes onset by about 50% and the findings are consistent with evidence suggesting that short sleep duration increases insulin resistance and decreases glucose tolerance.

6. Lyme Disease from Donner and Blitzen. Or maybe Dasher and Dancer. No doubt the reindeer are carriers of the sheep tick, castor bean tick, European castor bean tick, black-legged tick or deer tick - all known carriers of Lyme Disease. Untreated or persistent cases of Lyme Disease may progress to a chronic form most commonly characterized by meningoencephalitis, cardiac inflammation and arthritis. How long will Santa be able to slide down that chimney easily? Oh, and thanks big guy, for driving your tick-covered reindeer all around the globe.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that obesity affects cancer screening and detection in obese men because the large volumes of plasma associated with being overweight dilute the circulation of prostrate specific antigen (PSA). If it's not detected, it can't be treated in time, because, according to researchers, "cancer is generally a progressive process, some of these undetected cancers will continue to grow and may present at a later point, when they are larger and more difficult to treat." Santa, YOU better watch out.

According to internist Dr Kathleen Blair from the Great Falls Clinic in Montana, those little kids are probably contagious as long as they're sniffling and sneezing. In fact, children with the flu are contagious for the first seven days they have symptoms. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the US up to 20% of the population will get the flu this season and about 36,000 will die. Let's hope Santa isn't one of them.