IF statement works but ELSE doesn't?

I have the following statement and the IF ELSE doesn't seem to be working? By not working I mean its just running the while loop and display the H1 without checking to see if results isn't null?

Can anybody see any obvious errors?

    if($interests_result != 0) {
        print "<h1>Users with the same interests!</h1><div style='clear:both;'>";
        while($interests_row = mysql_fetch_array($interests_result, MYSQL_ASSOC))
        {
            $int_user = $interests_row['user_id'];
            $int_twit_user = $interests_row['twitterUser'];

            $divLeft = '<div class="user-box" id="thediv_'.$int_user.'"><div class="twithandlepic"><img src="http://api.twitter.com/1/users/profile_image/';
            $divRight = '<div class="twithandle">';
            $clearDiv = '<div style="clear:both;"></div>';

            print $divLeft.strip_tags($int_twit_user)."?size=normal\" style=\"width:48px; height:48px;\"/><br \/>".$int_twit_user.$divRight."<a href='javascript:void(0);'   id='".$interests_row['user_id']开发者_JAVA百科."' class='getIntPoint'>Get ".$interests_row['coff']." <input type='hidden' value='".$interests_row['coff']."' class='credoff' name='credoff'/> credit(s)</a><br /></div>$clearDiv</div></div>"; 
        }
        print $clearDiv."</div>"; 
    }
    else
    {
        print "No users to display!";
    }

The value assigned to interests_result is...

$interests_query = "SELECT * FROM produgg_users
join user_interests on produgg_users.id = user_interests.user_id
where (interest = '$interest1' OR interest = '$interest2' OR interest = '$interest3') and produgg_users.id != '".$usersClass->userID()."' and credits >= coff and produgg_users.id NOT IN (select concat_ws(',', followedID) from produgg_activity where followerID = '".$usersClass->userID()."') ORDER BY coff DESC LIMIT 30;";

$interests_result = mysql_query($interests_query) or die(mysql_error());

$interests_result is a mysql resource. It is not equal to 0, ($interests_result != 0 is true), therefore that block of the if is being executed.

What you want to be checking instead is this:

if (mysql_num_rows($interests_result) != 0) {

mysql_query() returns a resource on success, or FALSE on error, not 0

mysql_query returns either a resource or FALSE (if there is an error).

You appear to expect it to contain the number of rows returned, which it doesn't.

Use mysql_num_rows for your comparison.

You want to check for the number of rows returned.