PHP Scripting And Permissions On Unix

I currently have a script with code below that works great when the permissions on the dbconnect.php file are 755. The problem with this is that anyone on the web can see this config file which contains passwords DOH! If I change it to 751, then it tells me "cannot connect". The user and group on both the page and this script are the same.

With apache, i use the setting to store http and https files in the same directory.

Any ideas how to make this a little more secure? Changing the permission to 751 would do the trick but then it breaks the script. I don't understand why the script would be running taking "other" permissions into account...it should be running with "user" permissions instead. it might even have something to do with who the apache executable is running as...

<?php

include("../../../cgi-bin/dbconnect.php");

// Connect to server and select database.
mysql_connect("$databasehost", "$dbuser", "$dbpword")or die("cannot connect");
mysql_select_db("$dbname")or die("cannot select DB");