Love, pleasure, duty: Why women have sex

(CNN) -- What makes a woman want to have sex? Is it physical attraction? Love? Loneliness? Jealousy? Boredom? Painful menstrual cramps?

It turns out that woman have sex for all of these reasons and more, and that their choices are not arbitrary; there may be evolutionary explanations at work.

Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss, both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, decided that the topic of "why women have sex" deserved a book of its own. They've woven scientific research together with a slew of women's voices in their new collaborative work, "Why Women Have Sex," published September 29 by Times Books.

"We do bring in men occasionally by way of contrast, but we wanted to focus exclusively on women so that the complexity of women's sexual psychology was not given the short shrift, so to speak," said Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist.

The authors conducted a study from June 2006 to April 2009 that asked women whether they had ever had sex for one of 237 reasons, all of which had emerged in a previous study. About 1,000 women contributed their perspectives.

It turns out that women's reasons for having sex range from love to pure pleasure to a sense of duty to curiosity to curing a headache. Some women just want to please their partners, and others want an ego boost.

Buss said he found it surprising how dramatically and variably sexual experience seemed to influence women's feelings of self-esteem.

"Some sexual experiences that women in our study reported just had devastating effects and long-lasting negative effects on their feelings of self-worth," he said. "But then for others, their sexual experiences provided the soaring height of euphoria and made them feel alive and vibrant."

Meston said some 20-somethings defied the gender stereotypes that women should be more chaste than men and not sleep around as much.

"Many of the women were having sex purely because they wanted the experience, they wanted the adventure, they wanted to see what it was like to be with men of different ethnicities," she said. "Some women said they wanted more notches on the belt. They simply wanted to get rid of their virginity."

Some women have sex to make money, and not just in the conventional manner of prostitution. A woman from California who goes by "Natalie Dylan" garnered national attention this year with her campaign to sell her virginity and said in January that her top bid of $3.8 million came from a 39-year-old Australian. Read more about selling virginity

There are more factors that influence a woman's sex drive than a man's, the authors said, and the factors that make men attractive to women -- personality, sense of humor, self-confidence, status -- are less important considerations for men when they are choosing women.

There is also evidence that sexual arousal is more complicated for women than for men, the authors report.

A study from Meston's lab showed a strong correlation between how erect a man's penis is and how aroused he says he is. By contrast, the link is much weaker between a woman's physical arousal (as measured inside her vagina) and the arousal she says she feels, the researchers found. This is why drugs to treat erectile dysfunction such as Viagra don't work as well in women, the authors said.

That makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, even though men and women may not consciously think about their choices that way, the authors said. If the goal of a man is to spread his genes, he would need to look for signs of fertility in a woman, which are historically associated with physical cues, Buss said.

"The adaptive problem that women have had to solve is not simply picking a man who is fertile but a man who perhaps will invest in her, a man who won't inflict costs on her, a man who might have good genes that could be conveyed to her children," he said.

In this context, women must also be more selective, because wrong choices can lead much higher costs than for men: pregnancy and child-rearing.

In studies, women have consistently shown preferences for men with symmetrical bodies, a subtle mark of genetic fitness and status, the book said. In fact, simply by smelling T-shirts that men had worn for two nights, women judged the odors of symmetrical men to be the most attractive, and the asymmetrical men's odors the least attractive, in one study.

Still, symmetry isn't everything, Meston and Buss said. They pointed to singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett as someone with other positive attributes, such as musical talent and personality, who has clearly done well with women despite asymmetrical features.

"Women are evaluating men on multiple attributes," Buss said.

Kissing also turns out to be more important for women than for men in some respects: In one study, 53 percent of men said they would have sex without kissing, but only 15 percent of women said they would even consider sex without smooching first, the book said. For women, kissing is "an emotional litmus test," the authors wrote.

The medicinal value of sex also comes into play for some women, the book said. Sex can help a woman relax and sleep better, and it can ease the pain of menstrual cramps and headaches -- and some survey participants cited these as reasons they've had sex.

A study from Rutgers University found that, during orgasm, women were able to tolerate 75 percent more pain. Though Meston has not studied the phenomenon in men, she said she would expect sex to have the same effects of reducing headaches and other pain.

The authors collected stories from 1,006 women from 46 states, eight Canadian provinces, three European countries and Australia, New Zealand, Israel and China. Participants came from a variety of ethnic and religious -- as well as non-religious -- backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. About 80 percent of the women said they were in a relationship at the time, and 93 percent said they were predominantly or exclusively heterosexual.

The book also explores how women's perception of sex may change over time, according to whom they're with and whether they are married.

A 26-year-old heterosexual woman wrote, "When I was single, I had sex for my own personal pleasure. Now that I am married, I have sex to please my husband. My own pleasure doesn't seem as important as his. I believe he feels the same way."


source: CNN.com

Read more!

Plan your ideal walking workout

Walking is a wonder exercise. Not only can it can help control weight, it also reduces the risk of developing diabetes, certain cancers, and heart disease. Walking bestows benefits to the brain too, by relieving stress and improving mood. Best of all, walking is free: You don't need fancy equipment or a gym membership to reap the benefits. Here's how to make every step count, no matter how often you hit the pavement.

If you walk occasionally

Routine: Begin by walking 10 to 15 minutes on flat ground or on a treadmill at a purposeful pace, or complete 2,000 steps (use a pedometer to monitor your walking progress). "You want to cover a mile in about 20 minutes. That's not a window-shopping pace," says Mark Fenton, a former competitive racewalker and the host of the PBS series "America's Walking."RealSimple.com: The 20-minute workout

Walking tips:

• Maintain an upright but comfortable posture, with your neck, upper back, and shoulders relaxed, suggests fitness-walking expert Sara Donovan, author of "Mall Walking Madness: Everything You Need to Know to Lose Weight and Have Fun at the Same Time."

• Minimize the sway in your lower back; don't jut your rear out. Instead, maintain a slight, natural arch in your back.

• Gently pull in your abdominal muscles. This helps strengthen your abs while reducing lower-back pain.

Goal: Aim to walk at least five days a week. Every second or third week, add 5 minutes. After about two or three months of regular walking, you should be up to 30 minutes. Once you've hit half an hour, add variety to your terrain rather than increasing time or speed. This will boost your enjoyment, encouraging you to keep up the habit. RealSimple.com: The secrets of thin people

If you're an everyday walker

Routine: If you're already walking for at least 30 minutes a day, you may be ready to make your routine less routine. Concentrate on increasing distance and speed, gradually working up to 45 minutes. Pick up the pace until you're walking a mile in 15 to 18 minutes. (Wear a pedometer, or use your car to measure your route.) To speed up, take faster steps, not longer strides. "There's a physical limit to stride length, but as your fitness improves you can always take quicker steps," says Fenton, who is also the author of "The Complete Guide to Walking for Health, Weight Loss, and Fitness."

Walking tip: Bend your arms to about 90 degrees. That turns them into shorter, more compact pendulums. You'll be able to swing them faster and thus help your legs and feet move faster. (Just try running with straight arms.)

Goal: Set your sights on taking 10,000 steps every day, which adds up to about five miles. You'll take half of those steps just by going about your daily life -- grocery shopping, climbing stairs. The rest, about 2½ miles, you'll need to add by fitness walking. RealSimple.com: Healthy fast food and takeout

If you're an athletic walker

Routine: Speed-walking means setting about a 12-minute-mile pace. Racewalking, an Olympic sport, is even more challenging. Both take concentration. Unless you continually remind your feet to move unnaturally fast, you'll slow down.

Walking tips:

• To visualize racewalking, think of children running around a pool and being told by the lifeguard to walk, not run, says Fenton: "Imagine their upright posture, quick steps, fairly straight legs, and bent arms."

• Take fast steps: World-class female racewalkers maintain a blistering 200-steps-per-minute pace (or a 7- to 7.5-minute mile) for 12 miles.

Goal: You could walk two miles in 25 minutes at this pace. Or you could keep your workout interesting by following these two strategies:

• Intersperse 10 one-minute bursts of speed-walking or racewalking throughout a moderately fast 45-minute walk.

• Become a hiker. "Going up hills is the best intensifier," says author Mark Fenton. Even though you may not walk as fast as you could on flat ground, you'll boost your workout substantially. According to experts, you expend significantly more energy hiking up a 10 percent incline than walking at the same pace on level ground. And because you're moving up and down in addition to forward, your calf and thigh muscles will develop more tone


source: CNN.com

Read more!

Parents clueless when it comes to kids' growth charts

(Health.com) -- Parents can check out growth charts -- a nifty graph that tells them where their child falls in relation to peers in terms of height and weight -- just about everywhere, from a child's vaccination records to the doctor's office.

But there's a problem: A new study suggests that most parents don't know how to read the charts and may think a child's weight is perfectly fine, when, in fact, the child is obese or overweight compared to peers.

More than 12.5 million children and adolescents are overweight, and these numbers are on the rise, according to the U.S. surgeon general. If most parents don't realize that their child is overweight, the new study, which appears in the October 4 issue of the journal Pediatrics, has implications in the war against childhood obesity. Health.com: 25 Diet-busting foods you should never eat

In an Internet survey of 1,000 parents, 79 percent said they had seen a growth chart before, and the majority of these parents believed they understood the information. In fact, about one-third of parents said they used a growth chart at home.

However, only 64 percent of respondents could correctly determine a child's weight by looking at plotted points on a growth chart. What's more, up to 77 percent incorrectly interpreted the data when looking at a combined height/weight measurement chart. Only 56 percent were able to correctly define percentile in a multiple-choice question. A percentile, which is shown as lines drawn in curved pattern on a growth chart, measures how a child compares to his or her peers in height and weight. Health.com: Kids on the run: The new trend in family-friendly fitness

Specifically, 51 percent of parents did not understand that a child in the 10th percentile for height (meaning they are shorter than most of their peers) and 90th percentile for weight (meaning they weigh more than most of their peers) was overweight.

The survey was conducted by Dr. Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, a consulting medical editor at KidsHealth and the Nemours Center for Children's Health Media, and a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, in Wilmington, Delaware, and colleagues.

Overall, parents with lower incomes and less formal education were least likely to comprehend information on growth charts, the study showed. And if parents were concerned about a child's weight at all, they tended to think they were too skinny, not too fat. Health.com: How to grocery shop on a diet

"The present study underscores how poorly we as clinicians are getting through to parents," says Dr. Anjali Jain, an assistant professor of pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, in Washington, D.C. Parents often do not believe that their child is overweight or at risk for health problems, or think a child will outgrow "baby fat."

"Two dimensional lines and plots are not able to speak a language that parents understand," Jain points out in an editorial published with the study. Perhaps, she suggests, discussing height and weight in terms of clothing size may help parents better understand if their child is overweight or obese and at risk for serious medical problems as a result. Health.com: The real reasons we eat too much

Specifically, 51 percent of parents did not understand that a child in the 10th percentile for height (meaning they are shorter than most of their peers) and 90th percentile for weight (meaning they weigh more than most of their peers) was overweight.

The survey was conducted by Dr. Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, a consulting medical editor at KidsHealth and the Nemours Center for Children's Health Media, and a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, in Wilmington, Delaware, and colleagues.

Overall, parents with lower incomes and less formal education were least likely to comprehend information on growth charts, the study showed. And if parents were concerned about a child's weight at all, they tended to think they were too skinny, not too fat. Health.com: How to grocery shop on a diet

"The present study underscores how poorly we as clinicians are getting through to parents," says Dr. Anjali Jain, an assistant professor of pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, in Washington, D.C. Parents often do not believe that their child is overweight or at risk for health problems, or think a child will outgrow "baby fat."

"Two dimensional lines and plots are not able to speak a language that parents understand," Jain points out in an editorial published with the study. Perhaps, she suggests, discussing height and weight in terms of clothing size may help parents better understand if their child is overweight or obese and at risk for serious medical problems as a result. Health.com: The real reasons we eat too much

"It is real to them if they are having to buy clothes frequently or if hems always need shortening to accommodate girth," says Jain, who is also a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center, in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Alan Rosenbloom, a pediatrician in New York City, says "many parents -- too many parents -- are not understanding their pediatrician's translation of the growth chart data, and this is disturbing to me."

The study suggests that it's not enough for pediatricians to show parents a growth chart; they need to explain the numbers too, according to Dr. Rosenbloom. "Growth charts and [body mass index] charts can serve as great tools in the fight against childhood obesity, but only with good comprehension by the parents who need to understand the data," he says.

Parents must understand their children's height, weight, and body mass index so that "we can tackle the problem of obesity with improved diet and exercise regimens when obesity exists," he says. "[They should also] encourage healthy eating habits from an early age so that we can prevent obesity before it develops."

Read more!

'Sorry I Haven't Written': A Scientific Explanation

If you're like most people, you do a lot of routine things in any given day — running errands, say, or e-mailing or doing laundry. And like most people, you've probably never stopped to wonder whether the pattern of your routine behavior fits into some sort of universal mathematical law.

But Dean Malmgren has. A faculty member in Northwestern University's department of chemical and biological engineering, Malmgren thinks a lot about universal laws and how they might explain human behavior, even seemingly spontaneous actions like writing an e-mail to a friend.

In the current issue of Science, Malmgren and several colleagues explain that as far as human correspondence goes, when and how long you choose to sit down and e-mail your friends or family has less to do with your desire to get in touch than with a larger — and less random — system of outside factors.

To reach that conclusion, Malmgren's team analyzed the letter-writing oeuvre of 16 people important enough that their correspondence has been thoroughly archived — people like Einstein, Darwin and Hemingway. Initially, Malmgren says, researchers believed that old-fashioned letter-writing would follow different rules of behavior from e-mailing, but the new analysis suggests that they're actually very similar. "It's analogous to some areas of physics," says Malmgren, "where you might have two fluids with very different densities and viscosities but they ultimately follow the same laws of fluid dynamics."

It turns out that just three mechanisms combine to explain both activities. The first is our propensity to continue repeating a task once we've started: "Once you send one e-mail or write one letter, you tend to do another," says Malmgren. The second is our circadian sleep-wake cycle, which limits the available time we have to devote to letter-writing. The third is that we typically work on the same days each week, further restricting when and how long we spend getting in touch with friends.

These three fundamentals are complicated by individual situations, of course. Someone with a full-time job, for example, can't necessarily engage in personal correspondence except at night or on weekends. Some people have lots of friends and family to keep in touch with, while others are naturally more solitary. And circumstances can change over time. "In the early part of his life," says Malmgren, "Einstein didn't write many letters. Later, as he became famous — and had a secretary to help him — he wrote a lot more. Freud was steadier. Each had a personal writing rate."

Nevertheless, both celebrities' letters fit into the same underlying model, as did those of Karl Marx, Robert E. Lee, Marcel Proust — and presumably a horde of unfamous letter-writers as well. "I really wish we could have gotten some ordinary people," says Dean. "But unfortunately, their letters are rarely preserved in a comprehensive way. Nobody cares about the letters of Joe Schmo who lived in 1873."

This study is just the beginning for Malmgren. "Our model only describes how we do one activity," he says, "but we actually juggle lots of things. So it's interesting to consider how we transition between them." One way to get a handle on how people multitask is to look at online activity, the focus of his group's next analysis: it involves a lot of different behaviors — such as chatting, game-playing and reading — but under a single umbrella. "There's potentially a lot wrapped up into one," says Malmgren.

On a practical level, Malmgrem's research could help explain a range of other apparently unique human behaviors, like running errands, making phone calls, checking books out of the library and doing homework. In the meantime, the study offers at least a few possible excuses for why it's taken you so long to respond to that e-mail from your mother — like "The universal mathematical model made me do it," or maybe "You wouldn't complain if I were Einstein."


source: Time.com

Read more!

What You Need To Know About The H1N1 Vaccine

Questions and Answers

An H1N1 Vaccine Primer

At 5 a.m. on Sept. 30, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will launch its largest vaccine giveaway in decades. Lining up for this invitation-only event will be the health departments of each of the 50 U.S. states, which are responsible for dispensing at least 251 million doses of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic-flu vaccine to health providers across the nation. The vaccines have been purchased by the Federal Government and will be given to states — and patients — gratis. It's not the usual way influenza immunizations are distributed, but nothing about this flu season is normal — from the dominance of a novel strain to the high number of cases emerging so early in fall to the creation and testing of an additional vaccine. So before you line up for your shot, here's the latest on the vaccine rollout.


When will I be able to get the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccines?

The CDC expects 3.4 million doses of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine to begin shipping on Oct. 1. Most of this first wave of vaccines will consist of the nasal-spray variety, which contains the weakened live H1N1 flu virus and is recommended for healthy people ages 2 to 49. Pregnant women, the elderly and those with chronic health conditions should get the injectable vaccine, which contains the inactive virus and is expected to be widely available within the first two weeks of October.

As the flu season progresses, five vaccinemakers will churn out 20 million additional doses each week until the government's goal of 251 million doses is reached. Every day, state health officials will collect additional vaccine requests from doctors, hospitals, retail pharmacies and other providers — 90,000 in all — and forward them to the CDC, which will distribute vaccines through McKesson, a San Francisco-based medical and pharmaceutical distribution company. McKesson has dedicated six new facilities — two in Ohio and one each in California, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas — to handling the receipt and shipment of the H1N1 vaccine, along with additional supplies such as syringes, needles and sharps-disposal kits, also provided free by the government.


Are the 2009 H1N1 vaccines safe?

Yes. On Sept. 15, the U.S. FDA approved four H1N1 vaccines — three injectable versions and one nasal spray — on the basis of early results from clinical trials involving hundreds of healthy adult volunteers that showed that the immunization was both safe and effective in activating a good immune response to H1N1. Studies with children and pregnant women are still under way, but so far both groups show no serious reactions to the vaccine.

The pandemic-flu vaccine is made the same way as the seasonal-flu shot, except with a different influenza-virus strain, so the clinical trials were not actually required for licensure — the seasonal-flu shot is not tested this way each year but is considered safe. Yet health officials wanted to be cautious; the last time the government ordered a vaccine against an H1N1 virus, in 1976, 40 million Americans received the shot, and soon after, several hundred contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare but paralyzing neurological condition.

The new vaccine has no such problems so far, and nearly 80% of all inoculated people produce enough antibodies to protect them from getting sick.


Why won't the seasonal-flu vaccine protect me against 2009 H1N1?

The regular flu vaccine does not contain the 2009 H1N1 flu strain. If the first cases of H1N1 had emerged earlier — in January or February instead of in March — then the novel flu strain might have been part of this fall's yearly flu vaccine. But because the World Health Organization (WHO) decides in February which three influenza strains to include in the next season's vaccine, it was too late to fold in H1N1.

Health officials also chose not to interrupt production of the seasonal-flu vaccine to make room for H1N1; that would have left us with no immunizations at all for the start of the flu season. This way, the seasonal vaccine was delivered on time, with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine close behind. If 2009 H1N1 continues to circulate as one of the main influenza strains this fall and winter, the WHO may decide to include it in the annual vaccine next year.


How many H1N1 flu shots will I need?

That depends on how old you are. Early trials suggest that a single dose of the H1N1 vaccine will be sufficient to protect adults and children ages 10 and older. That's good news, since health officials initially thought most people would need two doses. Now twice as many people can be vaccinated with the same number of doses purchased by the government, and people won't have to keep track of their vaccination schedules.

Children under 10, however, will need two doses of the new vaccine, 21 days apart. That's in line with current immunization practices for this age group; all children up to age 10 who are getting vaccinated for the first time against seasonal flu also receive two doses. That's because young immune systems cannot mount as strong a response against influenza as more mature ones can, and since youngsters are less likely than adults to have been previously exposed to influenza, they don't benefit from residual immunity against the virus.

This means some children will need four doses of influenza vaccine this year — two for seasonal flu and two for H1N1.


There are two types of the H1N1 and seasonal vaccines. Can I mix and match?

Both the seasonal and the H1N1 vaccines come in two varieties — an injectable form and a nasal spray, FluMist. Ideally, anyone needing two doses of either the seasonal or the H1N1 vaccine should stick to the same form of inoculation — the shot or the spray.

But if that's not possible, it's O.K. to mix and match. Children younger than 10, for example — who need two doses of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine — can get one FluMist and one injectable dose.

Only one combination is not recommended. If you need to get the seasonal and 2009 H1N1 vaccines at the same time, don't get FluMist for both. "It's a question of how the immune system deals with a live virus," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "It's better not to push two live-virus vaccines at the same time."

Again, pregnant women, anyone under 2 or over 49 and those with an underlying condition like heart disease, asthma or a compromised immune system should not get the spray vaccine. But the injectable version, made from the killed influenza virus, is approved for everyone 6 months old and up.


Where can I get the 2009 H1N1 vaccine?

The new vaccine should be available wherever the seasonal vaccine is traditionally administered — doctors' offices, hospitals, public-health clinics, workplaces and retail clinics.

In addition, the H1N1 vaccine will be available at some unconventional locations, including pharmacies (pharmacists in 49 states are allowed to administer flu shots) and schools. That's because health officials not only want to immunize as many people in as short a period as possible but also want to target school-age children first. (Other priority groups for vaccination include health-care workers, pregnant women and caretakers of children under 6 months.) In New York City, for example, which had one of the country's highest rates of 2009 H1N1 last spring, each public and private elementary school will serve as a vaccination center and will hold two rounds of immunizations, spaced four weeks apart, to ensure that children needing two doses of vaccine receive their complete schedule of shots — with parental consent.



source: Time.com

Read more!

Want to Lose Weight? Avoid Skinny Overeaters

If you're looking to lose weight, here's a simple tip: don't dine with the skinny dude who stuffs his face. According to a study that will appear in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and the consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should steer clear of eating with heavier people who order large portions, it's the beanpoles with the big appetites you really need to avoid. "They're big trouble," says Gavan Fitzsimons, a marketing professor at Duke's Fuqua School of Business and one of the study's co-authors.

To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited to a lab ostensibly to participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack of either M&M's or granola. Another "participant," who was actually an actor hired by the research team, grabbed her food first, in full view of the subjects at the snack line. In her natural state, the phony participant weighed 105 lb. and wore a size 0. But in about half the cases, she wore a prosthetic designed by an Academy Award–winning costume studio. The fat suit increased her weight to 180 lb. and puffed her clothes to a size 16.

Both the fat and the skinny versions of the actor scooped five tablespoons of food (approximately 71 g of granola or 108 g of M&M's) onto a plate. That's a heap. The subjects followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have had they eaten alone. However, the subjects took significantly higher portions when the actor was thin. During the movie — a five-minute clip from the Will Smith film I, Robot — they also ate significantly more if the actor was skinny. "It's our intuition sometimes that you don't want to eat with big people because you're afraid you'll eat more," says Fitzsimons. "In fact, the opposite is true."

What happens when a thin person takes a small portion? Again, we tend to mimic those around us. For the second test, in one scenario the actor took two pieces of small candy from a set of snack bowls. In the other scenario, she took 30 pieces. Under the lots-of-food condition, the results mimicked the first test: subjects grabbed and ate significantly more candy when the actor was thin. Under the little-food condition, the subjects took the lead of the actor and restrained their candy consumption. However, in this scenario it was the obese lunch date who posed a threat: the subjects ate more if the actor was wearing a fat suit.

Each of these tests illustrates the psychological trait known as anchoring. Humans tend to latch on to one specific piece of information when making decisions, in this case the habits of the actor. The social environment is extremely influential. If this fellow study subject is going to take an above-average number of M&M's, so will I. Call it the "I'll have what she's having" effect.

However, we adjust the influence of the social environment on the basis of how we perceive the people around us. So if an obese person is helping himself to a large portion, I'll hold back a bit because, well, I see the ultimate results of his eating habits and don't want the stigma associated with being overweight. But if the thin person eats a lot, why shouldn't I follow suit? If she can gorge herself and still keep trim, why can't I?

At the same time, if a thin dining companion orders a small portion, I too will hold back because I want to mirror the habits of a body type to which many people aspire. However, if an overweight person orders light, I'll make an adjustment. Obviously, small portions aren't working for him. If tiny meals don't help you stay trim, what's the point? Get me the cheeseburger deluxe.

source: time.com

Read more!

Scientists Announce Trove of Fragile New Species in Mekong

Right now, bird-eating frogs with fangs wait for their prey in the streams of eastern Thailand. Technicolor geckos scurry up trees on the Thai-Malaysian border, and ruby-red fish — previously only found in the Ukrainian ornamental fish trade — are swimming in the rivers of Burma. These are three of the 163 species discovered by various researchers in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia last year, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced on Sept. 25.

But conservationists warn that these and other rare species around the world may not be around for long if nothing is done to stop global climate change. The Mekong region — Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and China's Yunnan province — is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rising seawaters will damage coastal areas; more powerful storms will pummel the region, and warming temperatures will transform ecosystems, the WWF says. A recent Vietnamese study estimated that if its coastal water level rises about 2.5 ft. — a not unreasonable prospect, particularly during the region's periodic storm surges — nearly one fifth of the delta in Vietnam would be submerged. With endangered species already living in shrinking areas — as little as 5% of the region's natural habitat remains — animals like the musk shrew and the Nonggang babbler would have nowhere to go. "The treasures of nature are in trouble if governments fail to agree a fair, ambitious and binding treaty that will prevent runaway climate change," said Kathrin Gutmann in a press release, the head of policy and advocacy at the WWF Global Climate Initiative.



It was not an accident that the WWF released its report three days before the world's top climate change negotiators met in Bangkok today to iron out drafts of a global climate agreement to be debated in Copenhagen this December. Ten of the remaining 15 days of negotiation before the make-or-break Copenhagen summit are in Thailand, and gridlock there could derail any chance that an enforceable, global climate change agreement gets implemented anytime soon. The executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Yvo de Boer said he expects serious progress to be made during the Bangkok meetings and promised to be ready for Copenhagen: "There will be a draft ready, no doubt about it."

While the one-day climate change summit at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22 in New York had some encouraging moments, it remains to be seen whether the solidarity expressed by U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders will trickle down to the delegates from 180 countries. The delegates' previous meeting in Bonn, Germany ended with a 200-page document with over 2,000 bracketed statements, indicating areas of disagreement. Still, de Boer is confident that last week's General Assembly meeting made it clear that countries are dedicated to making a Copenhagen agreement happen. "Leaders are telling their negotiators they should get off their backsides and get it done," de Boer said.

But others fear that an enforceable climate agreement is still a long ways off, due in no small part to the enduring differences between developed and developing countries. Wealthy countries have long wanted global emissions curbs for emerging — and growing — economies. In 1997, the U.S. Senate voted 96-0 against the Kyoto Protocol because it did not cap emissions for India and China. And while India, China and developing countries in the greater Mekong region and elsewhere have expressed a willingness to help, they also say they need financial support from wealthier countries like the U.S., still the world's biggest emitter of green house gases if given responsibility for the energy used to make imported goods, and that emissions caps at home could slow their economic growth. "When it comes to the negotiations, they are in fact slowing down; they are not going in the right direction," Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told reporters at the G20. Aree Wattana Tummakird, the director of Thailand's Office of Climate Change Coordination, hopes the industrialized countries would help poorer countries deal with the impacts of climate change, but is worried that the differences were still too much to overcome. "We need the developed countries to fulfill their commitment," she says. "We will try to achieve significant progress, but I'm not sure we can have a good outcome."

That would be bad news for a newly discovered tiger-striped pit viper, which scientists expect only live on one small island off the coast of Vietnam, or the Cat Ba leopard gecko whose extraordinary colors and large, cat-like eyes suggest Roswell rather than northern Vietnam. Southeast Asia accounts for only 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but according to the Asia Development Bank, with its long coastlines and low-lying areas, it's the world's most vulnerable region to climate change. If scientists are to keep discovering strange new species in the region — and they say there are many more left to find — negotiators need to come together. Protecting both the rare species and at-risk populations in the Greater Mekong and elsewhere depends on the U.N. talks in Bangkok to smooth the way for a December agreement in Copenhagen.


source: Time.com

Read more!

How Can A Pregnant Woman Get Pregnant Again?

An Indonesian woman gave birth to a 19-pound, two-ounce baby behemoth on Sept. 24, but that's only the second weirdest pregnancy tale in September. The strangest belongs to Julia Grovenburg, a 31-year-old Arkansas woman who has a double pregnancy. No, not twins — Grovenberg became pregnant twice, two weeks apart. Isn't that supposed to be impossible?

Almost. There have only been 10 recorded cases of the phenomenon, dubbed superfetation. In Grovenburg's case, she became pregnant with a girl (whom they've decided to name Jillian) and a boy (Hudson) two weeks later. The babies have separate due dates — Jillian on Dec. 24, Hudson on Jan. 10.

Dr. Robert Atlas, chairman of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Baltimore's Mercy Hospital, says he's never encountered a case of superfetation during practice. He says such pregnancies occur both when a woman continues ovulating after becoming pregnant and when that second, fertilized egg is able to implant itself in the lining of the womb — two things that wouldn't happen in a normal pregnancy. Typically, hormonal changes prevent further ovulation and thicken the lining of the uterus to preclude a second embryo from attaching. Why did that not happen in this case? No one's really sure.

Despite the rarity of Grovenburg's case, Atlas told TIME the phenomenon shouldn't be cause for concern. Grovenburg's babies should behave much as twins do; in all likelihood the second baby will be born slightly premature when Julia goes into labor for the first time. Since the difference between the two is only two weeks, the second baby will be nearly at full term anyway. Indeed, the last known case of superfetation had a happy ending. In 2007, a British woman gave birth to a boy and a girl conceived three weeks apart, with no undue complications.


source: time.com

Read more!

Why Doctors Are Giving Heroin to Heroin Addicts

Treating heroin addicts by giving them heroin might seem counterintuitive. But for some of the most hardened addicts, administering heroin in supervised clinics may just do the trick where detox and methadone have failed.

Following the lead of Switzerland and a handful of other countries, Britain recently concluded a four-year trial in which long-time addicts were given daily heroin injections as part of a treatment program to eventually wean them off the drug. Now, with results showing the trial succeeded in reducing street drug use and crime among participants, Britain could soon become only the second country in Europe to institutionalize the program. That would mean permanent, state-funded heroin clinics would be set up across the country to treat the most heavily addicted people.

"It's a less than perfect treatment, but for entrenched addicts, it gives them the first steps toward getting their life together," says John Strang, a researcher with the National Addiction Centre and King's Health Partners in London, which led the partially state-funded project. "Some make a virtually complete recovery, but others, we get them from a bad place to a less bad place."

In the trial, which was conducted in the cities of London, Darlington and Brighton, researchers divided the 127 participants into three groups, giving one group heroin and the other two intravenous methadone and oral methadone. Although all three groups showed improved physical and mental health thanks to the counseling and social services offered by the clinics, the heroin-using group fared much better than the others. After half a year, three-quarters had largely stopped taking street heroin. And the number of crimes committed by those in the group dropped from 1,700 in the 30 days before the program began to 547 in the first six months of the trial.

Sarah, one of the participants, says she had tried countless treatment programs in the past, but nothing had rid her of her 20-year heroin habit. "I was pretty chaotic," she says. "Most of my time was taken up by either looking for money or taking drugs." But by going to the clinic every day to inject heroin, she received help finding housing and battling her depression and had time to become a mentor for inmates being released from jail. Within the first year of the trial, Sarah had reduced her injections from twice a day to once, and she recently quit heroin altogether in favor of a mixture of morphine and methadone. She hopes to be off the drugs soon, crediting her resolve to the program's non-judgmental attitude. "It was the right decision, and it was my decision, so I feel quite stable in my recovery," she says.

Britain has long permitted doctors to prescribe heroin for a small number of hard-to-treat patients, but in the 1970s and 1980s doctors became loathe to prescribe doses high enough to actually work, fearing patients would sell them on the black market. "It was a lose-lose situation," says Strang. Then, in the early 1990s, researchers from Switzerland, which was witnessing a dizzying spike in heroin use, came knocking. "They saw what we were doing and said, 'We can do better,'" Strang says.

Among the researchers was Ambros Uchtenhagen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Zurich, who set up clinics in Switzerland where drug users injected heroin under doctor supervision and received counseling. "We found highly persistent improvement [among the patients]," says Uchtenhagen. Today, there are 23 clinics across the country that treat roughly 2,200 drug users, or about 6% of the nation's heroin addicts. The average stay is three years — a quick stint for users who average 15 years of heroin use. Less than 15% relapse into daily use. "In the beginning, without their daily chase for a fix, many of them fall into a sort of void. They get depressed: 'What did I want to do with my life? What relationships have I lost?' But step by step they get hold of their old dreams again," Uchtenhagen says.

Of course, the treatment was initially met with skepticism from the Swiss public. But last year, 68% of people backed a referendum to keep the clinics permanently state-funded, obviously convinced that the positive results showed the treatment works. The British program, too, has its critics. "What about other addicts? Will we soon be giving cocaine to cocaine addicts? Alcohol to alcoholics?" asks Mary Brett, vice-president of the nonprofit group Europe Against Drugs. "This perpetuates addicts' maintenance on the drug when the goal should always be abstinence."

Despite some opposition, though, Britain faces fewer potential roadblocks in making the treatment program permanent than other countries that have experimented with it, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. This is largely because Britain already has heroin on the books as a medication and, most crucially, because the program has strong political backing. The government has already said it would keep the clinics open provided the trial showed positive results. Paul Hayes, head of the National Treatment Agency, stressed in the Guardian this month that the clinics would only be available to a "very small proportion" of the 160,000 heroin addicts in treatment.

Sarah hopes the program's future is decided quickly so that those in her treatment group can hang on to their newfound stability. "That's the one downside about this treatment — the insecurity, knowing that it's still a trial," she says.

source: time.com

Read more!

G20 Leaders Agree, Broadly, on Climate Change

Environmental groups hoping for concrete action on climate change were left disappointed by talks at the Group of 20 summit on Friday. Although world leaders managed to forge some agreement on global warming — despite news of Iran's secret nuclear facility eclipsing most of the discussion at the Pittsburgh summit — greens said little of substance was actually achieved. "They haven't really produced anything that is relevant in terms of active progress," says Kim Carstensen, head of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Initiative. "I'm not that impressed."

The main climate question for the G20 was how to finance global carbon emission reductions, and how to help developing nations that stand to lose the most from climate change adapt to a warmer world. That latter issue is a chief sticking point for the ongoing U.N. climate negotiations, in which governments are working to produce a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the Copenhagen summit in December. While poor nations have demanded funds to help them develop sustainably and prepare for warming, rich nations have so far been slow to promise money. "Climate financing is going to be absolutely key if we're going to have a deal in Copenhagen," says Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and author who heads the climate advocacy group 350.org.

But G20 leaders put no specific numbers on the table, just a vague statement of intention that did little to clarify murky global climate negotiations: "Public and private financial resources to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries need to be scaled up urgently and substantially," the statement said. Negotiators also eliminated a section of the agreement that would have specified that funding for climate adaptation had to come in addition to existing levels of foreign aid. Instead, the G20 leaders directed their finance ministers to return to the issue later in the year — with just three months to go before Copenhagen. "You do want your finance ministries working on this," says Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But they need to be on the hook for this, or they will lose the option to carry it into Copenhagen."

Still, the summit wasn't a total loss for greens. President Barack Obama introduced the idea of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies over time, to help improve energy efficiency and "transition to a 21st-century clean energy economy." Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels would save money — the Environmental Law Institute estimated that the U.S. paid out $72 billion in subsidies between 2002 and 2008 — and correct a market that has been warped against low-carbon alternatives precisely at a time when nations are supposed to be cutting carbon. But again, specifics of a concrete plan were wanting in Obama's speech. There was no mention of a timetable, and the proposal itself has little to do with the ongoing climate negotiations. "It's a welcome initiative, but no one will underestimate the challenge that countries from the U.S. to India will face actually doing this," says Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The G20 summit ended a whirlwind week for climate news that began on Sept. 22 with a high-level U.N. summit on warming. Before "Climate Week" began, the U.S. Senate made intimations that it would not likely vote on a carbon cap-and-trade bill before the year was up, dimming the chances for a global deal at Copenhagen. But, then, China pledged to improve energy efficiency, while progress was made toward crafting a way to use global carbon markets to slow tropical deforestation. That gave environmentalists some hope. "Overall, I still feel better than I did a week ago," said Carstensen. "We had 100 leaders in the U.N. in New York come together and they actually talked about climate change in a significantly committed way. We have the door open."

The question is whether world leaders will walk through it in time. In the U.S. and elsewhere, more is being done to grapple with global warming than ever before. Tighter energy efficiency standards are being passed, nations like Japan are pledging deep emission cuts and hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on green stimulus for recovering economies. But the world is late — and time is short. "Our political method has so far failed to grapple with reality," says McKibben. "We have to understand that the negotiations aren't just between the U.S., the E.U. and China. We're trying to negotiate with chemistry and physics — and they don't negotiate."

Read more!

Kids Who Get Spanked May Have Lower IQs

The debate over spanking goes back many years, but the essential question often evades discussion: does spanking actually work? In the short term, yes. You can correct immediate misbehavior with a slap or two on the rear-end or hand. But what about the long-term impact? Can spanking lead to permanent, hidden scars on children years later?

On Friday, a sociologist from the University of New Hampshire, Murray Straus, presented a paper at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, suggesting that corporal punishment does leave a long-lasting mark — in the form of lower IQ. Straus, who is 83 and has been studying corporal punishment since 1969, found that kids who were physically punished had up to a five-point lower IQ score than kids who weren't — the more children were spanked, the lower their IQ — and that the effect could be seen not only in individual children, but across entire nations. Among 32 countries Straus studied, in those where spanking was accepted, the average IQ of the survey population was lower than in nations where spanking was rare, the researcher says.

In the U.S., Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, looked at 1,510 children — 806 kids ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9 — and found that roughly three-quarters had endured some kind of corporal punishment in the previous two weeks, according to interviews with the mothers. Researchers measured the children's IQ initially, then again four years later. Those kids who hadn't been spanked in the initial survey period scored significantly better on intelligence and achievement tests than those who had been hit. Among the 2-to-4-year-olds, the difference in IQ was five points; among the older kids, there was a 2.8-point gap. That association held after taking into account parental education, income and other environmental factors, says Straus.

So how might getting spanked on the butt actually affect the workings of the brain? Straus notes that being spanked or hit is associated with fright and stress; kids who experience that kind of trauma have a harder time focusing and learning. In another recent paper that he coauthored with Paschall, Straus writes that previous research has found that even after you control for parental education and occupation, children of parents who use corporal punishment are less likely than other kids to graduate from college.

Still, it's not clear if spanking causes lower cognitive ability or if lower cognitive ability might somehow lead to more spanking. It's quite possible that kids with poor reasoning skills misbehave more often and therefore elicit harsher punishment. "It could be that lower IQ causes parents to get exasperated and hit more," Straus says, although he notes that a recent Duke University study of low-income families found that toddlers' low mental ability did not predict an increase in spanking. (The study did find, however, that kids who were spanked at age 1 displayed more aggressive behavior by age 2, and scored lower on cognitive development tests by age 3.) "I believe the relationship [between corporal punishment and IQ] is probably bidirectional," says Straus. "There has to be something the kid is doing that's wrong that leads to corporal punishment. The problem is, when the parent does that, it seems to have counterproductive results to cognitive ability in the long term."

One problem with Straus' data is that some of the parents who tended to spank may also have been engaging in actual physical abuse of their children. Researchers define corporal punishment as physical force intended to cause pain — but not injury — for the purpose of correcting a child's behavior, not simply hurting him. Studies have shown that very few parents who use corporal punishment also beat their kids, but Straus can't rule out the possibility that his data is confounded by the presence of child abuse, which past research has shown to affect victims' development.

The preponderance of evidence points away from corporal punishment, which the European Union and the United Nations have recommended against, but the data suggest that most parents, especially those in the U.S., still spank their kids. Based on his international data, collected by surveying more than 17,000 college students in various countries, Straus found that countries with higher GDP tended to be those where corporal punishment was used less often. In the U.S., the tendency to hit also varies with income, along with geography and culture; it's most common among African-American families, Southern families, parents who were spanked as children themselves and those who identify themselves as conservative Christians.

But overall the percentage of parents who spank has been steadily declining. Straus says that in 1968, 94% of Americans told surveyors they agreed with spanking. By 2005, the proportion who said it is "sometimes O.K. to spank a child" had fallen to 72%, although most researchers believe the actual incidence of corporal punishment is higher.

The practice has its defenders, and Straus himself admits, with chagrin in his voice, that he spanked his own son. In the 1990s, the American Academy of Pediatrics underwent a bitter fight before finally declaring in 1998 that "corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects."

Sometimes spanking seems like the only way to get through to an unruly toddler. But the price for fixing his poor short-term conduct might be an even more troublesome outcome in the future.


source: time.com

Read more!

A New Recovery Center for the Woes of Warcraft

A clear-blue-eyed 19-year-old with a blond ponytail, Ben Alexander of Iowa City, tramps along a mossy trail, pops into a chicken coop he recently helped build and grins while clambering up a swinging bridge to a counseling room in a treehouse. This is therapy a la Swiss Family Robinson.

Alexander is the first patient at the newly opened ReSTART, a video-game and Internet addiction recovery program in Fall City, Wash., about 30 miles east of Seattle. It's hard to imagine Alexander, now merrily giving a tour of the woodsy facility, glued to a computer game for more than 16 hours a day, but he says, "It was pretty much all I was doing when I was in college."

Nearly a year ago, Alexander had gotten so consumed with the online fantasy game World of Warcraft that he would skip meals and forgo sleep to keep up with the action. Several times he tried unsuccessfully to wean himself off the game. On the brink of failing out of school, Alexander approached his dad for help. "I had a brief moment of clarity," he says.

Alexander's parents were supportive, and checked him into an addiction treatment center in Eastern Washington. But his fellow patients at the center were battling alcoholism, heroin addiction and other serious substance abuse problems — issues Alexander couldn't relate to. "It wasn't really working for me," he says. He left the center to try a wilderness adventure program in the Utah desert (which didn't help either), until his parents discovered ReSTART, where, for $24,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy.

The program, run by psychotherapists Cosette Dawna Rae and Hilarie Cash, is located in Rae's house, where her husband and son also reside. There's room for six patients, but during Alexander's treatment, he is the only one at the facility. He is given a regular schedule, with outdoor activities (including carpentry projects or caring for chickens and goats) plotted throughout the day, plus chores and meals. Rae says the program is designed to mimic what life will be like once patients return home — downtime is built into the routine, so people can learn to cope with boredom. Alexander spends some of that time running — when he first got to the facility, he expressed an interest in running, so Rae and Cash set him up with a local trainer, who now takes him on regular jogs. Alexander also has daily counseling sessions with Rae, where they discuss his long-term goals, and even work on a plan for a tutoring business he hopes to start. Once a week, he has a therapy session with Cash, a specialist in video game and Internet addiction..

Not every psychologist would agree that Internet or video-game dependency is a legitimately diagnosable problem. Some suggest that pathological game-playing or Internet surfing is not an addiction per se, but a symptom of a deeper issue, such as depression or anxiety. But Cash believes the virtual world can be no less addicting than other activities, such as gambling. She describes her first patient who exhibited signs of compulsion: He had come to her in a moment of crisis 15 years ago — having discovered a text-only role-playing computer game that was conceptually similar to Dungeons and Dragons, he had begun dedicating nearly all of his time to the game. He got fired from his job at nearby Microsoft, and his marriage was falling to pieces. Cash realized he was showing the classical signs of addiction. "I was so intrigued," says the co-author of the recent book Video Games and Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control. "That was what started me on my path."

Since then, Cash has focused her practice on video-game and Internet addiction, treating patients who use their electronic media so obsessively that they stop sleeping and eating properly, ruin relationships with loved ones, suffer repetitive use injuries such as eye strain and carpal tunnel syndrome, and develop depression and anxiety, among other things. Cash's private practice is located in Redmond, Wash., the home of Microsoft — not an entirely surprising hub of compulsive Internet and video-game use, she says. Indeed, the Seattle-Tacoma area is the nation's 13th largest media market, and has the highest level of Internet use in the country; according to a recent study, more than 45% of adults in the area regularly play video games. "There's nothing wrong with this technology," says Cash, who is careful to note that it's not the medium that is to blame, but rather, the lack of education about it. "It's all in how it's used."

Although extreme cases of Internet and video-game addiction have not been widely publicized in the U.S., it's a different story in Europe and in East Asia, where game-playing has even been linked to player death. In 2006 an in-patient addiction facility for Internet and video-game abuse was opened in Amsterdam, and there are several similar programs operating in China. Cash visited one such facility — run out of a military hospital — last November. "It was half boot-camp and half-psychotherapy," she says, theorizing that the wider recognition of the problem overseas may stem from the more public nature of gaming there, as people often rely on Internet cafes to play. In the U.S., however, most people use the Internet or have a game console in their own home, so problems of abuse may be going unnoticed.

That may continue for some time, given the lack of study on the topic. Although the term "video game addiction" appeared in the research as early as 1983 — in reference to kids getting hooked on arcade games — the scientific evidence hasn't progressed much since. Anecdotally, therapists who now specialize in video-game and Internet addiction say it's a growing and serious problem. But it will be some time before it meets the threshold for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). "The central issue is the absence of research literature on this," says Dr. Charles O'Brien, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Studies in Addiction and the current chair of the DSM-V committee to revise the manual, adding that with the backdrop of the health-care debate, now is a precarious time to introduce new disorders that will require more money to treat.

"At this point I think it's appropriate that it's not considered an official disease," says O'Brien. "We are probably going to mention it in the appendix."

source: time.com

Read more!

'Healthy' Foods That Aren't So Healthy

Think that tuna sandwich is a light lunch? Think again. The average overstuffed tuna sandwich served in a restaurant contains 700 calories and 43 grams of fat.






Organic food may be preservative and pesticide free, but that doesn't mean it's also calorie-free, said Zuckerbrot. "I mean they make organic potato chips so what does that tell you," she said.





Tuna sashimi is very healthy. A California roll or tempura roll, not so much, said Zuckerbrot. "Japanese food is inherently healthy, but when you Americanize it and start adding things like cream cheese and avocado, that's when you run into problems," she said. Tuna sashimi, for example, has about 35 calories and 1 gram of fat per ounce. But a spicy tuna roll has 290 calories and 11 grams of fat, and a tempura roll has 320 calories and 17 grams of fat. "You're better off going with tuna sashimi, miso soup (36 calories) and a salad (35 calories with a tablespoon of non-creamy ginger dressing."


"Yes the sauce is high in lycopene, but all the lycopene in the world is not going to convince me pizza is a heart-healthy food," Zuckerbrot said. "And mozzarella cheese is a good source of calcium, but it's also high in calories." An average slice of pizza sold in New York City has between 600 and 700 calories. A more traditional slice, about one-twelfth of a pie, has between 300 and 400 calories.



Regardless of whether a muffin is fat free or sugar free, they still usually have around 600 calories, according to Zuckerbrot. "It's nothing but cake in disguise, especially these double chocolate chip-type muffins," she said. "But even bran muffins, they're very dense, very high in calories. The same thing goes for scones. People think that because they're not sweet, they're healthy. But scones are full of butter."



Pretzels are low in fat and low on nutrition. "They're basically empty calories," Zuckerbrot said. "Inherently, pretzels themselves are not unhealthy, but they're basically all sugar so they'll make you hungrier and you'll gain weight as a result of over-eating."



Zuckerbrot describes protein bars as her least favorite food and said they are basically glorified candy bars. They're also often high in calories, fat and do little to satisfy a person's hunger. A better choice, said Zuckerbrot, is hitting the salad bar and grabbing lots of lettuce, artichokes and broccoli, topped with plain balsamic vinegar. For 100 to 200 calories, you get a lot more for a lot less calories.



Sure Lean Cuisine and Weight Watcher frozen entrees are fairly low in calories and convenient, but they're also highly processed and high in sodium. "I understand the convenience factor, but most of these meals have more than 600 milligrams of sodium and the portions are really small and they're not really satisfying," Zuckerbrot said. "So you eat one for dinner and then by 9:00 you're hungry again. You're better off eating a slice of whole wheat bread with some light sauce and light mozzarella or an egg white omelet with some vegetables."



The term granola may be used to describe health-conscious people, but the cereal itself is actually quite fattening. That's because granola cereals often contain oils, including high in saturated fat coconut oil, sugar, nuts and other high calorie foods.






Sure it's a heart-healthy monounsaturated oil, but it's also rich in calories and fat. "Whether it's olive oil or some other kind of oil, it still has 120 calories and 14 grams of fat per tablespoon. You're better off using a pat of butter (for bread) than dipping it in olive oil because the bread sops up the oil like a sponge. So a little bit of butter is better than a lot of olive oil," nutritionist and dietician Tanya Zuckerbrot told FOXNews.com.


source: foxnews.com

Read more!

Supersize Delivery! Woman Gives Birth to 19.2-Pound Baby

Indonesia's heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds Friday to a hospital where the boy named Akbar — or the Great in Arabic — came into the world at a record 19.2 pounds.

Akbar Risuddin was born to a diabetic mother in a 40-minute Cesarean delivery that was complicated because of his unusual weight and size, Dr. Binsar Sitanggang said.

"I'm very happy that my baby and his mother are in good health," father Muhammad Hasanuddin said Friday. "I hope I can afford to feed the baby enough, because he needs more milk than other babies."

PHOTOS: WORLD'S BIGGEST BABIES

Crowds pushed to get a peek of the extraordinary boy, who measured nearly 24 inches when he was born Monday, at the Abdul Manan hospital in the northern town of Kisaran on the island of Sumatra.

"This is fantastic," Dewi Miranti, a mother from a nearby village, said as she peered through a window with about a hundred other people. "He looks very well and is cute."

The baby's extreme weight was the result of excessive glucose from his mother during pregnancy, Dr. Sitanggang said.

"He is greedy and has a strong appetite, nursing almost nonstop," the doctor said.

The boy was the third child of Hasanuddin, 50, and mother Ani, 41, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name. His two "little" brothers weighed 11.6 pounds and 9.9 pounds at birth.

The former Indonesian record holder was a 14.7-pound baby boy born on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, in 2007.

Guinness World Records cites the heaviest baby as being born in the U.S. in 1879, weighing 23.75 pounds. However, it died 11 hours after birth. The book also cites 22.5-pound babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.


source: foxnews.com

Read more!

Don't Break the Bank: A Mom's Trick to Whiter Teeth

(CTW) -- Amidst the second worst recession in United States history, thrifty consumers are turning to the internet to take advantage of special offers.

Emily, a California school teacher and full time mother, is one such consumer. It all started about three months ago when she bought an authentic Coach pocketbook on sale for only $55 (75% off the retail price). She was determined to seek out other great offers and recently made her best find. Emily discovered a clever way of combining two different teeth whitening offers from two different companies – Dazzle White and Total White – to get results similar to that of a professional whitening done by a dentist. Rather then spending $500 at her local dentist to attain a perfect smile, she was able to do so for less than $5 by using free trial* offers she found online.

Emily: “I like to consider myself a smart shopper, always finding the best bang for my buck. My online teeth whitening discovery was without a doubt one of the best finds I made this year.”

How did Emily wind up with yellow teeth?

While my mom always told me be to be proud of who I am and what I look like, I have always been self conscious about my yellow teeth. Truthfully, I have no one to blame for this problem but myself. I smoked for 8 years, drink 2 cups of coffee a day (only way to stay awake at work), and love a glass of red wine to help me sleep at night. Furthermore, I would be lying if I said that I brushed my teeth 3 times a day every day. While I recently quit smoking and have cut back on the amount of coffee I drink, my tooth discoloration seems to be permanent. I used just about every “whitening” toothpaste and mouthwash product on the market and saw little if any improvement.

A co-worker of mine recently recommended to do some research online before making my next purchase. As an elementary school teacher with a modest salary and a sizeable mortgage, cost was a major concern. While searching the Web I found a few online teeth whitening companies giving away free trials* where you only had to pay a few dollars for shipping. I ordered two products, Dazzle White and Total White, both of which had 9/10 ratings and positive feedback from all users. After using the first product the results were noticeable, but after following with the second product I had a celebrity white smile. I’m far from a medical expert, but it appears that each product focused on DIFFERENT parts of the problem and that the second one put the whitening effect into overdrive. By using them both in a row I had absolutely unbelievable results. I can’t believe companies are practically giving these products away!

Emily: “I’m an optimist and always look for the silver lining in any situation. While this recession has negatively impacted me like everyone else, my savvy shopping skills got me the smile I always wanted.”

Online teeth whitening companies are DESPERATE for new customers and are giving away free trials* as a way to find new clients and offload excess inventory. You can and should take advantage of the downturn in the economy just like Emily.

When asked to elaborate on her discovery Emily said:

“I was impressed with the results after the first 3 days – but once I saw my teeth after a week, I was absolutely blown away… I knew I was onto something. The trick is to use TWO trial products that compliment each other TOGETHER to give yourself a whitening comparable to that of your favorite actress.”

Consumer Tips Weekly would like to thank Emily for this amazing teeth whitening tip. If you are interested in using Emily’s trick, see full articles

source: foxnews.com

Read more!

New Jersey Woman Celebrates 100th Birthday at Work

PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Astrid Thoenig got dressed, went to work and sat at her desk smiling Thursday as she slid her finger gently under the envelope flap of yet another identical birthday card. They don't make that many that say "Happy 100th."

Thoenig was interrupted by a steady stream of deliverymen bringing bouquets, chocolate-dipped strawberries and stacks of cards to the Thornton Insurance Co. in Parsippany where she's been answering phones, keeping financial records, handling payroll and typing up documents for more than 30 years.

"It's another day — it's hard to explain," Thoenig said of turning 100. "I don't feel old, and I don't think old."

Born Sept. 24, 1909, in Bloomfield, N.J., Thoenig's earliest memories start in 1918, when she witnessed something so traumatic, "it erased all memories of my childhood before that."

"I remember coming down the stairs from my bedroom and saw these two coffins in the living room: one white, for my sister, and the other for the grown person," she said, recalling how the flu pandemic of 1918 killed her father and her 10-year-old sister within hours of one another. "To see my father and sister — of all the things I can't remember — that's very vivid in my mind."

Thoenig, her remaining sister, and her mother also were infected but survived. Her mother lived until 101 and her sister, who suffered permanent hearing loss from the illness, was 95 when she died. A few years ago, scientists tracked Thoenig down and took blood samples from her as one of the few remaining survivors of the pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed an estimated 30 million to 50 million people worldwide, including thousands in New Jersey.

As Thoenig turns 100, her grandson, 43-year-old Peter Thornton, said she couldn't have picked a better era.

"If you had to pick a dramatic century to live, it has to be Astrid's," he said. "The invention of the automobile and the airplane, television and computers, the moon landing and two world wars. 1780 to 1880 would have seen changes from a musket to a rifle."

Thoenig says "thinking young" has helped her take a century's worth of technological changes in stride. The daughter of Swedish immigrants, she credits her strong constitution, a wonderful family and getting up every day to get dressed and go to work with keeping her mind sharp.

Thoenig once sewed all her own clothes and still dresses elegantly, accenting with gold jewelry, colorful glasses and a full head of blond hair that makes her look decades younger. Her strong, agile hands come from a lifetime of typing, knitting and embroidering.

Married twice — her first husband died from injuries that earned him a Purple Heart in World War II — Thoenig started working shortly after high school, and has held positions at banks, lawyer's offices and for the borough of Caldwell.

Her current job is her favorite — working alongside her son, John Thornton, and grandson Peter at the family-owned insurance company.

"I'm 67, and one of our jokes is: 'How can I retire before my mother does?'" John Thornton said. He says his mother is a meticulous worker, reviewing contracts, preparing the payroll, making sure bills are paid, and is always pleasant company.

Thoenig credits her son for giving her the job, taking her to work — although she still drove until age 98 when a botched hip operation made it difficult to get around — and always being patient.

The growing stack of birthday cards may have identical motifs, but the messages inside them each touched her in their own way. Some, sent by people she's never met, were from seniors who continue to work and are inspired by her example: "I'm at my job 37 years and still love it," someone wrote.

She took special delight in a bouquet from her dentist with the message: "This is only the beginning!"


source: foxnews.com

Read more!

Study: Teens with Own Cars Have More Crashes

(CHICAGO) — Parents beware: Giving in to teens' demands for their own cars can have dangerous consequences, new research suggests.

Teenagers with their own cars or free use of one are much more likely to get in crashes than those who share a car. And crashes are much less common among teens whose parents set clear driving safety rules.

The findings are in two studies by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and funded by State Farm Insurance Co. They were released Friday and are in the October issue of Pediatrics.

The researchers say the findings can help parents keep their kids from becoming a grim statistic: Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, killing more than 5,000 each year.

Getting a driver's license and car are often viewed as rite of passage for U.S. teens, and many parents underestimate the risks.

More than 7,000 people nationwide were killed in crashes involving teen drivers in 2007, government data show. More than 3,000 of these deaths were teen drivers, and more than 250,000 teen drivers were injured.

"With teen drivers, you have to recognize that it's a public health issue," said Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, a Phoenix pediatrician who co-wrote an American Academy of Pediatrics report on teen drivers.

The 2006 report encourages parents to highlight the seriousness of driving privileges by requiring teens to sign driving contracts promising to abide by safety rules.

The new research shows that kind of hands-on approach pays off.

"Families need to know that driving is different" from other steps toward independence,said Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston, the study's lead author. "Just at the time their teen is pulling away, they need to get back involved to spare them heartache."

The research is based on a nationally representative survey of more than 5,500 teens in grades nine through 11. Students at 68 high schools answered questionnaires in 2006.

More than 2,000 students who reported driving on their own were the focus of one study; 70 percent said they had their own cars or were the main drivers of cars they used.

Winston said it's alarming that so many kids have their own cars or feel that they have free use of one. She said that freedom can lead to "a sense of entitlement about driving" that may make them less cautious.

Among these "main" drivers, 25 percent had been involved in crashes, versus just 10 percent of teens who shared driving access. Winston said the lower crash rate doesn't reflect less driving time, but is likely due to having to ask for the car keys, which helps parents monitor their kids' driving.

Compared with teens whose parents were uninvolved, kids who said their parents set clear rules and monitored their whereabouts without being overly controlling had half as many crashes and much better driving habits.

These teens were 71 percent less likely to drive while drunk and 30 percent less likely to use a cell phone while driving than kids with uninvolved parents.

Dr. Niranjan Karnik, a University of Chicago specialist in adolescent mental health, said the research underscores the importance of appropriate parenting and widely enacted graduated licensing laws for teens.

Debby Hendricks of Hatfield, Pa. made her daughters wait until age 17 to get their licenses, and gave them lots of driving practice beforehand.

The girls, aged 17 and 19, also share a family car, and can't "just grab the keys and leave" without saying where they're going and with whom, Hendricks said.

So far so good — neither girl has been in an accident, although the younger one, Leslie, has only had her license for a few months.

Leslie considers herself a safe driver, but adds, "I probably do underestimate the risks."


source: time.com

Read more!

Ahead of Schedule, H1N1 Flu Season Arrives in the U.S.

On the edge of the Western plains, in Spokane, Wash., the reports of significant student sickness started coming in this week. By Thursday morning, nine of the area's roughly 300 schools were reporting absentee rates in excess of 10%. H1N1 had arrived with the end of summer, just as expected.

"This would be comparable to what we would see in a moderate flu season in January or February," says Mark Springer, the Spokane Regional Health District's epidemiologist. "This is just a snapshot in time. We would anticipate increases."

Across the country, the pattern is much the same. This year's novel flu virus is hitting much sooner than normal, long before cold weather forces people inside, where viruses like to fester, and weeks before the official start of flu season on Oct. 4. The virus has been gobbling geographic terrain in recent weeks, with 26 states reporting widespread flu illness on Sept. 19, up from 21 states a week earlier and just four states at the beginning of August.

The good news is that hospitalizations remain an exception for those getting the flu, and deaths of children have been relatively rare — with two or three pediatric deaths being reported each week, below the threshold of a full-blown epidemic. Over the past year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has received reports of 117 influenza-related deaths of children, of which 25 occurred in children younger than age 2 and 35 occurred in children ages 5 to 11.

"Flu season is definitely here," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, a CDC assistant surgeon general who is helping to coordinate the response. "We don't know when it is going to peak or how many waves there will be."

But Schuchat and other government officials are getting closer to putting a better solution in place. As Schuchat made clear on Sept. 24 in a briefing at the White House, the flu vaccine is set to arrive in the next few weeks, sparking a national vaccination campaign that will be run by state and local governments. Early tests on the vaccine have been promising: there are no red flags about safety, and studies suggest that many Americans will be able to build up sufficient flu resistance with just one dose, instead of the two or three doses that were initially predicted.

About 40 million doses of the vaccine should be ready by mid-October, with an additional 10 to 20 million doses added each week through the end of the year. The 2009 H1N1 vaccine will be free, with public distribution in most areas. Among those the government has prioritized for the voluntary vaccine: all school-age children, pregnant women, caretakers of young babies and people with chronic health conditions that could weaken their immune systems. In Spokane, Springer is carefully tracking the numbers to see how the illness behaves before local school children have a chance to be vaccinated and will continue to do so for a full two weeks afterward while immunized kids build up resistance to the virus. That leaves as much as a month to six weeks during which the flu can continue to spread throughout schools. "It will be interesting to see what will happen over the next month or so," Springer says.


source: time.com

Read more!