She wants you. You want her. What are you waiting for?

Men want more sex. That’s a given, up there with “beer tastes best on a porch” and “you will do no real work after 3 p.m. on Friday.”

But here’s a secret: Women want more sex, too!

Nearly half of coupled women in a recent survey—42 percent—said they were dissatisfied with the frequency of sex in their relationship. Of those, two-thirds wanted more sex. (Begging the question: Where are they, and could we be of service?)

The researchers questioned 6,000 men and women who were in relationships. More than 60 percent of the subjects had lived with their partner for 10 years, and three in four were married.

Big surprise to no one: Dissatisfied men—65 of percent of guys surveyed—were “overwhelmingly likely to desire sex more frequently,” the study’s researchers say.

If you both want more sex, then why aren’t we having it? Timing is a biggie. “We’re not good at finding the right time when both partners are not too tired or too distracted by other things,” says lead researcher Anthony Smith, Ph.D., of La Trobe University in Australia. (Dads: If that distraction is your beautiful, loving, sex-life squelching son or daughter,.)

What’s the peak time for her? After she comes back from a run. “Vigorous activities, such as jogging and spinning, release endorphins that improve her mood and relax her,” says American Council on Exercise spokesman Gregory Florez. “In the hours following 30 to 40 minutes of cardio, skin temperature is elevated and her sense of touch is heightened. It’s a great time for intimacy.” As she gets out of the shower, let her know how sexy she looks in a towel—and then remove it.

—April Daley

The product is sold in colored gelcaps with a “candy-like” appearance, the agency indicated in a press release.

“Benzonatate should be kept in a child-resistant container and stored out of reach of children,” said Carol Holquist, director of the agency’s Division of Medication Error Prevention and Analysis. “The FDA encourages healthcare professionals to talk with their patients and those caring for children about the risk of accidental ingestion or overdose.”

Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.

The product will remain on the market, but new label information will be added about risks of accidental ingestion resulting in overdose and death in children younger than 10.

Benzonatate was approved in 1958 for treatment of coughs in patients 10 and older. It is available in 100- and 200-mg dosage forms.

An FDA review of adverse event reports disclosed 31 cases of overdose in children and adults, ranging in age from 1 to 66. The overdoses involved as many as 30 gelcaps and as few as one.

Most of these appeared deliberate. However, seven were ruled accidental, all of which occurred in children younger than 10.

Five of these — all involving children younger than two — ended in death.

Cardiac arrest, coma, and convulsions were common in the overdose cases.

In preparing my fat loss courses, I was fortunate enough to attend those of other well known weight loss groups and it was interesting to listen to some of the problems that members brought up and it's a shame that they were never corrected. One in particular stood out to me.

They said….. losing weight costs too much!

They were saying how expensive strawberries were, how you could buy twelve donuts for £2 in asda, how you had to buy healthy food for your 6 daily meals and how it was easier to be fat than thin. There seems to be some confusion as to how weight is actually lost.

Losing weight should save you money! You eat less food whilst losing weight and therefore should spend less money. I feel there are two myths causing this confusion.

The first one, 'You have to eat often to keep your metabolism high' -

I won't go into the science (or lack thereof) too much here but i will say. It's not true. Eating regularly is effective for gaining muscle and weight however there isn't a lot of difference between three meals a day and six meals a day, it's all in the calorie intake. Although, studies suggest less meals per day is marginally more effective for weight loss.

The thermic effect of food is related to the amount of food eaten, not the frequency and it is still insignificant compared to the food eaten to cause the effect.

6 meals x 300kcal = 1800kcal

Is equal to

3 meals x 600kcal = 1800kcal

Count the calories like in Yr5 math class. Don't over complicate it.

The second is that 'you should eat healthy food to lose weight'

This doesn't really mean anything!
Think about it.. Some may say a cheese and tomato sandwich is healthy and pizza is not, the only difference being presentation and 25 minutes in the oven. You can lose weight eating ice cream as long as you eat less calories than you need.
The lesson to be found here is that calories are what matter in weight control, not 'healthy foods' or low carb or low fat. Calories, Calories, Calories!!

-Theo Whittington

TMW Fitness

Maybe you're trying yoga in pursuit of the reputed yoga butt. "Don't look for results the first time," says Mark Blanchard of Power Progressive Yoga in Los Angeles quite bluntly. "Muscles will get worked, calories will be burned." Patience and persistence are the keys, ladies. Also important: Remember that when you can no longer maintain the integrity of a pose, that's when it's time to come out. "You're defeating the practice if you're struggling and imbalanced, because you're trying to create symmetry in the body," Blanchard explains. Practice these posterior postures regularly for 2 weeks and then check the mirror.

Click on the blue links to see demonstrations of these poses.

Chair pose (utkatasana)
Begin standing in mountain pose (tadasana): Arms at sides, sternum lifted. Bend your knees deeply. Squeeze your inner thighs together and straighten your arms, lifting them overhead and stretching your fingertips toward the sky. Accentuate the lift in your arms and chest so your upper spine is in a slight backbend. Tuck your pelvis. "Hold that for as long as you can keep a smile on your face," Blanchard says."If the smile has left your face, you've left your yoga pose." Shoot for 10 breaths. Feel that butt-burn?

Half moon pose (ardha chandrasana)
Start in downward-facing dog pose (adho mukha svanasana). Step your right leg forward to a lunge position. Standing on that leg, with the fingertips of both hands still on the ground or a block for stability, raise your left leg behind you, parallel with the floor. Turn your torso to the sky by opening your left hip. Keeping your right fingertips where they are, raise your left arm and reach straight up so your arms form one straight line. Flex your airborne foot and stand firmly on the grounded one. Engage your leg muscles and lift—do not lock—your knee. Stay for one more breath than you think you can manage. Do the same on the other side.

Extra credit:
Sugar cane pose
In half moon (as described above) bend the knee of your lifted leg and reach back and grab the ankle. Press your bent knee away from your head, then arch your upper back slightly as you reach the crown of your head toward the foot of the bent-knee leg.

]]> Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, M.D., issued the following statement today regarding the health value of family health history and the special opportunity to share family health history during Thanksgiving –

Thanksgiving is a special time when many American families spend the holiday together. I encourage you to use this holiday to share health information with each other to develop or update your family health history.

While family health histories may seem old-fashioned, the truth is, the family health history is key to understanding your family’s unique genetic make-up and your individual disease risks.

Knowing your family health history can help you actually prevent disease, or detect diseases, such as many forms of cancer, for early treatment. The information your family health history contains can help you and your doctor determine your personal risk.  This means two things:  you can tailor your lifestyle to reduce your health risks; and you can be more carefully screened for diseases where your risk is high.

To help you create a family health history, go to https://familyhistory.hhs.gov, for “My Family Health Portrait,” a tool on the Surgeon General’s family health history website.  You can then share the document with your family and with your doctor.

Recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show that 26.7 percent of Americans are considered obese (BMI of 30 or above), although some research points to a percentage of 30 or higher. The average in the European Union is 15.5%, with five countries — United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Luxembourg, and Lithuania—having rates at 20 percent or higher. The U.K. weighed in with the highest obesity rate of 24.5%.

The report, “Health at a Glance—Europe 2010,” was published today by the EU Commission and the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). By far, the most startling finding was that one out of every two adults and one out of every seven children are overweight or obese. Additionally, health expenditure as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) in the European Union increased from 7.3% in 1998 to 8.3% in 2008.

In America, total health care costs related to obesity sits at an estimated $147 billion.The EU report quotes a recent British study which predicted a 70% increase in healthcare costs caused by the rise in obesity/overweight between 2007 and 2015. Obesity can be costly, not only personally, but on the health care system itself. Countries with socialize medicine may be hit particularly hard by this increase in obesity and weight-related medical conditions.

An analysis, "A Heavy Burden: The Individual Costs of Being Overweight and Obese in the United States," conducted by George Washington University researchers found that the annual cost of being overweight is $524 for a woman and $432 for a man, while the extra pounds that qualify a person as obese ups those costs to $4,879 for a woman and $2,646 for a man. Add in a shortened life span and the annual costs grow to $8,365 and $6,518, for women and men, respectively.

In a quote in Medical News Today, Joe Nadglowski, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Obesity Action Coalition, said, “The data demonstrate that an individual affected by obesity faces not only high medical-related costs, but also higher non-medical costs, including lost wages due to disability and premature mortality. Given the increasing obesity rates, this report underscores the critical need for a new and more aggressive approach to obesity …”

European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli, said: "In order to reverse the growing trend in obesity and other health problems in the EU we need reliable and up-to-date data to underpin the action we take as policymakers. This is where the Health at a Glance report makes such an important contribution and shall be a useful tool in the coming months and years."

Ever joke about Doritos being like crack? For some guys, that might be the truth. Food addicts show brain activation in line with bona fide addiction, according to new research in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Yale researchers tempted subjects with pictures and tastes of chocolate milkshakes while scanning their brains with MRIs. Subjects deemed food addicts according to a standardized addiction test showed brain patterns similar to substance dependence: areas that indicate craving and wanting lit up in response to the milkshake image, and areas signaling poor impulse control activated in response to the taste of it—an effect researchers didn’t see when they gave the subjects a tasteless liquid. (Strange side note: Apparently water has a taste, so the researchers used a liquid that tastes like saliva. Mmm.)

Researchers didn’t observe these patterns in healthy eaters, though.

Experts have known that areas activated by drug cravings—the hippocampus, for example—can also be turned on by food cravings in compulsive eaters. But this is the first time researchers have specifically compared healthy eaters with food addicts and looked at how they respond to temptation.

Interestingly, there wasn’t a significant difference in average BMI between the two groups, says study researcher Ashley Gearhardt, M.S., of Yale University. Gearhardt explains that healthy eaters can overeat—and pack on pounds—just like non-alcoholics can still go on a weekend bender. “And some people may eat in an addictive manner, but be able to burn off enough calories to stay lean,” she says.

What should you do if you might be a real addict? Just like an alcoholic doesn’t go hang out a bar, avoid fast food joints and advertisements for junk whenever you can. “Food addicts appear to be especially reactive to cues like food advertisements, which may result in increased craving for foods that are difficult to regulate,” Gearhardt says. “Also the inhibition part of the brain appears to go off-line once they start eating a palatable food, in much the same manner as an alcoholic having a drink.”

]]>

By Lisa Lambert and Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON |
Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:16pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge in Virginia on Monday declared a key part of President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law unconstitutional in the first major setback on an issue that will likely end up at the Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2002, backed arguments by the state of Virginia that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to start buying health insurance in 2014 or face a fine.

“This dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance — or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage — it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate,” Hudson wrote.

But he declined to invalidate the entire healthcare law, a small victory for Obama.

The administration will appeal the decision. The law is a cornerstone of Obama’s presidency, aiming to expand health insurance to cover millions of uninsured Americans while trying to curb costs.

Healthcare insurers, which include companies such as Aetna Inc and WellPoint Inc, largely opposed Obama’s reforms but say the individual mandate is critical so additional customers can offset greater industry costs.

Insurers’ shares initially rose on the ruling before later tapering off as investors saw continuing uncertainty as the case continues. The ruling did signal that changes to the bill rather than a full overhaul are more realistic.

Shares of the SP Managed Care Health Index were up 0.6 percent in afternoon trading while the overall SP index was up 0.4 percent.

“Investors are taking this in stride knowing this is probably going to come down to the Supreme Court sooner or later,” said Morningstar analyst Matthew Coffina. “This really only adds to that uncertainty in terms of not really being sure if and when and how the legislation can be implemented.”

Virginia’s lawyers argued the federal government could not regulate someone for not buying a good or service under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause and could not penalize them for failing to buy health insurance.

It said the individual mandate invites “unbridled exercise of federal police powers.”

The White House said the law will ultimately be upheld by the legal system. It could take more than a year for the case to get to the Supreme Court.

Officials said the administration will continue implementing the rest of the law while it works through the legal questions of the individual mandate. Virginia had requested an injunction to block implementation of the entire law, but Hudson did not grant it.

FIRST MAJOR OBSTACLE

The decision is the first finding against the law, was passed in March and aimed at overhauling the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system.

WOMEN SWEAT

Any woman who’s ever reached for a glass of wine on a date only to reveal the soaked underarms of her outfit has probably wished she could remove her sweat glands. But long before pit stains became a social obstacle, perspiring was crucial to survival. "Sweat cooled off our ancestors in the grasslands of Africa," says anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D. "It allowed them to hunt and forage without sweltering.” But a hot climate isn’t the only thing that makes us sweat. Nerve-racking situations (e.g., a big job interview) can prompt the brain to trigger the release of stress hormones that raise your body’s temperature enough to warrant a cooldown.

The Basic Biology
Bodily functions such as digestion and muscle movements generate heat, and we perspire constantly to keep things chilled. So while you're busy patting down your sweat 'stache, your system is on AC overdrive, sending and fielding a complex network of cooldown codes. Here's what's happening in your body:

1. In response to scorching temps or frazzled nerves, your brain fires a sweat signal down your spinal cord, triggering the release of a chemical called acetylcholine.

2. The acetylcholine shoots from your spinal cord into thousands of nerves that travel to your legs, arms, chest, face, and back.

3. The acetylcholine arrives at your 4 million eccrine glands (wedged between your fat and skin layers) and prompts them to start filtering fluid from your bloodstream to produce sweat.

4. Your eccrine glands then pump out the stuff—99 percent water, 1 percent salt—through your skin's millions of pores.

5. The released sweat helps regulate your core temperature, much like splashing yourself with cold water helps you cool off. Most sweat starts to evaporate immediately, but if your glands are working overtime, it'll pool up on your skin. Or, if you’re dressed, it’ll seep into your clothes.

Ways to Stay Dry
Even people who think they're as dry as a desert are constantly losing water, says Dee Anna Glaser, M.D., a professor of dermatology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. "Just the act of breathing makes us sweat." On average, we perspire enough each day to fill a shot glass (1.5 ounces), and that's before working out or otherwise exerting ourselves. Because the highest concentrations of sweat glands are in our armpits, forehead, soles, palms, and scalp, those tend to be our dampest parts. If you're a real drippy mess, you can thank Mom and Dad; DNA regulates the actual amount we sweat, says Glaser.

When researchers at the magazine sent 42 samples of leading-brand tuna products to a lab, they found trace amounts of mercury in every single can. Now this metal is particularly dangerous for developing fetuses and children, but larger doses could cause neurological or heart problems to even a full-grown man. (Case in point: Jeremy Piven claimed he had mercury poisoning from eating too much sushi.)

In fact, the mercury levels in the tuna ranged from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million (ppm). And while all of the samples still fell within the Food and Drug Administration’s limit of 1 ppm for what can be stocked in stores, many exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s more stringent 0.5 ppm safety level.

Why the disparity? Well, the jury is still out on how much mercury is truly harmless. It also depends on a person’s weight and ability to break down the metal before it builds up in the tissues. Your body processes mercury, but can only handle so much at a time.

And while Consumer Reports didn’t report which brand names had the most mercury, they did find a pattern: On average, white (or albacore) varieties contained far higher levels of mercury than the “light” tuna; 0.427 ppm versus 0.071 ppm.

“White tuna are larger fish, higher up in the food chain, so they accumulate more mercury,” explains Shawn Gerstenberger, Ph.D., chair of the environmental and occupational health department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose separate research has also warned of the widespread presence of mercury in canned tuna.

You see, mercury is present in both the environment (like volcanoes) and man-made sources (like coal-fired power plants). When these factories and natural structures release mercury, it falls from the air into streams and oceans, where it’s converted into a particularly toxic form of itself, methylmercury. From here, it’s absorbed by both fish. But the fish that are the biggest, and who have the longest lives, tend to absorb the most of it. That’s partly because they eat the smaller fish that have also absorbed mercury of their own.

But Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., Director of Technical Policy at Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, points to her group’s earlier work which found that mercury levels in about 6 percent of light tuna samples spiked at least as high as white. She and her colleagues suggest that pregnant women steer clear of tuna altogether.

So how much tuna should you eat? The organization recommends that adult men stop at 5 ounces of white or 14.5 ounces of light tuna a week, based on a mercury concentration of 0.5 ppm. (A typical can of tuna contains 5 or 6 ounces, including liquid.) To get a more personalized estimate that accounts for your weight, you can try the Environmental Working Group’s online calculator.

“Just use a little common sense and don’t eat excessive amounts of tuna. Keep your diet diverse and switch species,” notes Gerstenberger, who suggests that salmon is a good low-mercury alternative.