Damn right I’m manly. How else would I get interviewed by The Art Of Manliness? Check it out: My Interview With ArtOfManliness.com.
What the hell is Forest Bathing? To check out what Mark Sisson has to say about it, click here.
You know you are on the right path when you can tell stories like this. . . Be …
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With summer just around the corner, now is the time to start sculpting those killer abs. Waiting until your pedicured feet have hit the sidewalk in sandals when the weather is nice is too late, those slick and sculptured abs take time to pop out from under a layer of winter sins, so you are going to need at least 6 weeks to kick start those washboard abs. Here are 6 moves you are going to need to do …
]]>By Peter Russell
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Keith Barnard, MD
March 1, 2013 -- Sleeping fewer than six hours for several nights in a row affects hundreds of genes responsible for keeping us in good health, says a new study.
Research led by the U.K.'s Surrey Sleep Research Centre found that people who were subjected to sleep deprivation for a week underwent changes at a molecular level that could affect their well-being.
Sleep disorders are common in industrialized countries, with about 10% to 20% of the U.S. and European population reporting they often don’t get a good night’s sleep. Lack of sleep and disrupting the sleep-wake cycle are known to have a damaging effect on health, but the reasons behind this remain largely unexplored.
The small study involved 14 healthy men and 12 healthy women who were allowed to sleep under laboratory conditions for 5.7 hours one week and 8.5 hours another week.
After each seven-day period, researchers collected and looked at blood samples that included RNA, or ribonucleic acid, from each person. The major type of RNA is called messenger RNA, and this plays a vital role in making proteins. These samples allowed the researchers to examine what happens to the RNA in the blood, brain, and liver.
Professor Derk-Jan Dijk and his colleagues found that volunteers who got less than six hours of sleep each night over the course of a week had changes to 711 RNA genes linked to inflammation, the ability to fight disease, and stress. These changes might have an impact on obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and brain function.
The findings appear in the journal PNAS.
Professor Jim Horne from the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University says people shouldn’t be alarmed by the study results.
"The potential perils of 'sleep debt' in today’s society and the need for 'eight hours of sleep a night’ are overplayed and can cause undue concern," Horne says. "Although this important study seems to support this concern, the participants had their sleep suddenly restricted to an unusually low level, which must have been somewhat stressful."
"We must be careful not to generalize such findings to, say, habitual six-hour sleepers who are happy with their sleep,” he says. “Besides, sleep can adapt to some change, and should also be judged on its quality, not simply on its total amount."
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WebMD News from HealthDay
By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that getting screening colonoscopies may reduce the risk of developing advanced colon cancer.
In average-risk people, screening colonoscopies were associated with a 70 percent reduction in risk for new, late-stage colon cancer, including hard-to-detect cancers on the right side of the colon. Advanced colon cancer is the least curable form.
Although colonoscopy is widely used as a screening test for colon cancer, there is little research that proves it is effective in reducing colon cancer deaths, according to the study authors. The researchers wanted to answer a simple question: If you ended up with late-stage cancer, were you more or less likely to have had a screening colonoscopy as many as 10 years before the disease was discovered?
The study authors also wanted to show whether a colonoscopy is able to evaluate the entire colon, including the right side, which is harder to adequately cleanse before the test, more difficult to reach, and often has pre-cancerous areas that are tougher to spot and identify.
"Colonoscopy has the ability to identify both left- and right-sided colon cancers before they have progressed to an advanced stage," said lead study author Dr. Chyke Doubeni, associate professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
The researchers also discovered that screening sigmoidoscopy, a less costly procedure that enables a physician to look at the part of the large intestine closest to the rectum, was linked to a significant reduction in late-stage disease in most of the large intestine, but not in the right colon.
However, the study does not show that colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy is better than the much easier, far less expensive "fecal occult blood test" (FOBT), which is done at home by swiping a tiny amount of stool onto a card for three days, said Doubeni. "There is strong evidence showing the effectiveness of the [fecal occult blood test] when done annually. There is no reason, based on the knowledge we currently have, that you should switch to a colonoscopy if you're getting a FOBT every year," said Doubeni.
If simpler tests are effective, why are patients encouraged to undergo a colonoscopy? "Let me just say there are other factors beyond the evidence that are driving the use of colonoscopy in the U.S.," said Doubeni. "No other country uses colonoscopy for screening purposes as much as the United States, although Germany comes close," he noted.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that people 50 to 75 years old be screened for colon cancer in one of three ways: a home fecal occult blood test every year; a sigmoidoscopy every five years combined with a home fecal occult blood test every three years; or a colonoscopy every 10 years.
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Whether you’re pumping iron in the gym or training for a triathlon, you know that there are no fitness gains without proper recovery. Your resting state is where your muscles make their repairs, and if you’re male, your quality of sleep will affect how much testosterone you generate in your body.
How much sleep do you need? It’s debatable whether a full eight hours are required. Arnold Schwarzenegger swears you only need six and that if you think you need …
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March 1, 2013 -- A candy company is recalling some chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs because of possible salmonella contamination.
Zachary Confections, Inc., says its Zachary Chocolate-Covered Marshmallow Eggs should be thrown out or returned to the store.
The affected candy was shipped to stores in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Look for this information on the side panel of the product packaging next to the Unit UPC bar code label:
Zachary says the candy is possibly contaminated with salmonella, but it doesn't say how that might have happened. The bacteria was found during routine testing. Production is on hold until the FDA and the company finds the source.
No one has reported getting sick from the chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs. An infection caused by salmonella can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea (sometimes bloody), fever, and headache.
Get more details from the FDA.
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WebMD News from HealthDay
By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Feb. 28 (HealthDay News) -- "Sequestration" is Washington-speak for the approximately $85 billion in annual federal spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Those cuts were originally set to take effect on Jan. 1, but were delayed in the deal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and budget reductions.
But those cuts are set to kick in Friday, with spending reductions coming to a wide range of areas and programs, including health care, defense, education, air travel and agriculture.
Portions of health care and related programs would be somewhat unscathed -- for instance Medicaid, the government-run insurance program for poorer Americans, would be left untouched.
But experts point to three key areas that health-care consumers should be concerned about, not just in the days ahead but as Congressional Republicans and President Barack Obama continue to wrangle over the budget for the next fiscal year starting in October:
While the mandated budget cuts are threatening in the short run, experts said the real challenge lies down the road. For instance, the combination of an increasingly tight federal budget and the growing number of retiring baby boomers could bring the financial challenges facing Medicare -- the government-run insurance program for older Americans -- to a whole new level.
"The real issue that the public should be concerned about is, what do the president and Congress plan to do next [fiscal] year, Oct. 1? They're twiddling their thumbs right now and what we need is a functioning government," said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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