Health : Health Buzz: Shingles Vaccine Is Effective, but Underused |
| Health Buzz: Shingles Vaccine Is Effective, but Underused Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:33 AM PST Vaccine Cuts Seniors' Shingles Risk by 55 Percent A little-known shingles vaccine can prevent tens of thousands of cases of the painful, blistering condition each year, but only reaches roughly 11 percent of those who could benefit, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers reviewed the medical records of more than 300,000 seniors and found that the rate of shingles was 55 percent lower among those who received the herpes zoster vaccine, compared to those who did not. Shingles, a rash triggered by the same virus that causes chickenpox, typically strikes at age 50 or older. About 30 percent of Americans develop the condition in their lifetime. It can cause scarring, chronic eye problems, and pain that persists even years after the rash has healed. But the vaccine, approved in 2006, costs about $200, which makes it the most expensive of all the vaccines recommended for the elderly—and not all insurance plans cover it,The Los Angeles Times reports. A School Nutrition Experiment: Junk Food Carrots Fayetteville-Manlius High School in Syracuse, N.Y.—or F-M, as everybody calls it—and Mason High School in Cincinnati are the designated launch sites for the first phase of a proposed $25 million "Eat 'Em Like Junk Food" campaign intended to give baby carrots a big bite out of vending-machine sales. Facebook and Twitter pages have been created, a video game has rolled out, and a commercial featuring a busty redhead lusting after "baby carrots, baby" is airing in both cities. But the real grab-the-customer hook is the junk-food packaging—crinkly, eye-catching, Doritos-type bags, U.S. News reports. "We want people to consider baby carrots a regular snack," Bolthouse Farms CEO Jeffrey Dunn, the force behind the campaign, told the Syracuse Post-Standard at the unveiling of F-M's carrot vending machine. Headquartered in Bakersfield, Calif., Bolthouse owns fully half of the baby carrot market. "[We] thought we'd use some of the emotional imagery the junk food industry uses and take a page out of their book." And why not? A study published in September in the journal Pediatrics found that presented with samples of graham crackers, gummy fruit snacks, and baby carrots, 50 percent of 4- to 6-year-olds said that any of the foods from a package adorned with a cartoon tasted better than the same food out of a plain package. But would the same trick work on a tougher crowd of marketing-savvy high-schoolers at my old stomping ground? [Read more: A School Nutrition Experiment: Junk Food Carrots.] 5 Kid-Friendly Foods With Iron Iron deficiency can be a real problem for children. Lack of iron can stunt brain development, permanently lower a child's IQ, and also cause anemia, which saps children's strength, writes U.S. News correspondent Nancy Shute. But efforts to improve children's iron intake by fortifying formula and cereals hasn't wiped out iron deficiency; up to 15 percent of babies and toddlers are still iron deficient. Babies between 6 and 12 months old need 11 milligrams of iron a day, and toddlers ages 1 to 3 need 7 mg of iron. To get there, the American Academy of Pediatrics has released new guidelines that recommend iron supplements for all breast-fed babies starting at four months. Breast milk, wonderful as it is, doesn't contain much iron. The pediatricians also gave a big vote of confidence to food as the best source of iron for children. Starting at six months old, babies should be chowing down on red meat, they said; bring on the sliders! In truth, there are lots of iron-rich food choices, even if baby burgers aren't on the menu. Many children's cereals are fortified with iron, and many other foods contain iron naturally. [Read more: 5 Kid-Friendly Foods With Iron.] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Health Buzz: Actor Michael Douglas Says He's Likely Kicked Throat Cancer Posted: 11 Jan 2011 12:36 PM PST Douglas is Relieved, Focused on Recovery Michael Douglas has likely beaten throat cancer—his tumor is gone and he's been "eating like a pig," he told Today show host Matt Lauer in a segment that aired Tuesday. The Oscar-winning actor—known best for his roles in Fatal Attraction, The American President, and most recently Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps—announced last August that he'd been diagnosed with a very advanced stage of the disease, Reuters reports. But less than a year later, he believes he's been cured. "I guess there's not a total euphoria. I'll probably take a couple of months of getting checked out. But it's been a wild six-month ride," the 66-year-old told Lauer. Douglas, who has two children with wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, is working to regain the 32 pounds he lost during radiation treatment and is preparing for an upcoming role as the flamboyant pianist Liberace. His full interview will air on January 23 on NBC's Dateline.
How to Get a Cheap Workout: 8 Ideas for Building a $100 Home Gym If you're unable—or simply unwilling—to pay thousands of dollars a year for membership in a fancy exercise studio, never fear. You don't need to be cashed up to get a good workout. In fact, you don't need to join a gym at all, U.S. News reported in 2009. We asked four fitness pros for their advice on putting together a home gym for $100 or less. Here's what they said. 1. Don't buy anything that's going to gather dust. "If you have $100 to spend, I'd probably tell you the same thing as if you had a million dollars to spend: Buy what you'll use," says Gene Schafer, athletic trainer and owner of Arc Athletics Sports Rehabilitation in New York. That means you shouldn't blow your budget in four payments of $24.99 each on that new whosamacallit you saw on late-night TV. Figure out what you want to accomplish (Lose fat? Tone up? Learn yoga?) and what will help you do that, says Michael Feigin, a trainer, nutritionist, and co-owner of the Fitness Guru facility in Brooklyn, N.Y. [Read more: How to Get a Cheap Workout: 8 Ideas for Building a $100 Home Gym]
7 Mistaken Beliefs That Prevent Weight Loss Nutritionists are often unimpressed by studies showing that a given diet works for weight loss. After all, if you stick to a diet that restricts calories, you're going to drop pounds in the short term. The hard part is keeping it off, and that's where diets fail, U.S. News reported in 2009. Judith Beck, director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, says that's not surprising, given that so many people haven't been taught the mental skills necessary to sustain changes in their eating and exercise habits. In The Complete Beck Diet for Life, she applies the tenets of cognitive therapy to weight loss. (She also offers an eating plan for the initial stages of the program because reader feedback after her previous book indicated that people need help in figuring out what they should be eating.) Cognitive therapy focuses on solving the problem in the here and now rather than delving into the past to understand its roots. The premise is that people have incorrect thoughts and beliefs that need to be altered in order to eliminate the problem—be it depression, addiction, or in this case, overeating. Two smallish Swedish studies have suggested that cognitive therapy can help people lose weight and keep it off for at least a year and a half, Beck says. [Read more: 7 Mistaken Beliefs That Prevent Weight Loss] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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