From NBC News

ATLANTA – The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.

A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite.

“It is a vindication,” said Abby Bloch of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation, a philanthropy group that honors the Atkins’ diet’s creator and was the study’s main funder.

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From NBC News

NEW YORK – Several big fast food chains say they have finally begun obeying a new rule requiring some New York City restaurants to post calorie counts right on the menu.

Burger King and McDonalds were among the chains that began changing their menu boards Friday after months of resistance.

A city health department rule requiring the switch has been in effect since May, but legal action delayed enforcement until now.

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From ABC News

By Loren Chidoni

When you’re squeezing into last year’s tankini, the dessert end of the freezer aisle seems taboo. But what would summer be without Popsicles and fro-yo? Sucky, that’s what.

To find frosty goodies that won’t test the limits of Lycra, we sampled 27 kinds. The result: these eight amazing, guilt-free indulgences–and one mother of an ice-cream headache.

Best For 100 Cals

Klondike Slim-a-Bear sandwiches

100 calories each, $4.30/box of 6

These creamy-on-the-inside sandwiches are the poster child for portion control: we could devour one without guilty urges to rip into a second or third.

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From ABC News
By Scott Michels

Cosmetics giant L’Oreal USA sold products overseas containing potentially carcinogenic chemicals, falsely advertised products containing animal-derived ingredients as “100 percent vegan,” and failed to comply with regulatory laws, according to a lawsuit filed by the company’s former regulatory affairs director.
Jerome Chevallier claims he was fired after he complained to his superiors about allegedly unlawful activities. He says the company sold Maybelline products in South America that contain carcinogenic chemicals, and that company management deleted formulae — for products allegedly containing illegal levels of a preservative — from internal computers, to avoid scrutiny from company regulators.

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From CNN News

By Elizabeth Cohen

I thought my husband was crazy.

When our 2-year-old daughter had hernia surgery, he insisted on seeing the surgeon minutes before to remind him that the hernia was on her right side, not her left.

The nurses weren’t happy; it wasn’t protocol to have the surgeon meet with parents immediately before a procedure.

“Maybe this is overkill,” I said to my husband. “He knows what side the hernia’s on. He’s already seen her twice in his office. Plus, we’ve told the pre-op nurses 10 times it’s on the right side.”

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From CNN News

By Elizabeth Landau

Teen pregnancies rose in the United States for the first time since 1991, the National Institutes of Health reported Friday.

The new data also show that eighth-graders smoke less, according to the report “America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2008.”

The report comes after a spate of high-profile teen pregnancies: that of 17-year-old TV star Jamie Lynn Spears, who recently gave birth to a daughter, as well as the pregnancies of numerous students at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts.

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From msnbcnews.com

By Denise Schipani

You’ve yet to hear a single tick-tock, but lurking beneath your killer abs is a biological clock that will start buzzing eventually — and you can only hit the snooze button so many times.

So what do you do if you’re not ready to push out a baby right this second but think you’ll want to become a mom someday?

Luckily, fertility isn’t a total crapshoot. And though you can’t put off pregnancy indefinitely (despite exceptions like Marcia Cross, your odds of conceiving drop substantially after age 35), there’s plenty you can do to help keep your body in peak baby-making form.

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From msnbcnews.com
By Camille Noe Pagan

Has your mom been trying to pry open your personal life ever since your junior high days? It’s time to turn the tables, because when it comes to your health, the woman who birthed you, bathed you, and burped you is the closest thing you have to a crystal ball. We all appreciate the lovelier physical traits we’ve inherited, from a set of perfectly straight, white choppers to a NASCAR-worthy metabolism, but it’s important to take stock of the health problems she may have passed down along with them. Asking her these questions could clue you in to your possible future, and help you give inherited health risks the boot.

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From abcnews.com

By Will Dunham

Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

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From abcnews.com

By Nick schierin

In this country, in this city, in this hospital, where the danger has driven the doctors away, Mohammad Rashid is as much patient as psychiatrist.

“It takes more than two hours daily to come from my place to the hospital. And the road, I see many scenes, I face many confrontations with the guards, with the American soldiers,” says Rashid, one of four psychiatrists practicing at Baghdad’s Ibn Rushid hospital. “I have the same worries about my children when they go to their school — I call my wife three or four times daily just to reassure that they came back safely. So it’s not easy. We are fighting. We are fighting to live.”

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From Wall Street Journal

From Yahoo Health

One of the best things about summer: My boots go to the back of my closet, and my sandals come front and center. The only tiny snag: That means I need regular pedicures. The idea of having my feet pampered for an hour is lovely, I admit. But let’s be serious, finding an extra hour every weekend can be tough.

Luckily, I’ve learned a couple of ways to stretch the time between salon visits:

1. Exfoliate regularly.
The thickest skin on your body is on your heels, which is why lightweight body lotions sit on top of your callused soles rather than sink in. You have to exfoliate to remove that tough, none-too-pretty skin. I find that glycolic peel pads and serums (yes, the same ones made for your face) work really well. Afterward, apply moisturizer—the thick-as-frosting kind, not the light-as-air kind.

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From Yahoo Health

By Lucy Danziger

The way to shape up fast is no secret. Weight training will sculpt and build lean muscle, which (unlike fat) burns calories on its own; cardio (brisk walking, biking, jogging, etc.) will shed the fat hiding those defined muscles. I’m a cardio fan from way back (I love how it feels to get my heart rate up), but who wants to slog away on a treadmill in a dull gym, going nowhere fast (or slow, as the case may be)? Not me! Especially when you can spend less time and get better results.

The secret is intervals. Study subjects who spent just 20 minutes mixing sprints with jogging lost three times the fat off their legs and butt in 15 weeks, compared to those who jogged steadily for 40 minutes, research from the University of New South Wales in Sydney finds. Intervals may spark fat-mobilizing hormones, and they amp your cardio capacity so your future runs will actually feel easier.

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From MSNBC

By Brian Alexander

In 1931, Dr. Paul Niehans opened Clinic La Prairie in Clarens, Switzerland. There he experimented with something he called “cellular therapy.” By injecting human patients with the living cells of fetal sheep, he promised, people could be rejuvenated, their body’s tissues literally made young again.

La Prairie quickly gained an elite clientele. Actress Gloria Swanson, the King of Morocco, Saudi Arabia’s founder King Ibn Saud, Pope Pius XII and many wealthy Americans and Europeans flocked to Clarens for the treatments, buying into one of the most ancient hopes of man — restored youth. Niehans had joined a long line of would-be saviors who came before and after. Some transplanted monkey, dog or goat testicles into men, or their ovaries into women. Others touted various elixirs, like one called Gerovital, popular in the 1950s. In the 1980s and early 1990s, hopes were placed on dietary supplements like beta-carotene, often in massive amounts. Nothing worked.

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From msnbc.om
By Jacqueline Stenson

The turning point happened last summer when Sherrie Boughter’s son came to her in tears about his weight — at 8 years old, he tipped the scales at 184 pounds.

“I weigh more than Rey Mysterio,” the professional wrestler, Justin told his mom. “You have to help me! You have to help me!” he pleaded.

“We sat and cried for an hour,” remembers Boughter, 41, who lives in Medina, Ohio.

She and her husband, Brian, sought help from the Akron Children’s Hospital Future Fitness Clinic, where she says the staff didn’t beat around the bush. While Justin didn’t have full-blown diabetes, which runs in the family, he had brown patches on the back of his neck that can be a warning sign of the disease.

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