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We have to hand it to Kim K: she's going out swinging on the maternity style front. The LWD is a hit this spring, and damn if we DON'T see the mummy-to-be modelling her favourite frock.
Kim Kardashian Is Not Fat: She's Human
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Maintenance Account Settings
When I joined CC I initially had myself at the light activity level. Even at 288 pounds I was reasonably active. I just ate way more than I ever could have ever burned off. When I changed my settings to maintenance I reviewed the activity levels and now it seems that I'm a lot more at the moderate activity level, but changing to that added about 200 calories to the daily allowance which was a little over 2500.
Reviewing my intake/burn history and just my "gut" feeling told me that my maintenance calorie intake should be closer to 2300. Changing my activity level back to light put it at just a little over 2300.
I think the lesson here is that your body and mind will tell you where you need to be and that the activity level settings are more of a guide. I would recommend erring on the conservative side.
Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss Everdeen in new The Hunger Games: Catching Fire poster
Another day, another awesome image of Jennifer Lawrence, this time reprising her role as The Hunger Games star Katniss Everdeen for a new Catching Fire teaser poster. Check her out totally owning that large bit of rock. She rules.
J-LAW'S BEST EVER QUOTES
'Three Parent IVF' Technique Set for Approval
By Peter Russell
WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Sheena Meredith, MD
WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Sheena Meredith, MD
June 28, 2013 -- The U.K. could become the first country to approve a cutting-edge in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique to prevent babies from being born with certain rare, crippling genetic disorders.
The technique produces embryos containing DNA from three people to help prevent serious mitochondrial diseases that are passed on from mother to child.The government will publish proposed regulations later this year.
What are mitochondrial diseases and how does this controversial IVF technique work? Read our FAQ.
Mitochondria are parts of cells. They make energy that cells in our bodies need in order to function. They are sometimes referred to as the cell's "batteries." They are passed from mother to baby.
When babies are born with defective mitochondria, they can develop serious health problems, such as heart and liver disease and respiratory problems. It can even lead to death in infants.
One in 6,500 babies is born with mitochondrial disorder.
The technique involves transferring genetic material from the nucleus of an egg or embryo from a woman carrying a mitochondrial disease into an egg or embryo from a healthy donor that has had its nuclear DNA removed. This means the resulting embryo will have the affected mother’s nuclear DNA but will not inherit the mitochondrial disease, allowing a woman carrying defective mitochondria to have healthy children.
The resulting embryo has the nuclear DNA of the mother and father, but the mitochondrial DNA of the donor -- which explains the label "three-parent" IVF treatment.
The government in the U.K. says a public consultation found there was general support among U.K. citizens for mitochondria replacement, subject to strict safeguards and careful regulation.
The technique could save around 10 lives each year, the government says.
Sally Davies, the government's chief medical officer, says in a statement: "It’s only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can."
Proposed regulations will be published later this year and put out for further public consultation.
These regulations will set out strict safeguards covering when and how the technique can be used.
Cellphone Calls During Blood Pressure Readings May Skew Results
Interruption can cause spike in systolic pressure, study found
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- New Italian research offers some cautionary advice for patients with high blood pressure: The next time you take a blood pressure reading, turn off your cellphone.
The reason: Answering a cellphone call during a reading may cause a temporary but significant spike in blood pressure, rendering the results inaccurate and misleading.
"The cellular phone has burst into our everyday life, and is often an indispensable communication tool for business and social relations," said study author Dr. Giuseppe Crippa, head of the hypertension unit at Guglielmo da Saliceto Hospital in Piacenza, Italy. "[Now] we know that the radio-frequency field generated by mobile phones does not affect blood pressure, and should not increase blood pressure in subjects suffering from hypertension.
"But what is the effect of the noise generated by the phone ringing and of the intrusion into our life of an unscheduled phone conversation?" Crippa asked. "In our study, we have shown that blood pressure, particularly systolic blood pressure, increases quickly and significantly in this situation."
The study authors said one in three Americans (and 1 billion people worldwide) currently struggles with high blood pressure.
Those grappling with keeping their high blood pressure under control often are instructed to either come in for routine readings taken by a health care professional, or to use one of many at-home monitoring kits that give patients the option of taking their own readings on a regular basis.
To explore the question of how cellphones might affect such readings, the authors focused on 49 Italian women with an average age of 53, all of whom were taking medication to control high blood pressure.
After discussing their general cellphone usage habits, all underwent two sets of multiple blood pressure readings, each set registering six readings at one-minute intervals. All the readings took place in a physician's office, where patients were left alone (in what the researchers described as a "comfortable" setting) after the first reading.
During one of the two readings, an investigator disabled caller ID and anonymously called each patient's cellphone three times, with a patient's response to at least one of the calls being deemed sufficient for testing purposes.
The result: By comparing readings taken with and without incoming calls, the team found that patients' systolic numbers (the top figure in a blood pressure reading, indicating blood pressure as the heart contracts) went up "significantly" whenever the patients answered their phones.
Patients who had indicated relatively heavy routine cellphone usage (30 or more calls per day), however, experienced a less steep rise in their systolic numbers during incoming calls. Since heavy users tended to be younger, the team theorized that a greater cellphone comfort level among younger patients may protect them from the cellphone dynamic.
Rita Ora and Calvin Harris at the Nobu Berkeley restaurant in London
Daft Punk day finally arrives… But does it live up to its astronomical hype? Plus, the latest from Maya Jane Coles, London Grammar, Laura Marling, Eddie Berman and a special Virgin Records announcement »
Read more »Cellphone Use May Reveal Your 'Dominant Brain'
People with left-brain dominance tend to listen with right ear, and vice-versa, study finds
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests the dominant side of your brain may make the call on which ear you choose to use while talking on your cellphone.
The dominant side of your brain is where your speech and language center resides. Ninety-five percent of the human population is left-brain dominant, and those people tend to be right-handed. The opposite holds true for people who are right-brain dominant. In this study, scientists found that roughly 70 percent of those surveyed held their cellphone up to the ear that was on the same side as their dominant hand.
This insight into the way people use their cellphones could one day help doctors quickly and safely locate and protect a patient's language center before beginning a potentially risky brain operation, the researchers said.
"In essence, this could be used as a poor man's Wada test," said study author Dr. Michael Seidman, director of the division of otologic/neurotologic surgery at the Henry Ford Health System in West Bloomfield, Mich. "[The Wada test] is the standard test used today to determine exactly where a surgical patient's language center is located, which is critical information to have if you want to carefully preserve a person's language abilities.
"The Wada test is, however, invasive and risky," Seidman said. "But by looking at how a person uses their cellphone, which side they listen in to, you can get shorthand insight into brain dominance. It's not a foolproof guarantee, but I would say it's a pretty reliable and safe way of going about it."
Seidman and his colleagues reported their findings in the May issue of the journal JAMA Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery.
To explore how brain dominance may relate to cellphone handling, the authors sifted through more than 700 online surveys completed by people who were members of a web-based otology (hearing) discussion group, as well as those already undergoing Wada and MRI testing for various purposes.
Respondents were asked to give information regarding their cellphone habits, favored hand for executing various tasks (such as writing, throwing and cellphone handling) and any hearing-loss issues. Any history of brain, head or neck tumors also was noted.
Ninety percent of those polled were right-handed, and 68 percent used their right ear, 25 percent used their left ear and 7 percent used both ears.
The story was similar among the left-handed people: 72 percent used their left ear, 23 percent used their right ear and 5 percent used both ears.
The team concluded that there is an association between cellphone handling habits and brain dominance, with right-ear cellphone use typically indicating left-brain dominance, and vice versa.
"We're pretty confident in our results," Seidman said. "Basically, if your speech and language centers are in the left side of the brain -- which for most people they are -- a cellphone conversation is going to sound better in your right ear."
omg- total newbie, but i just have to say...
Came across CC a few days ago and I'm hooked! All the positive feedback and supportive comments are awesome. I am addicted to scanning the news feed- it keeps me motivated! So awesome job everybody, and thank you for both the direct and indirect support!
Please feel free to share your success stories with me! They truly make my day :)
Public Funding Spurs Couples to Seek Fertility Treatment
After Quebec mandated IVF coverage, study found change in patient demographics
By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay ReporterWEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Public funding of assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, broadens the range of couples who seek treatment for infertility by attracting a more diverse population, according to new research from Canada.
When the province of Quebec began to fund up to three cycles of IVF in August 2010, researchers compared patients who sought that treatment before and after the mandate.
Afterward, "we found larger numbers of lower income, less well-educated, unemployed people seeking fertility treatment," said Phyllis Zelkowitz, director of research in the department of psychiatry and senior investigator at the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital, in Montreal.
The study is published in the May 16 New England Journal of Medicine.
For the study, Zelkowitz and her colleagues compared data on nearly 3,600 couples. Of those, 436 sought treatment before the policy change, 821 immediately after and 2,316 eight months after the policy change.
The investigators found the proportion of treated couples with college degrees declined from 68 percent to 63 percent eight months later. Unemployed couples seeking treatment rose from 3.6 percent to 11.6 percent. And the proportion of patients with household incomes of $65,000 a year or less increased from about 37 percent to more than 47 percent.
For white couples, the proportion dropped from about 67 percent to 63 percent in the eight-month period, after rising immediately after the policy change.
Zelkowitz also found the rate of couples seeking treatment for secondary infertility doubled from 14 percent to 29 percent. Secondary infertility means being unable to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term after having one or more biological children.
The mandated policy change came with stipulations, Zelkowitz said. It approved coverage for up to three treatment cycles of IVF. It mandated the transfer of only one embryo per treatment cycle, with a goal of reducing preterm births, she noted.
Preterm births are more common with multiple pregnancies and are riskier to the babies, experts agree.
"One of the goals of the funding was to reduce preterm births, and they have already done that," Zelkowitz said.
The study findings are in conflict with earlier U.S. studies, which have shown that even when patients have access to public funding for assisted reproductive technology, barriers continue to exist, including social, economic and ethnic obstacles. As a result, these earlier studies suggested, the typical patients remain older, wealthier, more-educated white couples.
In the United States, infertility affects about one of eight women of reproductive age and their partners, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Currently, 15 states have passed laws that mandate insurers to cover or offer coverage for infertility diagnosis and treatment, but some states exclude coverage for IVF.
Skinny fat
6ft male, 22 yrs old
Firstly, I don't really update my stats on here so they are not accurate.
Ok, so I've lost 6 stone over the last year, from 260 pounds to 173 where I'm at now. However, even though I am a 'healthy' weight I still have quite a lot of fat around my middle and I was thinking that continued cardio/weight loss would deal with this, but now I'm beginning to think that I could go all the way to 11 stone and still have this problem. So my question is where do I go from here to get rid of this look?
Scientists Use Cloning Technique to Produce Human Stem Cells
Breakthrough bypasses need to use cells from fertilized embryos
By EJ Mundell
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists report they've used a cloning technique to reprogram an ordinary human skin cell to become an embryonic stem cell. In turn, the new stem cell has the potential to transform into any type of cell in the body.
Besides marking a breakthrough in stem cell technology, which has the potential to one day cure a myriad of illnesses, the achievement has some concerned that scientists are moving a step closer to human cloning.
That's because the new stem cell is genetically identical to cells from the person from whom it was derived. Stem cells can differentiate into cells for all of the tissue types that the body needs, such as nerves, muscle and bone.
While Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996, and other species have been cloned since, researchers have been unable to clone a primate such as a monkey, chimpanzee or human. However, the technological advances described in the new study are such that "it's a matter of time before they produce a cloned monkey," Jose Cibelli, a cloning expert at Michigan State University who wasn't involved in the study, told the Wall Street Journal.
The new research was published online May 15 in the journal Cell, and was led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, in partnership with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).
The research involved a version of what's known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the cell's nucleus -- which contains all a person's genetic information -- is transferred into an egg cell that has had all of its DNA removed. Once the new nucleus is in place, the unfertilized egg cell proceeds to develop and produce stem cells, according to an OHSU news release.
"Stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," Mitalipov said in the news release. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."
Regenerative medicine is the term used to describe therapies where stem cells are used to regenerate tissues lost to illness or injury.
One key point in the new research: Creation of the new, functioning embryonic stem cell did not involve the use of fertilized embryos, the focus of heated debate over the past decade.
Mitalipov's team says the road to success was not easy, because human egg cells seem to be more fragile than those from other species. That meant that methods had to be tested in monkeys first, in a trial-and-error fashion, before moving to human eggs.
PTSD May Raise Heart Risks for Vietnam Vets
Study found those who suffered disorder were more likely to run into heart trouble, even after accounting for lifestyle factors
By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are much more likely to develop heart disease, a new study finds.
Researchers looked at 562 middle-aged male twins (340 identical and 222 fraternal) who were veterans of the Vietnam War, and found that nearly 23 percent of the vets with PTSD had heart disease, compared with about 9 percent of the vets without PTSD.
When the researchers compared the 234 twins where one brother had PTSD and the other did not, 22 percent of those with PTSD had heart disease, compared with nearly 13 percent of those without PTSD.
The link between PTSD and heart disease remained strong even after the researchers accounted for lifestyle factors such as smoking, drinking and physical-activity levels, as well as for mental health problems such as depression.
The study was published online June 25 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and appears in the Sept. 10 print issue of the journal. The study was partially funded by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
"This study suggests a link between PTSD and cardiovascular health," lead researcher Dr. Viola Vaccarino, a professor in the department of medicine at Emory University and chairwoman of the department of epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health, said in an institute news release.
"For example, repeated emotional triggers during everyday life in persons with PTSD could affect the heart by causing frequent increases in blood pressure, heart rate and heartbeat rhythm abnormalities that in susceptible individuals could lead to a heart attack," Vaccarino said.
"This study provides further evidence that PTSD may affect physical health," said Dr. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "Future research to clarify the mechanisms underlying the link between PTSD and heart disease in Vietnam veterans and other groups will help to guide the development of effective prevention and treatment strategies for people with these serious conditions."
PTSD affects nearly 7.7 million U.S. adults.
Rooney Mara is the face of Calvin Klein's new fragrance
Rooney Mara has been announced as the face of the new Calvin Klein fragrance, Downtown, marking the actress' first major campaign.
The 28-year-old was unveiled as Calvin Klein's poster girl today, after appearing at the brand's Cannes party last night.
We spoke to Mara at the IFP women in film party, sponsored by Calvin Klein Euphoria, in Cannes last night.
"It's difficult to pick my most 'euphoric' moment, but it was probably getting the Girl In The Dragon Tattoo role," she told us.
It was Mara's brilliant portrayal of Lisbeth Salander that has defined her career to date, and her urban, edgy beauty is the theme of her Downtown ads, shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.
"I am very excited to be included in the group of amazing women that have been featured in the iconic advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein fragrances," she told WWD.
"It's an honour to be part of a brand with such a legacy of breakthrough advertising. The Downtown fragrance holds true to the chic, confident and simple feeling of the Calvin brand. The effortless and timeless appeal of the Calvin Klein Collection and the Downtown scent made this a natural partnership."
The new scent, Downtown, named after New York's cool downtown district, is to be aimed at 25-35-year-olds with top notes of Italian cedrat, bergamot, Tunisian neroli, and green pear and a heart of pink peppercorn, violet leaf and gardenia petals.
Downtown is set to hit counters across the UK this summer.
« Back to more Celebrity Newsim trying to lose 50 pounds?
hello i'm a 15 year old female and im 5'6 1/2 and 193lbs (turning 16 in August) i want to reach my goal weight of AT LEAST 140 by December/end of the year.
have you ever lost that much of weight in that time period? how did you do it?
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