Secrets We Got Gwyneth To Spill

Just when you thought we'd shared everything Gwyneth, we have a bit more EXCLUSIVE deets on all things Paltrow. Check out her quick-fire answers to our Qs.

Thing about yourself that you'd most like to change: My ego. It's what I fight against.You know you need to workout when: I've been traveling and feel lethargic and bloated.On a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being most confident and 1 being the least, how would you rate your confidence in a bikini? For a 40-year-old, mother-of-two, I feel pretty confident. I mean, 7? 8? 9? Alright, I'll say 9. I do still have butt insecurities.Best $20 you ever spent: Pregnancy kits? If Chris wants to make you laugh, all he has to do is: Open his mouth. If you have 10 free minutes to yourself, you: check email, take a hot bath with Epsom salts or read a book. I just finished Gone Girl.

Wanna learn more about Gwyneth? Watch her behind the scenes at our April cover shoot!

--Erin Bried

Image Credit: Matt Jones

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Tots' Sleep Differences Due to Genes, Environment, Study Suggests

But parents should still try to correct bad sleep habits, expert says

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- A new study of twins suggests that genes may play a big role in how long babies and toddlers sleep at night, while environment is key during nap time.

Researchers found that among nearly 1,000 twins they followed to age 4, genes seemed to explain much of the difference among youngsters' nighttime sleep habits. In contrast, napping seemed mainly dependent on the environmental setting -- especially for toddlers and preschoolers.

So does this mean the amount of sleep your little one gets at night is out of your control?

No, said the lead researcher on the study, which was published online May 27 in the journal Pediatrics.

"[Parents] should not give up on trying to correct inadequate sleep duration or bad sleep habits early in childhood," said Evelyne Touchette, of Laval University in Quebec, Canada.

For one, the study found that environment did matter in babies' and toddlers' nighttime sleep -- and even seemed to overshadow genes by the age of 18 months.

The reasons for the findings are unclear, Touchette said. But she said it makes sense that environment would matter more at the age of 18 months versus 6 months, when the maturation of the brain may be key in infants' ability to sleep for longer stretches at night.

There's no clear explanation, though, for why genetic influences became stronger again after the age of 18 months, Touchette said.

A sleep researcher not involved in the study said it's not really possible to break down children's sleep into "nature or nurture" questions.

"Everything is a complex interaction between genes and environment," said Hawley Montgomery-Downs, an associate professor of psychology at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

It's not possible, she said, to parse out what proportion of young children's sleep duration is due to genes, and what proportion is environment.

For the study, Touchette's team followed nearly 1,000 Canadian twins whose mothers reported on their sleep habits from the ages of 6 months through 4 years. About 400 children were identical twins, which means both twins share all of the same genes; the rest were fraternal twins, who are no more genetically similar than non-twin siblings.

In general, such studies can help researchers sort out the influences of genes versus "shared environment," which could include anything from a mom's diet during pregnancy to family income.

When it came to hours slept at night, genes seemed to explain more than half of the variance among children at the ages of 30 months and 4 years. Genes were nearly as important at the age of 6 months.

The exception was the age of 18 months, when environment seemed to account for about half of the variance among the children.

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Fewer Kids Getting Hurt in Most Sports, Study Finds

However, football and soccer injuries have risen over past decade

By Carina Storrs

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- Football has been blamed for a growing number of injuries among young players in the past decade, but a new study finds that football is an exception, and injuries from most other popular sports have dropped in children.

The study compared the number of injuries in children aged between 5 and 14 that occurred in 2000, 2005 and 2010 based on a national survey of the emergency rooms of about 100 hospitals.

It focused on eight popular activities: football, basketball, baseball/softball, soccer, bicycling, roller sports such as skating, playground use and trampoline use.

The study is scheduled for presentation Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, in Chicago.

"Physicians and children's hospitals have reported an increase in injuries from pediatric sports and the number of surgeries on kids [but] there was no population-based study to see if there is a real increase," said study author Dr. Shital Parikh, an associate professor of pediatric surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

Parikh's analysis suggests that the number of acute injuries, in particular sprains and fractures, has declined over the past decade. The study does not, however, address trends in chronic wear-and-tear damage and injuries that require surgery, such as a torn ligament, and these types of injuries have probably increased, he said.

The study found a more than 13 percent decrease in the rate of injuries seen in emergency rooms between 2000 and 2005 but only a roughly 1 percent decrease between 2000 and 2010.

The rebound in the number of injuries in 2010 appears to be due largely to an increase in the injuries related to football, baseball/softball and soccer between 2005 and 2010.

Looking at the population using U.S. Census Bureau data, Parikh found that for every 1,000 children, 31.9 sustained an injury in 2000 whereas 27.6 and 31.6 did so in 2005 and 2010, respectively.

The biggest drop in injury rate was for bicycling, which saw a more than 29 percent decrease between 2000 and 2005 and a 38 percent decrease overall. During this decade, the sport went from the most dangerous to the second most dangerous.

There were also drops in roller-sport and trampoline injuries of nearly 21 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, between 2000 and 2010, and to a lesser extent, fewer injuries related to basketball.

Football injury rates, however, shot up by nearly 23 percent between 2000 and 2010, and soccer injuries rose by almost 11 percent.

Muscle and skeletal injuries, such as fractures, sprains and bruises from football and soccer rose by about 24 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Rates of these injuries declined for the other sports, except for baseball and softball, which saw a 2.5 percent increase.

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#NailArt Tuesday: Galaxy-Inspired Tips

You guys!!! I am feeling really proud right now. I've been gawking over the idea of galaxy-inspired nails for, like, months and I finally figured out how to do it on my own. And guess what? It looks AWESOME. Even though you need like five different polishes, it's a worthwhile time investment for the fabulous result. It's so pretty it makes my heart flutter. (Once a beauty girl, always a beauty girl, I guess.)

You'll need:

First, set yourself up, cause as I mentioned, this is a process. Open all the polishes almost all the way, cut your sea sponge or makeup sponges into one-inch chunks and lay out a piece of paper you can cover in polish. Oh, and pull up an awesome galaxy picture for inspiration. I used the one pictured here.

Next, do a basic mani with your dark navy polish, and let dry completely. Do NOT mess this part up for fear of a chunky polish job. [Ed. note: Shudder. - RJ]

Once your nails are dry, pour about six drops of the bright pink polish on to a piece of paper. Dab the corner of a sponge into the polish, tap off any excess lacquer on the paper, the tap the sponge on your nail to create a nebula-like shape. It'll look like weird pink tie dye at this step, but don't stress. Repeat on all ten nails.

Next, pour about six drops of the purple-mauve polish on to a piece of paper. Use a new sponge's corner to dab polish over the edges of the pink nebula. No need to be super neat here. Then repeat the dabbing again with the silvery sparkly polish. It should kind of look galaxy-ish.

Now for the finishing touch: Dip a clean sponge in your sparkly navy lacquer and cover your entire nail except for a *little* bit of the center of the "nebula" you already made. Make sure there's only a tiny bit of polish, or you'll accidentally cover all of your hard work.

At this point, you can cover with a coat of clear, sparkly polish, but I prefer a subtle-looking galaxy so I skipped that. You can also touch up any sad-looking nebulas.

Finish with a super light layer of top coat to seal everything in and viola! You're nails are out of this world -- pun intended.

RELATED LINKS:

Image Credit: via Pinterest

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Should I take extra folic acid to boost my immune system?

Posted May 28, 2013, 2:00 am

I’m a healthy woman in my 40s. Should I take extra folic acid to boost my immune system?

Folic acid is, essentially, a vitamin. We all need vitamins. Indeed, the word “vitamin” was coined to refer to a substance that was essential to human life. The natural form of folic acid, folate, occurs in some foods, including vegetables, fruits, and dried beans and peas.

Each of us is a collection of about 13 trillion cells. If our cells get sick, we get sick. If our cells get old, we get old. Folate is essential for the production and maintenance of our cells. That’s especially true during rapid periods of growth, such as pregnancy and infancy. Folate is needed to make DNA and RNA, the genetic material that dictates how our cells function, and it helps prevent mutations to DNA that may lead to diseases, including cancer.

Our immune system cells, which are white blood cells, are always in a rapid period of growth. These cells don’t live very long, so they constantly need to be replaced. Folate deficiency can cause anemia — inadequate production of red blood cells. But it doesn’t weaken the immune system sufficiently to make us more vulnerable to infections, for example.

Over the past 30 years, many studies have found that people with high blood levels of a natural substance called homocysteine are at higher risk for heart disease. One easy way to reduce homocysteine levels is by taking folic acid supplements. Studies have not shown that taking folic acid supplements protects most people from heart disease. The exception is people born with a genetic defect that causes high homocysteine levels. I’m one of them; I take folic acid every day.

For most healthy adults, the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of folate is 400 micrograms (mcg) a day. Pregnant women should take more: 600 mcg a day. The extra folate helps to reduce the risk of neural tube defects, a serious malformation of the spine, skull or brain in the baby.

Experts advise against getting more than 1,000 mcg per day of folic acid from supplements or fortified foods. You’re unlikely to suffer any ill effects even if you exceed that limit, because your body excretes excess folic acid in the urine. Still, there might be long-term health effects that we don’t yet know about.

On the other hand, there’s no health risk associated with getting plenty of naturally occurring folate from foods. Get as much of your daily requirement as you can from a healthy diet. Good food sources of folate include spinach, asparagus, rice, green peas, broccoli and great northern beans. Many breads, cereals, flours, cornmeal, pastas, rice and other grains are enriched with folic acid.

If you’re not getting enough folate from foods, take a multivitamin that contains 400 mcg of folic acid.

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Therapy as Good as Surgery for Some With Torn Knee Cartilage

Study looked at osteoarthritis patients in severe pain

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- Physical therapy is comparable to surgery in improving movement and reducing pain for some patients with knee arthritis and torn knee cartilage, new research finds.

Many middle-aged and older adults have severe knee pain due to a tear in the meniscus, a crucial support structure in the knee that is often damaged in people with knee osteoarthritis.

Each year in the United States, more than 450,000 arthroscopic surgeries are performed to treat meniscal tears, but scant data exist to help doctors determine if physical therapy or surgery is the best treatment for a patient, according to the researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Their study of 351 patients -- all over age 45 with knee pain, meniscal tear and knee osteoarthritis -- suggests that physical therapy may be equal to surgery for some patients.

Participants were randomly assigned to be treated with either arthroscopic surgery or physical therapy. When they were assessed six and 12 months later, both groups had substantial and similar improvements in movement.

The study was scheduled for presentation this week at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, in Chicago, and published online March 19 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Since both the patients who received physical therapy and those who received surgery had similar and considerable improvements in function and pain, our research shows that there is no single 'best' treatment," principal investigator Dr. Jeffrey Katz said in a hospital news release.

However, the release noted that some of the original physical therapy patients did eventually opt for surgery.

"Patients who wish to avoid surgery can be reassured that physical therapy is a reasonable option, although they should recognize that not everyone will improve with physical therapy alone. In this study, one-third of patients who received physical therapy ultimately chose to have surgery, often because they did not improve with [physical therapy]," added Katz, who is director of the Orthopedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and a professor of medicine and orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School.

One expert agreed with those conclusions.

"The article reinforces the standard that if a patient suffers a degenerative meniscal tear related to mild to moderate osteoarthritis then the first line of treatment is typically physical therapy," said Dr. Leon Popovitz, an orthopedic surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"If patients do not improve, then arthroscopy is a viable option to improve their symptoms," he added.

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!!!!Cycling!!!!

Can I count cycling with wind(I mean when wind is opposite, you know not blowing the same way as I ride.. :D I don't know english so well) as cycling uphill? It really feels the same(painful)

What do you think?

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