LOVE ANGELES PROJECT®

When Pain Becomes Chronic

By Karen Ravn - Millions of Americans suffer from a hurting that doesn't go away. The consequences can be devastating.

Pain. It stabs. It burns. It aches. It throbs. It gnaws at you. It knocks you for a loop. But, sooner or later, it goes away.

Unless it doesn't.

That's a nightmare come true for millions of Americans who spend every day in a world of hurt. And the problem will get only bigger. "As our demographics change, and we live longer, more people will experience chronic pain," says Dr. Lynn Webster, medical director of the Lifetree Clinical Research and Pain Clinic in Salt Lake City.

Pain is usually a symptom of something else — a scraped knee, a broken arm, appendicitis. Treating the pain makes the patient less miserable, but it's just a stopgap measure until the underlying problem is fixed and the pain goes away — the scrape heals, the bone knits back together, the appendix is removed.

With chronic pain, however, the underlying problem that started it has usually (though not always) been fixed and yet the patient is still hurting. A malfunctioning nervous system has started manufacturing pain. The pain is no longer simply a symptom. It has become a problem in its own right.

No one knows a sure-fire way to avoid chronic pain. Still, you can improve your chances by avoiding the temptation to simply tough it out when you get injured. "Luckily, if treated adequately, pain goes away in a majority of patients," says Dr. Talal Khan, a specialist in anesthesiology, pain management and pain medicine at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City. "But once chronic pain develops, it can be very hard to cure."

And then it can be devastating. "Patients are often disabled," Webster says. "They live with a tremendous amount of pain even with top-of-the-line treatment."

By definition, pain is a sensation, generally associated with tissue damage, that is experienced as unpleasant. Pain is said to be chronic if it occurs every day, for most of the day, for three months. (Some set the threshold sooner, some later.) Though precise numbers are hard to find, it's estimated that one-third or more of Americans will have a bout of chronic pain during their lifetime.

Sometimes the pain persists because the injury persists — for example, in patients with arthritis or cancer. Often, though, the pain-causing injury heals, but the pain just doesn't get the memo.

Still, even while defined by its persistence, chronic pain isn't just a longer-lasting version of acute pain.

Acute pain is actually very useful. If you stub your toe, the resulting pain sends you two messages: "Watch where you're going!" and "Don't plan on running any marathons until your toe feels better!" In general, it teaches you to avoid doing again whatever you did that caused it in the first place. And it warns you to give your injury time to heal.

Chronic pain, on the other hand, has outlived its usefulness. "It sets your body on high alert," Khan says, "even though the threat may not be there."

The physiological processes involved in acute and chronic pain are also different. You burn your finger. You stub your toe. You trip over your dog's leash and fall flat on your face. The acute pain you feel results from nature's own instant-messaging service: Your injury is converted into nerve impulses that zip off to your spinal cord and then on to your brain, the place where pain is actually perceived. The pain messages bombard your brain for a while, tapering off as your injury heals, and stopping altogether when you're all better.

In chronic pain, this standard operating procedure is subverted — the brain, in a sense, is acting too smart for its own good.

"The transition to chronic pain is similar to learning," says Dr. Richard Lipton, a neurologist and director of the Montefiore Headache Center in the Bronx, N.Y. It's great if the brain learns to ride a bike, or hit a tennis ball or solve calculus problems. Not so great if it learns to make you hurt all the time.

Unfortunately, Lipton says, "the brain gets better at whatever it practices. If it practices being in pain, it gets better at being in pain."

The process involved is called sensitization, and it can occur at two levels. In one of them, nerve endings that pick up pain messages at the injury site and send them to the spinal cord become all fired up about things that wouldn't faze them ordinarily — just the slightest touch can set them off. And the touch doesn't even have to be at the injury site. The general vicinity may be close enough.

Less often, and usually later, nerves in the central nervous system — in the spinal cord or in the brain itself — get into such a habit of sounding the pain alarm that if they no longer receive pain messages from the injury site, they start rumors all on their own.

The chronic pain process can also involve the ability of the nervous system to reorganize itself and grow new connections. This ability is vitally important in helping stroke patients recover functions and sensations they have lost. "But it perpetuates, augments, aggravates and increases pain," Webster says. "Within hours of an acute injury, we see small little nerve fibers sprouting. Sometimes they not only transmit pain and increase sensitivity, but they also begin to produce their own pain."

Free Yoga in Malibu, Plus Breakfast?

 Source: LA Times - If we had to put together a perfect weekend morning, it would probably involve some form of exercise, being outside and food. Guess we're not alone in enjoying that scenario, since this weekend Yoga on the Pier is returning, a series of free Saturday morning yoga classes on the Malibu Pier, followed by a free continental breakfast at the Beachcomber Cafe. Yes, we said free, and free.

This is the second year of the series, sponsored by radio stations KIIS-FM (102.7) and KYSR-FM (98.7), in which people at all levels of yoga -- even rank beginners -- are invited to take part in the classes, which go from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Coming back for another round of teaching is Los Angeles-based yoga instructor Lori Rischer, who does a basic vinyasa flow class with modifications for those who may have less experience.

"It's great to start your weekend this way, in one of those most beautiful places in the country, doing something healthy, and listening to great music. It's one of those experiences that feeds your soul on so many levels."

Rischer also works in radio marketing and promotion for a record label, so she knows her way around a playlist. Music is an important component of the classes, and Rischer spends a good amount of time putting together an eclectic array of tunes that flow along with the yoga: Kings of Leon, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Fabolous. "All the music I play is inspirational and encouraging," she says.

After class, students can hang out and eat and enjoy the scenery. A few practical notes: Rischer recommends bringing a yoga mat, towel, water and a light jacket or sweatshirt because the mornings can be cool. Because the classes have become so popular, a space must be reserved in advance; go to the KIIS-FM or 98.7 FM websites to sign up (other details about parking, etc. are on both sites). The series goes until Sept. 4.

"Yoga allows us to check out of the insanity of our lives," Rischer says. "When you come here, you're able to put all of that on hold, and just be in the moment. When you're on the pier and listening to the music, this allows you that chance to catch your breath."

Why Skin Cancer Is on the Rise

By Stuart Fox - For years and years now, millions of sun worshippers across the country would hit the beaches during summer to work on the perfect, golden tan. However, the advent of indoor tanning salons now allows Americans to sport a sun-kissed look year-round. And as more and more people pursue a perpetual summer-style tan, dermatologists have begun noticing a significant rise in skin cancer incidents, especially among young women.

Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, still makes up just 3 percent of all skin cancers, and results in about 8,000 deaths a year, according to the National Cancer Institute. But three factors have doctors alarmed: The rates of this cancer are rising; it has become the most common cancer for young people; and many of the cases result from the preventable, but addictive, behavior of indoor suntanning.

"In the last few decades, it's certainly been on the rise. And some people think that may be a result of behavior, and UV exposure," said Jennifer Stein, an assistant professor of dermatology at New York University's Langone Medical Center. "This is a very serious cancer, and this is a behavior that's preventable."

Tanning and cancer go hand-in-hand

Without tanning beds, soaking up the rays was limited to clear days in the summer. The invention of the tanning bed changed that, and throughout the 1990s, the rapid proliferation of tanning salons provided venues for millions of people to sunbathe regardless of weather, season, or time of day.

Since 1992, the indoor tanning industry has grown five-fold, with 28 million indoor tanners in the United States supporting a billion-dollar-a-year business, said Maria Tsoukas, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

During that same period, melanoma rates have increased by 2 percent in the general population, Stein said. Amongst young women, who make up 71 percent of tanning salon customers, incidents of melanoma have increased by 2.2 percent, Stein said. Over that time, skin cancer also became the most common form of cancer for Americans ages 25-29, a group that traditionally shows very low cancer rates, Stein said.

"We see a surprising number of young women coming in with melanoma, and a lot of them say they've used tanning beds," Stein told LiveScience.com. "By far, by far, the majority of users of indoor tanning beds are young women."

While some dermatologists believe that other factors, such as increased UV exposure resulting from the hole in the ozone layer, contribute to the rise in melanoma rates over the last 18 years, the irrefutable link between indoor tanning and melanoma makes tanning beds the prime suspect, Tsoukas said.

In a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, frequent tanning bed users proved three times more likely to develop melanoma than non-users, and subjects that used tanning beds for any amount of time showed a 74-percent higher rate of melanoma than non-users, according to research published online May 27 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

That study did not investigate the percentage of indoor tanners who developed melanoma, rather showing the difference between users and non-users.

How tanning causes cancer

Indoor and outdoor tanning can be dangerous, because the same ultraviolet radiation that provokes a tan also damages DNA. In fact, exposure to the mid-day sun can produce as many as 40,000 DNA errors an hour, said Regina Santella, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York.

The UV light causes the DNA molecule thymine to bind to adjacent thymine molecules in a manner that renders both molecules unreadable during transcriptions, Santella said. Transcription is a step in which the body reads the DNA instructions the cell will later follow. When those thymine errors occur in areas of DNA that regulate cell growth, skin cancers like melanoma can begin to develop, Santella said.

Most times, skin cells rapidly repair most of those 40,000 errors, but over time repeated errors can cause cancer or other problems.

Tanning is actually the body's response to that damage, with the darker color produced by skin adding an additional layer of protection for the DNA, Stein said. However, when the body produces the hormone that initiates tanning, it also produces a secondary molecule in the endorphin family, said Steve Feldman, a professor of dermatology at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Endorphins are chemicals that transmit feelings of pleasure and happiness. In effect, exposure to UV radiation gets tanning bed users high, Feldman said. And like any high, tanning can become addictive.

In 2005, Feldman conducted a study where he gave volunteers endorphin-blocking chemicals before they used a tanning bed. The study aimed to test whether frequent tanning salon customers would enjoy the experience as much if their bodies didn't produce endorphins. They didn't. And even before the frequent tanners used the tanning bed, they showed signs of physical addiction to tanning.

"When we started doing the experiments, the first couple volunteers got sick, and we said 'Hey, that's unexpected,'" Feldman told LiveScience. "We were putting them into withdrawal."

Tan responsibly

With studies proving that tanning bed use causes both addiction and cancer, many dermatologists have begun comparing the practice to other forms of drug abuse like drinking and cigarette smoking, Feldman said. And much like with smoking and drug abuse, doctors have told their tan-loving patients to "just say no."

"There is no point to it. Someone wants to look darker? Gimme a break. For cosmetic reasons, people risk getting a fatal cancer. To me, it's a public health hazard because it has no upside," Santella said. "Don't go to skin tanning salons. Simple as that."

Others advocate that tanning salon patrons take an approach more like drinking alcohol, with moderation and responsibility mitigating the long-term health effects, Feldman said.

"We see the cancer patients, but there are millions of people tanning, and considering the number of people doing it and not getting cancer, it's probably not the first problem we need to solve in America," Feldman said. "If a woman comes in, and I see cigarettes in her bag, I'll tell her to stop smoking before I tell her to stop tanning. Lung cancer is considerably worse."

But those approaches only tackle the physical side of tanning without getting to the root problem that drives millions of Americans, young women in particular, to engage in a behavior they often know raises their risk of a deadly disease, Stein said. To fix the social pressures behind the rise in this largely preventable cancer, America might need to refine its idea of beauty.

"I've met people who said they couldn't stop tanning. They wanted to stop, but couldn't. They liked the way it felt and they felt pressure from their friends," Stein said. "I think we really need to change that notion in this country that looking tan means looking healthy, because we know that tans are not healthy."

Brown Rice Cuts Risk for Diabetes

By KATHERINE HOBSON - Replacing as little as a third of a daily serving of white rice with an equal amount of brown rice may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, a study suggests. And replacing white rice with other types of whole grains can cut the risk even more.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health say their study is the first to look at the relationship between rice intake and diabetes in a U.S. population. The authors based their findings on diet, lifestyle and health information from three studies covering 197,228 health-care workers, 80% of them women.

They found that eating five or more servings of white rice per week was associated with a slightly higher risk of type 2 diabetes than eating less than one serving a month. Eating two or more servings a week of brown rice, however, was associated with slightly lower risk.

The researchers conclude that replacing 50 grams of cooked white rice, equivalent to about a third of a serving, with an equal amount of brown rice seems to cut the risk of type 2 diabetes by 16%. Replacing white rice with other whole grains such as whole wheat and barley appears to lower risk by an estimated 36%, the paper says. The findings were published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study didn't prove that eating brown rice cuts the risk of diabetes. And it is possible that brown rice eaters are simply healthier in other ways. But the study's lead author, Qi Sun, now an instructor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, says that researchers adjusted for factors such as physical activity, body mass index and alcohol consumption that might have skewed the results. "After we adjusted for those, you still see an association," he says.

Eating even more brown rice might bring more benefits, but because brown rice consumption was relatively low overall it wasn't possible to determine that, says Dr. Sun. Previous research found the same association in a Chinese population.

The findings are consistent with what we know about how the body processes different types of grains, says Dr. Sun. Research has shown that in general, consuming white rice sparks a bigger increase in blood glucose than does brown rice. A diet heavy on foods that produce that kind of spike in blood sugar has been linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

Some other whole grains, such as whole wheat and barley, have even smaller blood sugar effects than brown rice, which may explain the additional benefit of consuming those grains, says Dr. Sun. Brown rice may also protect against the disease "by virtue of its high content of multiple nutrients, such as fiber, vitamins and minerals, the majority of which are lost during refining and milling processes," the study says.

Dr. Sun says rice intake is increasing in the U.S., but that people are mostly eating white rice. "The message for the public is that they should try to avoid refined carbohydrates, no matter if it's [in the form of] rice or bread, and replace them with whole grains."

Joanne Slavin, professor at the University of Minnesota's department of food science and nutrition, said she doesn't think white rice is a major problem in the U.S. diet. "Most dietary guidance recommends complex carbohydrates" such as rice of any color, she says. "I'd much rather have people serving rice than a lot of other things," she says.

Broken Hearts Hurt Men More than Women

By: Shari Roan - Women may shed more tears over a busted romantic relationship, but men suffer the greater emotional toll, researchers say.

In a study of more than 1,000 men and women, ages 18 to 23, researchers found that unhappy romances cause men more emotional grief, including threatening their identity and feelings of self-worth. Young men and women express their distress at a breakup differently. Women are more likely to feel depressed after a breakup, while men are more likely to have substance-abuse problems.

Men may be more affected by a breakup because their romantic partners are their primary source of intimacy. Women, however, are more likely to have other close relationships with friends or family members to turn to for support, said the study's author, Robin Simon of Wake Forest University.

Nonmarital relationships are important to a young adult's well-being, Simon said. "However, the advantages of partner support and disadvantages of partner strain are more closely associated with men's than women's mental health," she wrote.

The study is published in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

FDA Needs Vision

Source: Reuters - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration needs more clout, money and staff to help protect the U.S. food supply, but first of all it needs a coherent vision, a panel of experts said on Tuesday.

The Institute of Medicine report is the latest in a series of outside studies showing the FDA, which polices drugs and 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, does not have enough power.

The report said FDA should be given authority to suspend food company registrations for violations that threaten the public health, and the authority to mandate recalls. The FDA usually now must coax companies into voluntarily recalling dangerous foods.

Recent high-profile outbreaks, many involving produce such as lettuce, spinach, peppers and peanuts, have killed dozens of people and prompted an uproar from consumer groups.

Congress has been working to overhaul the food safety system but legislation has been repeatedly bogged down by healthcare and regulatory reform. The House of Representatives passed food reform legislation in July. The Senate is expected to act this month.

The Obama administration organized a food safety working group last year that made recommendations for reducing foodborne illnesses, which sicken an estimated 76 million people in the United States each year and kill 5,000 according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The legislation needs to help beef up the FDA, the report recommends -- but the FDA also must develop a better system for overseeing food safety.

"Congress should consider amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide explicitly and in detail the authorities the FDA needs to fulfill its food safety mission," the report, written by 13 outside experts in food safety, regulation and the law, reads.

The committee said that while it supports increasing funding for the FDA, "simply putting more money into the food safety system as it is currently constituted, without essential reforms, would be insufficient from a public health perspective and an inefficient expenditure of resources."

FOCUS ON PREVENTION

The independent institute, which advises the federal government on issues of health and medicine, held a series of hearings to come up with the report issued on Tuesday.

"FDA uses some risk assessment and management tactics, but the agency's approach is too often reactive and lacks a systematic focus on prevention," committee chair Robert Wallace of the University of Iowa said in a statement.

Americans are eating more varieties of food, the report noted, more foods are being imported and at the same time the public is more aware of and worried about foodborne illness than in times past.

It said FDA should explore alternative approaches to regulating food safety, such as delegating food facility inspections to the states.

"The FDA should develop a comprehensive strategic plan for development and implementation of a risk-based food safety management system," the report reads.

The agency needs to evaluate how many people it really needs to do the job of overseeing a $450 billion food system that involves more than 156,000 FDA-regulated firms including suppliers, farmers, food handlers, processors, wholesalers and retailers and food service companies.

It barely gets to a fraction of these now, the report noted. "Seventy-five percent of (U.S.) seafood comes from abroad; however, the FDA inspects less than 2 percent of imported foods," it reads.

Second Hand Smoke Leads to Mental Issues

By Bruce Bower - Where there’s secondhand cigarette smoke, there’s emotional fire. As exposure to cigarette fumes increases among nonsmokers, so does their risk of developing serious psychological distress and of being hospitalized for mental ailments, a new study finds.

Cigarette smokers have been shown to have more psychological problems than nonsmokers do, and new evidence suggests that nonsmokers who inhale high levels of secondhand smoke may experience nearly as much psychological distress as smokers, say epidemiologist Mark Hamer of University College London and his colleagues. Overall, these findings support the view, largely based on animal studies, that nicotine administered in large enough doses can induce sadness and other negative moods, the researchers propose in the August Archives of General Psychiatry.

“Our data are preliminary, but there is a strong possibility that the observed association reflects a causal link,” Hamer says.

Previous research suggests that nicotine alters mood by disrupting immune responses, stress-hormone regulation and the transmission of dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain. But little is known about nicotine’s possible relationship to specific psychiatric disorders.

The link between nicotine exposure and mood held up after statistically accounting for participants’ social status, alcohol use, physical activity level, body mass index, chronic physical illness, level of psychological distress upon entering the study and previous hospitalizations for mental illness.

A related study, published in the January Psychosomatic Medicine, found an increased risk for depression symptoms among nonsmokers exposed to modest or greater levels of secondhand smoke. A team led by epidemiologist David J. Lee of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine examined data from a 2005–2006 survey of nearly 3,000 U.S. adults.

Given widespread exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke, further research on its relation to mental health is warranted, Hamer asserts. A 2006 federal report estimated that 60 percent of nonsmokers in the United States display biological signs of having ingested at least low levels of nicotine via cigarette smoke.

Despite Hamer’s new evidence, scientists cannot rule out that people who experience especially stressful home and work lives are also most likely to encounter secondhand smoke and to develop serious psychological problems, Lee remarks. One promising research direction would be to examine whether policies that ban smoking in public or on the job lead to reductions in depression, anxiety and psychiatric hospitalizations, he says.

Hamer’s team studied 5,560 nonsmokers and 2,595 smokers, with average ages in the mid- to late 40s. Participants came from a nationally representative sample in Scotland that was surveyed in 1998 and 2003 about a variety of health issues. Volunteers completed a 12-item questionnaire that measured psychological distress by inquiring about sleep problems, general levels of happiness and symptoms of depression and anxiety in the previous month.

Saliva levels of cotinine, a breakdown product of nicotine, allowed the researchers to identify nonsmokers who had experienced low, moderate or high exposure to secondhand smoke. Cotinine levels also served to confirm self-reported cigarette use.

In 1998, psychological distress affected 9 percent of nonsmokers with low secondhand smoke exposure, 11 percent of nonsmokers with moderate secondhand smoke intake and 14 percent of those who frequently breathed secondhand smoke. Psychological distress occurred in 20 percent of smokers.

Over an average follow-up period of nearly six years, 41 study participants were admitted to psychiatric hospitals, mostly for depression and substance abuse. Psychiatric cases clustered among current smokers and participants with high secondhand smoke exposure.

Prior research has found that psychotic disorders occur at elevated rates among marijuana users. It’s not clear whether marijuana smoking contributed to elevated cotinine levels and at least some mental ailments that were seen among cigarette abstainers in the new study, Hamer notes. Self-reports of marijuana use were not collected in the Scottish investigation.

7 Easy Tips To Prevent and Treat Back Pain

Source: Intent.com - As anyone who's suffered it knows, It sucks to have back pain. But it doesn't have to suck for your wallet.

Don't get me wrong; a professional back massage every once in a blue moon is worth every cent and feels A-MAAAZING!  For the rest of the time, though, practice the following 7 tips to relieve your stiff back and neck, and to practice good habits to prevent future back pains in the future.

1. Sleep with more than one pillow to support your back. To minimize future back pain, be mindful of how you sleep. You will need one pillow for your head and neck support, and depending on how you sleep, another pillow to support the bottom half of your body. If you sleep on the side, put a regular-sized pillow or body pillow between your legs. If you sleep on your back, put a small pillow beneath the small of your back. If you sleep on your abdomen, put a small pillow under your pelvis and lower abdomen. (Check out a handy slide show of these sleeping positions on MayoClinic.com) 

2. Apply heating pads to areas on your neck and back that feel particularly stiff. Heating pads can be easily found at Target, Walmart and nearly all drug stores. Applying heat to a trouble spot helps loosen the muscles and relieve the stiffness.

3. Take a hot bath with epsom salt. Add 1-2 cups of epsom salt in a tub of hot water for a luxurious self-spa treat after a long day of work. Epsom salts are cheap and can be bought at any supermarket or drug store. A hot bath will help relieve stiff muscles and probably remove some of the stress that is causing you back pain in the first place!

4. Make your own massage tool with two tennis balls and a long tube sock. Stick two tennis balls in the end of a long tube sock and tie the ends tightly. You can then sandwich the tennis balls between your back and a wall to rub them against your knots, or lie down on the floor with the tennis balls beneath you.

5. Stack books beneath your laptop so that your neck and head are level when you type. These days, I stack three fat textbooks beneath my laptop so I'm not hunching over the laptop for eight to nine hours a day, and I'm forced to maintain a proper posture.

6. Maintain good posture and employ every mental trick in the book that will help you keep up the momentum. Slouching adds extra stress to your back, which is why good posture helps prevent future back pain. Plus, good posture just makes you look better and more confident! You may be inspired to check out iPosture, an intuitive electronic device that you strap onto your body which monitors your posture and alerts you if you are slouching.

7. Have excuses to break out of your sitting pattern every at least 30-60 minutes. This is especially if you have an all-day office job in front of your computer. Drink lots of water (which you should be doing anyway!) so you have to make frequent trips to the bathroom, and do some stretches while you're at it. Go on a mini-walk during your lunch break. Practice your social skills and converse with someone who is on the other side of the room. If you work from home, take mini-breaks to take out the trash, water the houseplants, organize another room.

Bonus tip: do yoga! Oh, yes, so much easier said than done. But yoga is all about flexibility, maintaining good posture and getting your body moving--not to mention extremely stress-relieving. Totally worth the long-term investment for your back muscles, and your overall physical and mental health if you are planning on taking up a new fitness activity anytime soon. 

Loving Cancer Survivors Day

Source: Livestrong - Sunday is National Cancer Survivors Day and we want you to know that LIVESTRONG is about the people- the survivors that have fought or are fighting this disease. We are about the people affected by cancer- moms and dads, husbands and wives, siblings and grandparents and friends. Who do you know that has been affected by cancer? Who has beaten this disease? Who has passed away after a hard battle? The more we talk about cancer, the more we realize that we are all affected in some way.

Caffeine Addicts Get No Real Perk from Morning Cup

Source: Yahoo - Caffeine addiction is such a downer that regular coffee drinkers may get no real pick-me-up from their morning cup, according to a study by British scientists.

Bristol University researchers found that drinkers develop a tolerance to both the anxiety-producing and the stimulating effects of caffeine, meaning that it only brings them back to baseline levels of alertness, not above them.

"Although frequent consumers feel alerted by caffeine, especially by their morning tea, coffee, or other caffeine-containing drink, evidence suggests that this is actually merely the reversal of the fatiguing effects of acute caffeine withdrawal," wrote the scientists, led by Peter Rogers of Bristol's department of experimental psychology.

The team asked 379 adults -- half of them non/low caffeine consumers and the other half medium/high caffeine consumers -- to give up caffeine for 16 hours, and then gave them either caffeine or a dummy pill known as a placebo.

Participants rated their levels of anxiety, alertness and headache. The medium/high caffeine consumers who got the placebo reported a decrease in alertness and increased headache, neither of which were reported by those who received caffeine.

But measurements showed that their post-caffeine levels of alertness were actually no higher than the non/low consumers who received a placebo, suggesting caffeine only brings coffee drinkers back up to "normal."

The researchers also found that people who have a genetic predisposition to anxiety do not tend to avoid coffee.

In fact, people in the study with a gene variant associated with anxiety tended to consume slightly larger amounts of coffee than those without it, Rogers wrote in a study in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal, published by Nature.

This suggests that a mild increase in anxiety "may be a part of the pleasant buzz caused by caffeine," he said.

Organic or Not?

Source: CNN - If you're eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.

The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.

Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Dirty Dozen," which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides.

"It's critical people know what they are consuming," the Environmental Working Group's Amy Rosenthal said. "The list is based on pesticide tests conducted after the produce was washed with USDA high-power pressure water system. The numbers reflect the closest thing to what consumers are buying at the store."

The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.

"You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen," Rosenthal said.

The Dirty Dozen: Celery, Peaches, Strawberries, Apples, Domestic blueberries, Nectarines, Sweet bell peppers, Spinach, kale and collard greens, Cherries, Potatoes, Imported grapes, Lettuce

Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Clean 15" that contained little to no pesticides.

The Clean 15: Onions, Avocados, Sweet corn, Pineapples, Mango, Sweet peas, Asparagus, Kiwi fruit, Cabbage, Eggplant, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Grapefruit, Sweet potatoes, Sweet onions

What is a pesticide?

A pesticide is a mixture of chemical substances used on farms to destroy or prevent pests, diseases and weeds from affecting crops. According to the USDA, 45 percent of the world's crops are lost to damage or spoilage, so many farmers count on pesticides.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA and the USDA work together to monitor and set limits as to how much pesticide can be used on farms and how much is safe to remain on the produce once it hits grocery store shelves.

"In setting the tolerance amount, the EPA must make a safety finding that the pesticide can be used with 'reasonable certainty of no harm.' The EPA ensures that the tolerance selected will be safe," according the EPA's website.

Although the President's Cancer Panel recently recommended that consumers eat produce without pesticides to reduce their risk of getting cancer and other diseases, the low levels of pesticides found on even the Dirty Dozen are government-approved amounts.

Can small amounts of pesticides hurt you?

The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn't harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems.

The Environmental Working Group acknowledges that data from long-term studies aren't available but warns consumers of the potential dangers.

"Pesticides are designed to kill things. Why wait for 20 years to discover they are bad for us?" Rosenthal said.

Some doctors warn that children's growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food.

"A kid's brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Can pesticides be washed away?

Not necessarily. The pesticide tests mentioned above were conducted after the food had been power-washed by the USDA. Also, although some pesticides are found on the surface of foods, other pesticides may be taken up through the roots and into the plant and cannot be removed.

"We've found that washing doesn't do much," Rosenthal said. "Peeling can help, although you have to take into account that the pesticides are in the water, so they can be inside the fruit because of the soil."

All fresh produce, whether it's grown with or without pesticides, should be washed with water to remove dirt and potentially harmful bacteria. And health experts agree that when it comes to the Dirty Dozen list, choose organic if it's available.

"To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks," Landrigan said.

Pregnant at 47: Can I do that?

Source: CNN - This month, actress Kelly Preston announced that she was pregnant at the age of 47, prompting TV talk show discussions about the marvels of modern medicine that allowed Preston and her husband, actor John Travolta, to have a baby so late in life.

But 47 -- that's nothing. Compared with some other women, Preston's practically a baby.

Last year, Dr. David Kreiner, a reproductive endocrinologist in New York, helped a woman have a baby at 54. Dr. Jamie Grifo, also in New York, recently helped a woman get pregnant at age 55.

Both doctors say these days, it's not that difficult to get pregnant in your late 40s or early 50s -- as long as you have two things: someone else's eggs and at least $16,000 or so.

"Most women can get pregnant with donor eggs," said Kreiner, the medical director of East Coast Fertility in Plainview, New York. "The only reason you wouldn't be able to is if you have problems with your uterus, such as scarring or fibroids we can't operate on. But only about 1 to 5 percent of women have those problems."

So with donor eggs, could a woman get pregnant at, say, age 80?

"Theoretically, one would think there's no age limit," Kreiner said. "But it hasn't been tested."

Preston, who hasn't said whether she conceived naturally or with the help of donor eggs or any other form of technology, joins a list of celebrities who became pregnant in their mid- to late 40s. According to People magazine, actresses Geena Davis had a baby at age 46, Beverly D'Angelo at 49, Marcia Cross at 44 and supermodel Iman at 45. Actress Holly Hunter had twins at 47.

When celebrities get pregnant late in life, women sometimes assume they got pregnant naturally, reproductive endocrinologists say.

"They come in and say, 'Well, so-and-so got pregnant, and she's 47. My husband and I have been trying for so long. Why can't I get pregnant?' " said Dr. Hilton Kort, founder of Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta, Georgia. "I try to explain to them, we don't know how that celebrity got pregnant."

It's highly unusual for a woman to get pregnant on her own after age 45. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008 there were 0.7 births per 1,000 women ages 45 to 49, compared with 9.9 births per 1,000 women ages 44 to 40.

Here are some questions and answers about having a baby that late in life.

Like Kelly Preston, I'm 47. What are my chances of getting pregnant naturally?

Slim to none, doctors say.

"Spontaneous pregnancy [rates for] someone 47 is VERY low," Kort wrote in an e-mail, explaining that your chances of conceiving naturally at that age are less than 5 percent each month, and the miscarriage rate in the first trimester is 70 to 80 percent.

"It's not impossible that someone aged 47 [got pregnant] without assistance, but it's highly unlikely," he adds.

What are my chances of getting pregnant at age 47 if I use in-vitro fertilization and my own eggs?

"Success with IVF at this age with patient's own eggs is practically unheard of," said Kreiner, of East Coast Fertility.

The odds are so low that Kort highly discourages women that age from even attempting IVF with their own eggs.

"Forty-three is pretty much my cutoff for IVF with a woman's own eggs. Occasionally, I'll do it at 44," he said. "The success rate is under 5 percent. When I explain this to women, they don't even want to try."

What are my chances of getting pregnant at age 47 if I use IVF and donor eggs?

Kort says he has a 70 percent to 75 percent success rate when women in their mid- to late 40s use donor eggs.

Grifo, who used donor eggs to get his 56-year-old patient pregnant, says he has a 55 percent to 60 percent success rate with donor eggs. He says his patient was due in mid-April, but the woman hasn't contacted him to say whether she had the baby.

How much does it cost to get pregnant with donor eggs?

It costs $20,000 to $30,000 per attempt to get pregnant with donor eggs at the New York University Fertility Center, where Grifo is the program director. Read more at CNN.

15 Ways to Predict Divorce

Source: Anneli Rufus - How long will your marriage last? Depends on if you smoke, which church you go to, and which state you live in. Anneli Rufus on the shocking statistics.

You can't guarantee the longevity of a marriage, but what you can do is play the odds. Researchers have studied marriage success rates from nearly every conceivable angle, and what they've found is that everything from smoking habits to what state you live in can predict how likely it is that your union will survive. Here are 15 ways to gauge whether your marriage is for the long haul—or on the fast track to Splitsville.

1. If you're a married American, your marriage is between 40 and 50 percent likely to end in divorce.

After peaking at 50 percent in the 1980s, the national divorce rate has dropped steadily, but in the public's mind, that outdated "half of all marriages" figure still sticks—and scares. "Inflated divorce statistics create an ambivalence about marriage," says Tara Parker-Pope, author of For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage. "The bottom line is that modern marriages are getting more and more resilient. With each generation, we're getting a little better about picking mates. A different kind of marriage is emerging in this century."

2. If you live in a red state, you're 27 percent more likely to get divorced than if you live in a blue state.

Maybe that's because red-state couples traditionally marry younger—and the younger the partners, the riskier the marriage. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the states with the lowest median age at marriage are Utah, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.

3. If you argue with your spouse about finances once a week, your marriage is 30 percent more likely to end in divorce than if you argue with your spouse about finances less frequently.

Money woes kill marriages. The same study also found that couples with no assets at the beginning of a three-year period are 70 percent more likely to divorce by the end of that period than couples with $10,000 in assets. Most divorce risk factors—such as age and education level—correlate with poverty, says Statistics in Plain English author Timothy Urdan. "Whenever you see an explanation for anything, try to figure out what the explanations are for those explanations."

4. If your parents were divorced, you're at least 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if they weren't. If your parents married others after divorcing, you're 91 percent more likely to get divorced.

This could be because witnessing our parents' divorces reinforces our ambivalence about commitment in a "disposable society," says Divorce Magazine publisher Dan Couvrette. "In most people's minds, it's easier to get a new car than fix the one you've got."

5. If only one partner in your marriage is a smoker, you're 75 percent to 91 percent more likely to divorce than smokers who are married to fellow smokers.

"The more similar people are in their values, backgrounds, and life goals, the more likely they are to have a successful marriage," notes Tara Parker-Pope. From age to ethnicity to unhealthy habits, dissimilarities between spouses increase divorce risks. Read more here.

8 Foods You Should Never Buy Again

Source: Yahoo - With the rising costs of groceries, we'd all love to save a few bucks at the checkout line. Now you can easily slash your bill with some clever shopping moves and DIY recipes. Manufacturers would like to make you think you're getting a good deal in exchange for convenience, but it's really just eating away at your food budget. Don't be fooled any longer. Cross these items off your list for good!

1) Bottled water. Bottled water is a bad investment for so many reasons. It's expensive compared to what's coming out of the tap, its cost to the environment is high (it takes a lot of fossil fuel to produce and ship all those bottles), and it's not even better for your health than the stuff running down your drain!

Even taking into account the cost of filters, water from home is still much cheaper than bottled water, which can run up to $1 to $3 a pop.

If you have well water and it really does not taste good (even with help from a filter), or if you have a baby at home who is bottle-fed and needs to drink safe water, buy jugs of distilled or "nursery" water at big discount stores. They usually cost between 79 cents and 99 cents for 1 gallon (as opposed to $1.50 for 8 ounces of "designer" water). And you can reuse the jugs to store homemade iced tea, flavored waters, or, when their tops are cut off, all sorts of household odds and ends.

2) "Gourmet" frozen vegetables. Sure, you can buy an 8-ounce packet of peas in an herbed butter sauce, but why do so when you can make your own? Just cook the peas, add a pat of butter and sprinkle on some herbs that you already have on hand. The same thing goes for carrots with dill sauce and other gourmet veggies.

3) Premium frozen fruit bars. At nearly $2 per bar, frozen "all fruit" or "fruit and juice" bars may not be rich in calories, but they are certainly rich in price. Make your own at home — and get the flavors you want. The only equipment you need is a blender, a plastic reusable ice-pop mold (on sale at discount stores for about 99 cents each), or small paper cups and pop sticks or wooden skewers.

To make four pops, just throw 2 cups cut-up fruit, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 1 teaspoon lemon or lime juice into a blender. Cover and blend until smooth. You might wish to add 1 to 2 tablespoons of water so the final mix is a thick slush. Pour into 4-ounce pop molds or paper cups, insert sticks, and freeze until solid.

4) Boxed rice “entree” or side-dish mixes. These consist basically of rice, salt, and spices — yet they're priced way beyond the ingredients sold individually. Yes, there are a few flavorings included, but they're probably ones you have in your pantry already. Buy a bag of rice, measure out what you need, add your own herbs and other seasonings, and cook the rice according to package directions.

5) Energy or protein bars. These calorie-laden bars are usually stacked at the checkout counter because they depend on impulse buyers who grab them, thinking they are more wholesome than a candy bar. Unfortunately, they can have very high fat and sugar contents and are often as caloric as a regular candy bar. They're also two to three times more expensive than a candy bar at $2 to $3 a bar. If you need a boost, a vitamin-rich piece of fruit, a yogurt, or a small handful of nuts is more satiating and less expensive!

6) Spice mixes. Spice mixes like grill seasoning and rib rubs might seem like a good buy because they contain a lot of spices that you would have to buy individually. Well, check the label; we predict the first ingredient you will see on the package is salt, followed by the vague "herbs and spices." Look in your own pantry, and you'll probably be surprised to discover just how many herbs you already have on hand. Many cookbooks today include spice mix recipes, particularly grilling cookbooks. But the great thing about spice mixes is that you can improvise as much as you want. Make your own custom combos and save a fortune.

7) Powdered iced tea mixes or prepared flavored iced tea.

Powdered and gourmet iced teas are really a rip-off! It's much cheaper to make your own iced tea from actual (inexpensive) tea bags and keep a jug in the fridge. Plus, many mixes and preparations are loaded with high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, along with artificial flavors. So make your own, and get creative! To make 32 ounces of iced tea, it usually takes 8 bags of black tea or 10 bags of herbal, green, or white tea. Most tea-bag boxes have recipes, so just follow along. If you like your tea sweet but want to keep calories down, skip the sugar and add fruit juice instead.

8) Microwave sandwiches. When you buy a pre-made sandwich, you're really just paying for its elaborate packaging — plus a whole lot of salt, fat, and unnecessary additives. For the average cost of one of these babies ($2.50 to $3.00 per sandwich), you could make a bigger, better, and more nutritious version yourself.

Growing Vegetables Upside Down

Source: NY Times - IF pests and blight are wrecking your plants, it might be time to turn your garden on its head.

Growing crops that dangle upside down from homemade or commercially available planters is growing more popular, and its adherents swear they’ll never come back down to earth.

“I’m totally converted,” said Mark McAlpine, a body piercer in Guelph, Ontario, who began growing tomatoes upside down two years ago because cutworms were ravaging the ones he planted in the ground. He made six planters out of five-gallon plastic buckets, some bought at the Home Depot and some salvaged from the trash of a local winemaker. He cut a two-inch hole in the bottom of each bucket and threaded a tomato seedling down through the opening, packing strips of newspaper around the root ball to keep it in place and to prevent dirt from falling out.

He then filled the buckets with soil mixed with compost and hung them on sturdy steel hooks bolted to the railing of his backyard deck. “Last summer was really hot so it wasn’t the best crop, but I still was able to jar enough whole tomatoes, half tomatoes, salsa and tomato sauce to last me through the winter,” said Mr. McAlpine, who plans an additional six upside-down planters this year.

Upside-down gardening, primarily of leggy crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, is more common partly because of the ubiquity of Topsy Turvy planters, which are breathlessly advertised on television and have prominent placement at retailers like Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Bed Bath & Beyond. According to the company that licenses the product, Allstar Products Group in Hawthorne, N.Y., sales this year are twice last year’s, with 20 million sold since the planter’s invention in 2005. Not to be outdone, Gardener’s Supply and Plow & Hearth recently began selling rival upside-down planters. “Upside-down gardening is definitely a phenomenon,” said Steve Wagner, senior product manager for Plow & Hearth.

The advantages of upside-down gardening are many: it saves space; there is no need for stakes or cages; it foils pests and fungus; there are fewer, if any, weeds; there is efficient delivery of water and nutrients thanks to gravity; and it allows for greater air circulation and sunlight exposure.

While there are skeptics, proponents say the proof is in the produce.

Tomato and jalapeño seedlings sprout from upside-down planters fashioned out of milk jugs and soda bottles that hang from the fence surrounding the Redmond, Wash., yard of Shawn Verrall, a Microsoft software tester who blogs about gardening at Cheapvegetablegardener.com. Mr. Verrall turned to upside-down gardening last summer as an experiment.

“I put one tomato plant in the ground and one upside down, and the one in the ground died,” he said. The other tomato did so well, he planted a jalapeño upside down, too, and it was more prolific than the one he had in the ground. “The plants seem to stay healthier upside down if you water them enough, and it’s a great way to go if you have limited space,” he said.

While horticulturists, agronomists and plant scientists agree that pests and blight are less likely to damage crops suspended in the air, they said they are unsure whether growing them upside down rather than right-side up will yield better results.

“Growing things upside down seems like a fad to me, but I’m glad people are fooling around with it and hope they will let us traditionalist gardening snobs know what we’ve been missing,” said Hans Christian Wien, a horticulture professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Judging from gardening blogs and Web sites, those fooling around with upside-down gardening are generally enthusiastic, particularly if they have planted smaller varieties of tomatoes.

“Bigger tomatoes are too heavy and put too much stress on the vine, causing it to twist and break,” said Michael Nolan, an avid gardener in Atlanta and a writer for Urbangardencasual.com, who has four upside-down planters also made out of five-gallon buckets in which he grows bushels of cherry and patio varieties of tomatoes as well as small pickling cucumbers.

Tomato varieties are labeled as either indeterminate or determinate, and horticulture experts recommend choosing indeterminate ones for upside-down gardens. Determinate tomato plants are stubbier, with somewhat rigid stalks that issue all their fruit at once, which could weigh down and break the stems if hanging upside down. Indeterminate types, by contrast, have more flexible, sprawling stems that produce fruit throughout the season and are less likely to be harmed by gravity.

When Mr. Nolan first tried upside-down gardening, he used the Topsy Turvy planters, which are made of polyethylene bags and look like Chinese lanterns gone wrong. But he was disappointed in the yield. “I far prefer using buckets,” he said, which hang from tall metal shepherd hooks bolted to the posts supporting his backyard deck. He paints his buckets bright colors, and plants herbs and marigolds in the top to help retain moisture.

Another, less decorative solution for preventing evaporation is to top the planters with mulch or simply cover them with a lid. Regardless, Mr. Nolan said, “The upside-down planters tend to dry out really fast, so I have to water a lot — probably once a day in the heat of the summer.”

Many gardeners reported that the thinner, breathable plastic Topsy Turvy planters ($19.98) dried out so quickly that watering even once a day was not enough to prevent desiccated plants. There were similar comments about the Plow & Hearth version ($12.95) and while the Gardener’s Supply upside-down planter ($19.95) has a built-in watering system, online reviewers said it is difficult to assemble.

In addition to plastic soda bottles, milk jugs and five-gallon buckets, upside-down planters can be made out of thick heavy-duty plastic trash bags, plastic reusable shopping totes, kitty litter containers, laundry hampers and even used tires. Web sites like Instructables.com and UpsideDownTomatoPlant.com show how it can be done, and YouTube has several how-to videos. Variations include building a water reservoir either at the top or bottom of planters for irrigation, cutting several openings in the bottom and sides for planting several seedlings and lining the interior with landscape fabric or coconut fiber to help retain moisture.

Donald Rutledge, a construction project designer and manager in New Braunfels, Tex., devised a triple-pulley system so he could easily hoist his nine upside-down planters 16 feet above the ground, away from ravenous deer. He made his planters out of five-gallon buckets four years ago, following instructions on the Internet. “The tomatoes and basil worked real well upside down, but the lettuce, peas and carrots weren’t so successful,” he said. “It’s been trial and error.”

This year, he put his plantings right-side up in the buckets to see if it makes any difference. He said his suspended garden started as an entertaining summer project for him and his three children but has become more of a scientific pursuit: “Is upside down better than right-side up? I’m guess I’m going to find out.”