We've been fans of 'Gossip Girl' for years and today, we're even bigger fans of one of the lead actresses of the show: Leighton Meester.

Over the weekend, the star was spotted in an itty bitty bikini while vacationing with new boyfriend, Aaron Himelstein, in Rio de Janeiro.

What makes the below photo so awesome (and different from other "celebs in bikinis" pics) is how confident Meester is in her body. Instead of fretting about the skin she's showing -- or whether or not she's "giving the camera the right angle" -- she's laughing and having a great time.

And then there are her curves -- the girl has them, and owns 'em. For that, we're giving her mad bathing suit props!

Check out some other pics of celeb bikini bodies which were recently snapped on sunny, sandy beaches. And check out some of Meester's other stylings below.

The Boston Marathon kicked off this morning, despite concerns about the unseasonably warm weather. With temperatures expected to rise to 84 degrees at a time of year when most participants were expecting something more temperate, many were concerned about problems like heat stroke.

In fact, organizers were so concerned, they offered a deferment to the 27,000 participants, according to an AP report.

"We're asking runners who haven't run previously to think about tomorrow and maybe coming back next year," Boston Mayor Tom Menino told attendees of a pre-race dinner, according to the AP. "We don't want to have any accidents out there, or anybody overtaken by the heat."

Heat stroke occurs when the body temperature rises above 105.1 degrees, according to Dr. Lewis Maharam, a sports medicine specialist and the running columnist for the New York Daily News. Interestingly, he says that the sometimes-fatal condition isn't necessarily associated with an extreme external temperature. Being simply unadjusted to the temperature -- or poorly trained, so that the exertion is too great -- can lead to a medical emergency. He recently wrote:

[I]t doesn't necessarily need to be warm for runners to get heat stroke. When a participant over-reves [sic] their engine and tries to run too fast at too fast a pace, they can raise their body temperature. I have seen heat stroke on a 70 degree day and also on very hot days where the runner was not used to the heat and still pushed to a time too fast for them.

So while we can't control the weather, as summer approaches, marathoners can do their part to train properly and condition themselves for potential heat waves. Here are a few tips:

- Start hydrated: drink enough water so that your urine is a pale yellow color. For more, check out our hydration chart.

- Avoid caffeine: Caffeine can make the body work overtime, according to this Princeton University explainer. Stick with electrolyte-rich drinks that hydrate and replace the salt and other nutrients you're losing as you sweat.

- If you're sick, stay on the sidelines: The Boston Athletic Association co-medical director Pierre d'Hemecourt cautioned participants with recent colds, flus or food poisoning to sit this one out.

- Slow down: A hot day is no time to go for a personal best. Stick to a comfortable pace throughout the marathon so that you're maintaining an exertion rate that your body is used to.

Above all, pay attention to yourself: if you start to feel sick, stop at a medical station to have a professional evaluate you.

He has won three Michelin stars by introducing Britons to the delights of such dishes as snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream. Now, Heston Blumenthal is preparing to export his peculiar brand of molecular gastronomy around the world.

April 16 (Reuters) - Extracts from turmeric spice, known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, may help ward off heart attacks in people who have had recent bypass surgery, according to a study from Thailand.
During bypass surgery the heart muscle can be damaged by prolonged lack of blood flow, increasing the patient's risk of heart attack. But the new findings, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Cardiology, suggest that curcumins - the yellow pigment in turmeric - may ease those risks when added to traditional drug treatment.
The conclusions are based on a relatively small group of subjects and needs to be confirmed in larger studies, said researchers led by Wanwarang Wongcharoen from Chiang Mai University. Turmeric extracts have long been used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine.
Research has suggested inflammation plays an important role in the development of a range of diseases, including heart disease, and curcumins could have an effect on those pathways, said Bharat Aggarwal, who studies the use of curcumins in cancer therapy at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
"It's very, very encouraging," said Aggarwal of the study, which he did not take part in.
The researchers studied 121 patients who had non-emergency bypass surgery at their hospital between 2009 and 2011.
Half of those patients were given one-gram curcumin capsules to take four times a day, starting three days before their surgery and continuing for five days afterwards. The other half took the same number of drug-free placebo capsules.
The researchers found that during their post-bypass hospital stays, 13 percent of patients who'd been taking curcumins had a heart attack, compared to 30 percent in the placebo group.
After accounting for any initial pre-surgery differences, Wongcharoen and his colleagues calculated that people on curcumins had a 65 percent lower chance of heart attack.
Researchers said it's likely that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of curcumins may have helped limit heart damage in the patients.
"Curcumin has for many years now been shown to reduce inflammation and to reduce oxygen toxicity or damage caused by free radicals in a number of experimental settings," said Jawahar Mehta, a cardiologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, who didn't work on the study.
"But that doesn't mean that this is a substitute for medication," he said, noting that drugs like aspirin, statins and beta blockers have been proven to help heart patients and people in the current study were taking those as well.
One limitation was that the study was relatively small. Another is that while curcumins are thought to be safe, there could be side effects at very large doses.
"Taken in moderation or used in cooking, (curcumins) are quite useful. But I wouldn't go to a health food store and start taking four grams of curcumin a day, as was done in this study," Mehta said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HEnC5f (Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies and Jeremy Laurence)

One in 16 eighth-graders surveyed in Oregon admit to experimenting with "the choking game" (also known as asphyxia) at least once, according to research published today in Pediactrics. Though the potentially fatal "game" -– defined by Reuters as "putting pressure on the neck with a towel or belt to cut off someone's oxygen supply, then releasing the pressure to give a 'high' sensation" –- has been around for years, it's gaining new traction and popularity among kids because of its prevalence on YouTube. ABC News reports that videos of kids participating in the game are "all over" the site.

Judy Rogg, whose 12-year-old son Erik died in 2010 after attempting to "play" in his living room, calls the choking game a silent epidemic. "Kids think it's an alternative to drugs," she told ABC. Now Rogg has made it her mission to educate kids, parents and schools about the dangerous risks and severity of the consequences caused by asphyxiation.

The choking game was named the cause of 82 reported deaths from 1995 to 2007, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from the Oregon Public Health Division in Portland are highly skeptical of that number, however, because it's likely that death caused by asphyxiation could be misclassified as a suicide if a child tried it alone so they believe the number could be much higher.

Beyond the obvious reasons, Dr. Thomas Andrew, New Hampshire's Chief Medical Examiner, made clear to ABC why the game is so dangerous. "The brain gets short circuited… You can certainly trigger seizure activity that may or may or not end in permanent damage to the brain," he explained. Almost two thirds of eighth-graders who had played said they'd tried it more than once, and just over a quarter said they'd played the game at least five times. "The more times you repeat something like this, the better the chance of a bad outcome," Robert Nystrom, one of the study's researchers told Reuters Health.

Rogg believes that the Internet is absolutely propelling the problem. "A lot of kids make it look fun," she says. Indeed, a quick search on YouTube results in dozens of instructional videos, groups trying the game, and even kids assuring their viewers that it isn't dangerous.

In a statement, YouTube told ABC News:

"[Our] Community Guidelines prohibit videos intended to encourage dangerous activities that risk serious physical harm. We routinely remove material… and we encourage users to flag video for our attention…"

The researchers said pediatricians should be aware of warning signs -- bruising around the neck, headaches and bloodshot eyes –- ABC reports. And, Rogg has developed a curriculum to educate schools and parents in Southern California about the deadly game. "Parents need to know about this," she said.

Michele Galloway, whose seventh-grade son, Connor, also lost his life to the choking game, knows first-hand how important it is for parents to be cognizant of the game's popularity. NPR reports that Galloway hopes her story will spread awareness so that other parents will have an understanding that she and her husband did not. They had "never, ever heard about it before," she says.

Forget boob jobs and Botox injections, American men and women are re-sculpting their chins to achieve facial perfection.

According to new statistics released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), rates of chin surgery have skyrocketed, growing more than breast augmentation and Botox combined in 2011.

During chin surgery, small silicon pieces are surgically implanted on top of the chin bone to improve a person’s profile, and this procedure has dramatically increased in popularity among both men and women (particularly those aged 40 or older) in recent years, stats suggest.

Mr Basim Matti, consultant plastic surgeon at Bupa Cromwell Hospital, told HuffPost Lifestyle: “As people get older, they tend to lose definition in the face, and procedures like chin implant surgery can help to combat this by sharpening features, making the face look slimmer.

Enquiries about this kind of surgery are on the rise in the UK too, he added.

“I am seeing increasing numbers of patients in my clinic who are very well informed about plastic surgery, and know that chin implants can complement other surgeries, for example nose surgery, where a larger chin can make the nose look smaller.”

James McDiarmid, consultant plastic surgeon for the McDiarmid-Hall Clinic, says chin implants are a common element of face lifts: "For those with a loser, slacker jawline - who've always had an underprojecting chin - it's like putting a tentpost in the canvas - the skin tightens around it."

It's already clear that many of the baby products marketed to parents as essential are absurd. But, what happens when a very necessary purchase is made to look ridiculous, in the name of safety?

Welcome to the age of extreme baby-proofing. Last week, U.K. inventor Jullian Preston-Powers unveiled the Carkoon® –- a car seat that’s positioned to be “among the safest on the market.” Instead of letting baby sit comfortably in a plush chair, she or he is covered by a protective shell, which makes the whole contraption look a little like a spacecraft.

Despite it's futuristic facade, the £499 seat could be on sale as soon as next year, The Telegraph reports. Its main feature, as demonstrated in a video above, is a fireproof airbag that folds out on impact in less than a tenth of a second that protects the child from debris and flying objects. If the shield has been deployed, an Onstar-esque system automatically notifies emergency services and gives them a location.

Preston-Powers told BBC that airbag technology has protected adults for a long time, but has not been extended to children in the backseat –- until now. "[We've] created a device that completely ensconces the child in a fire proof bubble, on impact, that prevents these objects from inside the car from impacting the child’s head or body," he said. To test the shell’s strength, they've even thrown a brick at it, Preston-Powers told the Daily Mail.

The Carkoon® has been engineered for usability as well as safety. A new U.S. report by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety found that many carmakers are ignoring standards that would make car seats easier to install. Instead, they bury latches in between seats and make tethers hard to find so parents are often installing seats incorrectly. The Carkoon® website, however, says that “with the click of one handle you will be able to swivel Carkoon® round, allowing you to place your baby in with him or her facing you ... No more struggling, and no more two handed operations.”

The Telegraph reports that the baby seat will not be available for purchase until manufacturers can prove "that the airbag does not pose any risk to the child or impede its rescue from a car in an emergency." And that might be just in time for you to order a working mood onesie for your infant.

The story of how a young heterosexual man woke up ‘gay’ continues to capture the public’s imagination six months after his initial revelation hit the headlines, as a new documentary is aired.

'I Woke Up Gay' finds out more about 27-year-old Chris Birch who claims not to identify with his old self after a stroke altered his personality and sexuality.

“It’s like looking at somebody else, but with my face only younger, and in all fairness, if I met myself I’d probably keep walking,” Birch said to the BBC about past pictures of himself.

His claims have caused controversy, as experts question whether a stroke can transform a person’s sexual orientation. Yet, Birch is convinced the stroke was the cause.

"It was a sort of lonely time. It was a time I was afraid to tell anybody because that wasn't who I used to be, so it shouldn't be who I am now," he said to the BBC.

Before the accident Mr Birch, of Ystrad Mynach, South Wales, had spent his weekends watching sport and drinking with his mates, he told the Daily Mail: “Suddenly, I hated everything about my old life. I didn’t get on with my friends, I hated sport and found my job boring. ‘I started to take more pride in my appearance, bleached my hair and started working out. I went from a 19-stone skinhead to an 11-stone preened man.

"People I used to know barely recognised me."

Check out the news of the day in pictures below

With all of the celebrity wardrobe malfunctions out there, we have to give props to one of our favourite all-stars: Beyonce.

Yesterday, the star was spotted walking around New York with daughter Blue in a super short shirt-dress (very colourful, very patterned and very on-trend for spring).

But later in the day, after she tucked Blue into bed, her and husband Jay-Z headed to the New Jersey Nets game at Newark's Prudential Center.

Donning the same short garb, Beyonce realized the potential for a wardrobe malfunction (itty bitty skirts get even shorter when you sit down in them). To avoid a sartorial disaster, the A-lister draped a towel -- yes, a towel -- over her legs and lady bits.

To this we say, "Bravo, Beyonce!" Not only for looking mighty fine with a white towel covering up part of your outfit, but for recognizing the possibility of a wardrobe malfunction and preventing it. If only more celebs would take a lesson from your sartorial playbook.

Check out some celebrity wardrobe malfunctions -- publicity stunts or otherwise -- below.

Many children are given a diagnosis of A.D.H.D., researchers say, when in fact they have another problem: a sleep disorder, like sleep apnea. The confusion may account for a significant number of A.D.H.D. cases in children, and the drugs used to treat them may only be exacerbating the problem.

Women who eat a high-fibre diet increase their protection against cardiovascular disease, a recent study has claimed.

Swedish scientists from Lund University discovered that women who consume a high-fibre diet are 25% less likely to be struck down with heart disease than those who eat little amounts of fibre.

Researchers investigated the eating habits of over 20,000 people from Malmö in Sweden, and how 13 essential nutrients (including fibre, fats, proteins, carbohydrates) might play a role in the onset of cardiovascular disease.

"Women who ate a diet high in fibre had an almost 25% lower risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease compared with women who ate a low-fibre diet,” explains Peter Wallström, a research from the study.

In contrast, the effects were less pronounced in men, however they did discover a fibre-rich diet slashed a man's risk of stroke. Although the exact reason for this discrepancy is unknown, researchers theorise that women may consume fibre from healthier food sources than men.

“The difference in the results for men and women shows that we need to pay more attention to gender when we conduct research on diet”, adds Wallström.

Interestingly, the study didn’t find any definite links between the other nutrients (for example, saturated fat and sugar) and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

However, the study authors warn this information should be taken with caution: “Almost everyone eats more saturated fat than recommended, including the participants in many other population studies,” says Wallström .

“It is therefore difficult to compare recommended and high fat intake. Other types of study that have been carried out have shown that those who limit their fat and sugar intake are at lower risk of cardiovascular disease”,

These study results were published in the scientific journal, PLoS One.

Find out which foods are rich in fibre...

By Ricki Lewis
(Click here for the original article)

In Fasil Tekola Ayele’s native Ethiopia, the people call it “mossy foot.” Medical textbooks call it podoconiosis, non-filarial elephantiasis, or simply “podo.”

The hideously deformed feet of podo result not from mosquito-borne parasitic worms, as does filarial elephantiasis, nor from bacteria, like leprosy. Instead, podo arises from an immune response to microscopic slivers of mineral that penetrate the skin of people walking barefoot on the damp red soil that tops volcanic rock. Podoconiosis means “foot” and “dust” in Greek.

A Profile of Podo

The condition develops gradually. After microscopic shards of silica slip into exposed skin of susceptible individuals, the bottoms of the feet swell. Then the tops, near the toes, itch. Months may pass, and then the lower legs begin to feel as if they are burning. The sensation may creep upwards as the toes stiffen and moss-like growths appear on the feet. The lumps enlarge and slowly harden, becoming brownish-red, hot, and very painful in spots. The feet stink. In 2011 the World Health Organization added podo as the 17th neglected tropical disease.

The 4 million people who have podo live in 15 countries, in the highlands of Africa, Central and South America, and northwest India. A million are in Ethiopia alone, half that in Cameroon. In some areas, one in 10-20 people suffers from it. Most are subsistence farmers. Wearing shoes and socks prevents the condition, and for those in the early stages, frequent washing with soap and antiseptics, elevating the feet, and, for some, bandages and/or surgery can help. But “in time it becomes a very hopeless situation,” said Adebowale Adeyemo, MD, deputy director of the trans-NIH Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health (CRGGH) and a staff scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Fasil Tekola Ayele, a postdoctoral researcher at the CRGGH, grew up seeing the shunning of people with podo. He led fieldwork in Ethiopia, culminating in a report in the March 29 New England Journal of Medicine that explains, finally, why not everyone who traverses the red soil unshod sacrifices their feet.

The report is groundbreaking. “This is the first study of a non-communicable disease to have used genome-wide association for any African population,” said co-author Charles Rotimi, PhD, MPH, and director of the CRGGH.

A Stigma

I first heard of podo at the Joint International Conference of the African and Southern African Societies of Human Genetics, held in Cape Town in March 2011. Ayele’s talk was one of the last, and the crowd was thinning. I was looking forward to the field trip to Robben Island, but I was transfixed by the images of this horrific disease that seemed so simple to prevent. I tried to catch up with Dr. Rotimi to discuss it on the trip, and finally did when our tour guide, a former prisoner, ushered us in two at a time to see Nelson Mandela’s jail cell. There I was next to Dr. Rotimi, but it was hardly the place for a spontaneous interview.

Mossy foot is a tragedy of a different sort than that of the long-imprisoned South African leader. “Podoconiosis is a disease of the poorest of the poor. These people do not have a voice and their problem has remained ignored. It’s a non-communicable disease that occurs in low income countries where resources are allocated mainly for communicable diseases,” said Ayele.

The stigmatization is ingrained. “Unaffected members of the community are less willing to marry an individual from a podo-affected family because people believe it runs in families and can’t be prevented. Children are ostracized and drop out of school,” Ayele said. Families hide their mossy-footed members, who aren’t welcome in market places and churches, or at social events.

Ayele began the journey that led to his genetically profiling of the disease in 2004, when he heard Dr. Gail Davey, an epidemiology professor, describe her research. The young man focused his Masters in Public Health project on the economic burden of the disease. “The hopelessness, social stigmatization, physical and psychological trauma of these patients quickly penetrates your heart,” he said.

While earning his doctorate from Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK, Ayele began collaborating with the NIH team and the Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Ethiopia. The team set out to explore the genetics of podo – both to understand the disease mechanism, and to find a way to get shoes to those most in need. “Podo is almost one hundred percent preventable by wearing shoes,” said Rotimi.

Genomics Leads to Classic Genes

Podo clearly “runs in families.” Someone with an affected sibling is five times as likely to get it than others. But exactly which variants of which genes distinguish those who develop the condition from those who don’t?

To find out, the team collected saliva samples from residents of the Wolaita zone of southern Ethiopia and sent it to DeCODE Genetics, where the DNA was typed for half a million SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), sites in the genome where people vary. SNP sets found in 194 cases but not in 203 “supercontrols” — people obviously resistant because they’d spent more than 50 years walking barefoot on the red soil — pointed to a very logical place in the genome: the HLA class II genes on chromosome 6.

The researchers validated the findings in parent/child trios, and zeroed in on specific HLA genes (DRB1, DQA1, DQB1, DPB1) in 94 cases and 94 controls. Having variants in these four genes raises risk of podo 2-3 fold. These genes have been implicated in other conditions linked to silica exposure, and to reaction to another mineral, beryllium. The HLA link also suggested how podo happens: T cell-mediated inflammation.

An immune response kicks off when a T cell recognizes a peptide from a pathogen or foreign substance displayed on an antigen-presenting cell. In podo, silica somehow either alters a self peptide to make the body attack itself, or activates an antigen presenting cell some other way, triggering runaway inflammation.

The three HLA gene complexes hold a special place in the history of genetics. They are our version of the major histocompatibility complex found in all vertebrates, and encode the proteins that determine who can accept an organ from whom. HLA genotyping was the forerunner of today’s DNA tests used to predict disease risks. “Several diseases including infectious, non-infectious, and autoimmune diseases have shown association with HLA class II genes. Examples include malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, type 1 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis,” explained Ayele.

The 1970s and 1980s saw discovery of many HLA-disease associations. I wrote in the first edition of my textbook Life (my virgin ISBN, copyright 1992): “In the future, an HLA profile taken at birth may be used to predict disease susceptibilities. Would you want to know which medical conditions you are likely to suffer from late in life, and perhaps even die from?” Substitute genome sequence for “HLA profile” for an instant update.

Uniting a Community

More important than understanding the precise steps of the tango between antigen-presenting cells and T cells is using genetic testing to get shoes to those in greatest need. Ayele calls the strategy a “low tech, cost-effective, and locally and culturally feasible genomic tool.”

Community acceptance of genetic testing to target shoe distribution is a nice contrast to negative reactions to researchers bearing swabs or needles for DNA tests in other places and times. Sheila Vanholst, PhD, from the University of New South Wales in Sydney encountered this resistance in her fieldwork with the Aborigines, descendants of Australia’s first peoples. “They distrust studies, particularly since the Human Genome Diversity Project distanced them by calling them ‘vanishing peoples,’ she told me at the International Congress of Human Genetics in Montreal in October 2011, referring to the ill-fated project that sought to collect DNA from the world’s indigenous populations.

The Aborigines, like Arizona’s Havasupai Indians and others, regard genetic ancestry research as threatening their sense of identity and challenging their beliefs about their origins. The positive response to the podo project is more like the willingness of the people of Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, to provide DNA samples to Columbia University psychologist Nancy Wexler to help identify the mutation that causes Huntington Disease (HD) – the people gave samples in exchange for jeans and M&Ms.

Sadly HD still has no cure, but podo is another story. “Podoconiosis is a low hanging fruit- it can completely be eliminated from the face of our planet,” said Ayele, who’s visiting Ethiopia at the end of this month. Summed up NHGRI scientific director Dan Kastner, MD, PhD, “This study draws attention to a neglected tropical disease with a devastating impact on poor people and their communities. It demonstrates the global reach of genomics research into the lives of people in parts of the world where endemic diseases very often go unchecked.”

To learn more and help, see Footwork from the International Podoconiosis Initiative and from Ethiopia The Mossy Foot Project. California-based TOMS Shoes has a collaborative project with local non-governmental organizations working on podo in Ethiopia.

A chicken McNugget from a U.S. McDonald's is not identical to a chicken McNugget from an Australian McDonald's ... or a Canadian, French, New Zealand or U.K. McDonald's, for that matter.

A new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reveals that the salt levels in fast food are not identical from country to country. And in general, fast food in the U.S. and Canada has more salt in it than fast food in the United Kingdom and France.

"These high levels indicate failure of the current government approach that leaves salt reduction solely in the hands of industry," study researcher Dr. Norman Campbell, of the University of Calgary, said in a statement. "Salt reduction programs need to guide industry and oversee it with targets and timelines for foods, monitoring and evaluation, and stronger regulatory measures if the structured voluntary efforts are not effective."

Campbell worked with a number of other researchers from around the world on the study, including some from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, McGill University, Queen Mary University of London, the University of Auckland and the University of Sydney.

The study included menu items from Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's, Burger King (or Hungry Jack's, as it's known in Australia), Subway and Pizza Hut. The researchers looked at salt levels of a variety of foods, including salads, pizzas, french fries, sandwiches, burgers, chicken items and breakfast foods, which were collected from the companies' websites in 2010.

In general, the researchers found that the chicken menu items had the most salt and salad items had the least salt.

However, a McDonald's spokesperson told Reuters that the study uses data from 2010, and McDonald's has since lowered its sodium levels in their chicken items by 10 percent.

"Sodium reductions will continue across the menu and by 2015, we will reduce sodium an average of 15 percent across our national menu of food choices," the spokesperson said.

According to the Mayo Clinic, most people get 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day -- which is much higher than the daily recommended level of 2,300 milligrams or fewer a day (1,500 milligrams or fewer for people ages 51 and older, African Americans, and people with chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes).

For a look at how the salt levels range from country to country according to the 2010 data, take a look at how much salt is in chicken McNuggets in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.

Anyone, of any age or sex, can suffer from sleep problems -- but according to a congressional briefing held last week, insomnia affects women more than men.

The briefing, hosted by the Society for Women's Health Research, detailed how women are 1.4 times more likely to report insomnia than men, and that, in general, sleep problems plague women more than men.

Pregnancy seems to be linked with certain sleep problems, explained Dr. Helene A. Emsellem, M.D., director of The Center for Sleep & Wake Disorders, at the panel. That's because pregnancy hormonal changes can lead to changes in sleepiness (either feeling more or less sleepy), as well as an increased risk of restless legs syndrome.

Emsellem also said at the briefing that 35 to 40 percent of menopausal women have sleep problems, according to a statement.

Sleep disorders increase the risk for a number of health problems, "including stroke, cardiovascular disease, mortality, hypertension, and obesity," Michael J. Twery, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, said at the briefing, according to a statement.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, about 40 million women and men have some sort of sleep disorder -- with insomnia being the most common. A 2002 NSF poll showed that 63 percent of women report insomnia several nights a week, compared with 54 percent of men.

And a study published earlier this year in the journal The Lancet shows that as many as 10 percent of Americans have full-fledged insomnia, which can increase depression, diabetes and high blood pressure risks.

"Insomnia has traditionally been trivialized," paper co-author Charles Morin, Ph.D, a sleep researcher and professor at the Universite Laval in Quebec City, earlier told HuffPost. "Now that we know a little bit more about its long-term consequences, it's getting a bit more attention."

The NSF recommends that people with insomnia exercise, have regular bedtimes and wake times and avoid caffeine and alcohol to try to alleviate the sleep problem.

"Love Story" actor Ryan O'Neal, 70, revealed late last week that he has been diagnosed with stage 2 prostate cancer, according to news reports.

O'Neal said in a statement issued to People that the cancer was found early, and that his doctors have given him a positive prognosis "for a full recovery."

"I am deeply grateful for the support of my friends and family during this time, and I urge everyone to get regular check-ups, as early detection is the best defense against this horrible disease that has afflicted so many," he said in the statement issued to People.

O'Neal has previously battled cancer in his life; he was treated for myelogenous leukemia in the '90s, People reported.

O'Neal's longtime partner, actress Farrah Fawcett, had also battled cancer, ultimately passing away in 2009 from the disease, the Associated Press reported.

Prostate cancer is put in terms of stages, and with the lower the stage, the less dangerous it is. The National Cancer Institute reported that the stages also correlate to whether the cancer has spread outside of the prostate.

According to the National Cancer Institute, the stages are also defined by a man's Gleason score and PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level. The higher the PSA level in the blood, the more likely there is cancer; the test is usually used in prostate cancer screening tests. A Gleason score is the "grade" of the tumor, and is an important indicator of a man's prognosis after being diagnosed with the disease, according to the Prostate Cancer Research Institute. The lower the Gleason score, the lower the likelihood that the cancer has spread.

According to WebMD, prostate cancer tumors that are considered stage 1 are usually slow-growing, and may never actually present any symptoms. Because of this, some men may choose to go the "watchful waiting" route -- where they just keep tabs on the tumor to make sure nothing more happens -- or choose to have prostate-removal surgery or radiation therapy.

Stage 2 prostate cancer, on the other hand, can potentially spread outside of the prostate and cause symptoms if treatment is not taken, WebMD reported. Therefore, "watchful waiting" may be a good option for some men who don't seem to have any symptoms, but otherwise, prostate-removal surgery or radiation therapy (with or without hormone therapy), are the usual treatments. Cryosurgery (where tissue affected by the disease is frozen) is also an option, but WebMD pointed out that there's not enough information yet on whether the treatment works long-term.

There are two substages in stage 2 prostate cancer -- stage IIa and IIb. The substages are determined based on a man's Gleason score, PSA level and the extent the tumor has grown within the prostate, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Stages 3 and 4 are the more severe forms of prostate cancer -- in stage 3, the prostate cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland but only to nearby tissues, while in stage 4, the prostate cancer has spread to other organs, WebMD reported.

Risk factors for prostate cancer include being older (the disease is most common in men older than 65), being black, having a family history of the disease, and being obese, according to the Mayo Clinic.

People are underestimating sugar levels in drinks which are perceived to be "healthy" options, according to new research.

More than 2,000 people across the UK were asked to estimate how many teaspoons of sugar were in a variety of beverages and, while many overestimated the amount in fizzy drinks, they "significantly misjudged" the levels in milkshakes, smoothies and some fruit juices.

The research, carried out by the University of Glasgow, suggested the average person in the UK consumes 659g and 3,144 calories a week through non-alcoholic liquid intake. At 450 calories a day, it is the equivalent to almost a quarter of the recommended daily calorie intake for women and around a fifth for men.

Half of people who admitted to drinking three or more sugary drinks in a day said they did not compensate by reducing the calorie intake of their food while nearly a quarter of those surveyed did not take into consideration their liquid sugar or calorie intake when they were last on a diet.

The over-consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks contributes to obesity, which is a major risk factor for health conditions such as type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease and stroke.

Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the university, said: "What you drink can be as damaging to the body as what you eat and there is no question that consuming too many sugar-sweetened drinks can greatly contribute to abdominal obesity and, therefore, increase your likelihood of developing health conditions such as type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Sasha Watkins, a registered dietitian and British Dietetic Association spokesperson, told HuffPost Lifestyle:

"The results from this study do sound plausible. Other research suggests that it may be harder for us to regulate the intake of calories we drink and there appears to be a positive association between a greater consumption of sugar sweetened drinks and weight gain in both adults and children.

"Fruit juice is still a better choice than a soft drink as it also contains vitamins and minerals but dietitians recommend that only one glass of 150ml unsweetened 100% fruit or vegetable juice can count towards your 5 a day. This is because when whole fruit and vegetables are juiced all the fibre is removed. Fruit juice may also cause tooth decay.

Visualising the amount of sugar in your drinks can be hard, Watkins points out, because most people don't read food labels.

"A can of Coca Cola may contain up to 7 teaspoons of sugar but few people would add 7 teaspoons of sugar to their tea! People would be shocked by the amount of added sugar in some soft drinks," she says.

"There should be a call for standard food labelling. If people don't know how to read labels, how can they make informed decisions about how much sugar is in their drinks?"

Women can now order the morning-after pill online and have it personally delivered to their homes (or direct to their desk) by courier.

The new speedy ‘morning-after pill on wheels’, offered by online medical practice DrEd, has launched in London and means women no longer have to head to the pharmacist, or consult their GP, before taking the pill.

The £20 service involves filling out a quick online form that is assessed by an online doctor and the prescription delivered by courier – in as little as two hours.

The most common morning-after pill, Levonelle®, is a drug that can only be obtained through a chemist or a GP up to 72 hours after having unprotected sex, and costs around £25.

Levonelle® is a type of emergency contraception designed to prevent pregnancy becoming established by stopping an egg being released from the ovary or sperm from fertilising an egg that has already been released.

However, critics have warned that the ‘bulk-buy’ notion of this service could encourage unprotected sex, as the website indicates that he courier service is designed for those wanting to ‘stock up’ on the pills.

“If you want to have a supply of the morning-after pill to hand in case you need emergency contraception, you can buy it online,” states the DrEd website.

Norman Wells, from the Family Education Trust, believes the service could also encourage underage girls to take the morning-after pill.

“Young people have been lulled into a false sense of security, take a more casual attitude to sex and become exposed to an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections," Wells told HuffPost Lifestyle.

"There is also a danger that the service could be used by the abusers of underage girls. The faceless nature of the service makes it all too easy for them to register on the site giving a false name and medical history and then to order the morning-after pill on behalf of their victim in an attempt to conceal their crime."

Defending the ‘contraception-by-courier’ service, Amit Khutti, founder of DrEd, told the Evening Standard: “I don’t think this service is going to appeal to miors or encourage underage sex. For a start, you need to pay for the service and if you’re young, there are already a number of places you can go to get the pill for free.”

Talking about the practicalities of the service, delivered by the Shutl courier service, Khutti claims the service is a positive thing.

“Emergency contraception works better the sooner you take it, so having it delivered within two hours will make it more likely to be effective. It’s not ethical to provide a service that arrives too late. It will arrive at the office in discreet packaging so women won’t be embarrassed.”

There have been mixed reactions about the new service, as Rebecca Findley from the Family Planning Association (FPA) told HuffPost Lifestyle: “You’re up against the clock with emergency contraception, the sooner you take it the better and women who can afford to pay for this service will find it very useful.“

However, fertility expert Emma Cannon warns: “The morning-after pill has a place but I worry about its habitual use. Any service that makes it easier to get hold of potentially leads to over-use.

“Working with infertility I see women with infertility problems caused by exposure to STDs. I think we need to take care of our sexual health early on in our life to preserve our fertility for when we wish to have children; and that means using barrier methods of contraception,” Emma told HuffPost Lifestyle.

Adding to this, Norman Wells said: "Although the morning-after pill is frequently marketed as a contraceptive, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is taken with the intention of preventing the implantation of a fertilised egg after conception has taken place. This raises obvious ethical issues that women are often not made aware of."

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service already offers an online service that allows women to request emergency contraception. However, women need to speak to a nurse over the phone before it is delivered.

Spring's arrival means the growth of many things: plants, animals and a preponderance of people who are newly commuting by bicycle.

And why not? It's a great way to save gas money, get daily exercise and spend some time outside. For those who live in a temperate zone, the change in weather is another reason to swap four wheels for two, but the prospect of a cycling commute can also be daunting. What if you show up to work sweaty? Just how dangerous can it be?

In their May issue, Bicycling Magazine has some helpful tips that can address your concerns about getting started. Now there are no excuses!

An American doctor has sparked a potentially dangerous diet trend by creating a drastic, quick fix weight-loss programme that involves the dieter feeding through a nose drip.

The ‘K-E Diet’ (or the Ketogenic Enteral Nutrition diet), created by Florida-based Dr Oliver Di Pietro, promises to shed 20lbs in just 10 days and has so far proved popular with brides-to-be wanting to shift weight leading up to their wedding.

But how does it work?

According to the video presented by Dr Di Pietro, dieters have a small nasogastric tube inserted into the nose, which constantly deposits a liquid solution, containing a mix of protein, fat and water, into the body.

The solution contains 800kcals and, after a few hours, triggers a process called ketosis, which begins to burn body fat caused by a lack of carbohydrates. The process only burns fat and retains muscle.

Dedicated dieters have to carry the bag of fluid around with them and must keep the nose drip attached for the full 10 days in order for the diet to work.

Although this starvation diet isn’t brand new to Europe and the UK – this is an emerging trend among image-conscious brides who follow this diet in the lead-up to their weddings.

And although the diet has the desired effect after a 10-day period, it does have its downfalls: bad breathe, constipation, lack of energy and potential kidney problems to name a few.

Nutritionist Suzy Weems, from Baylor University in the US, believes the ‘eating through the nose’ diet could cause long-term damage to health.

“It seems very extreme because of its potential for infections and irritation. It seems to be illogical to do this for one fairy-tale day when most brides have plenty of time before their weddings to lose weight in a healthy way. The long-term solution to maintain a good weight is to eat right and exercise,” Weems said in a statement.

Talking about his diet plan, Dr Di Pietro says: "What’s important is you don’t ever feel hungry as it is a 'hunger-free' way of dieting”.

“Within a few hours, your hunger and appetite go away completely, so patients are actually not hungry at all for the whole 10 days. That's what is so amazing about this diet,” he told ABC News.

“Patients typically burn around two pounds of fat per day. In every 100,000 patients I treated in Europe, nearly every one lost 20lbs in 10 days. It’s absolutely painless – the stage of ketosis causes no pain. In fact, during the ketosis stage, you feel no hunger and have a suppressed appetite,” Dr Di Pietro says in the diet’s promotional video.

“After the diet has completed, it’s important to continue a low-carbohydrate diet to maintain the weight-loss.”

Dr Di Pietro is such a firm believer in the diet, he is even trying it himself.

The no-food 'liquid' diet originates in Italy and was invented by Gianfranco Cappello, associate professor of general surgery at the University of Rome’s La Sapienza Hospital. The diet was later introduced in the UK by Dr Ray Shidrawi, a consultant gastroenterologist at the NHS Homerton University Hospital in London.

However, the diet's main aim was to target obese patients needing to lose a significant amount of weight - not normal-sized people wanting to drop a dress size.

Take a look at one bride's bid for the 'perfect' body for her wedding...

By Ferris Jabr
(Click here for the original article)

In kindergarten, several of my friends and I were very serious about learning to tie our shoes. I remember sitting on the edge of the playground, looping laces into bunny ears and twisting them into a knot over and over again until I had it just right. A few years later, whistling became my new challenge. On the car ride to school or walking between classes, I puckered my lips and blew, shifting my tongue like rudder to direct the air. Finally, after weeks of nothing but tuneless wooshing, I whistled my first note.

Although I had no inkling of it at the time, my persistence rewired my brain. Just about everything we do modifies connections between brain cells—learning and memory are dependent on this flexibility. When we improve a skill through practice, we strengthen connections between neurons involved in that skill. In a recent study, scientists peeked into the brains of living mice as the rodents learned some new tricks. Mice who repeated the same task day after day grew more clusters of mushroomlike appendages on their neurons than mice who divided their attention among different tasks. In essence, the scientists observed a physical trace of practice in the brain.

Yi Zuo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her colleagues studied how neurons changed in the brains of three groups of mice that learned different kinds of behaviors over four days, as well as a fourth group of mice that went about business as usual, learning nothing new. Of the three learning groups, the first practiced the same task each day, learning how to stretch their paws through gaps in a Plexiglass cage to get a tasty seed just within reach. The second group practiced two tasks: reaching for a seed and learning how to eat slippery bits of capellini, a very thin pasta. Each day mice in the third group played in a cage outfitted with a different set of toys, such as ropes, ladders and mesh on which to scamper and climb.

After each day’s training, Zuo and her colleagues took the mice aside, anesthetized them and used a dental drill to cut a tiny window in their skulls, through which they could see a piece of the motor cortex—a band of brain tissue that regulates movement. The mice in the experiment had been genetically engineered to express a protein that glows yellow in infrared light. Zuo and her teammates examined the radiant neurons with an incredibly powerful two-photon microscope, searching specifically for tiny cellular structures called dendritic spines. Neurons receive signals from neighbors through a crown of thin branches called dendrites, off of which sprout even tinier dendritic spines, which are often mushroom-shaped with bulbous heads and thin necks. Dendritic spines are highly dynamic, springing up or disappearing to strengthen or weaken the connections between neurons.

Both the mice that learned new tricks and those that went about business as usual grew new spines on their neurons, but mice that were learning something grew far more clusters of spines made of two or more neighboring offshoots. Mice that repeatedly practiced reaching for a seed during the four-day period grew more clusters of dendritic spines than the mice who practiced two different tasks or those that played in the variously equipped cages. Further, spines that grew in clusters had a much higher chance of surviving, even four months later, than new spines that appeared on their own.

With their microscope, Zuo and her colleagues often observed one spine pop out of a dendrite on the first day of training and another spine pop up near it a few days later. In more than half the clusters, the first spine grew on the first training day and the second joined it by the fourth, and nearly all of the clusters in all the learning mice grew between the first and fourth days. These observations suggest that the clusters are one example of how practice physically manifests itself in the brain. The findings appear in the March issue of Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

“I think it is a very active process,” Zuo says. “The neurons work very hard to form clusters, to place spines close to one another. Even after a short training period on the first day, a mouse makes of a lot of new spines—they might make double what they make in an ordinary day, but these spines are not clustered. Only after repeated training are they clustered.” Clusters of dendritic spines on a single neuron could strengthen the connection between two neurons involved in the practiced task, but the researchers have not experimentally shown this yet—that is what they want to do next.

Zuo says such specific clustering has not often been observed or well studied, but this is not the first time that scientists have observed neurons growing new dendritic spines as part of learning—although in vivo studies, like this one, are much rarer than studies of brain cells in petri dishes. In earlier work Zuo and her colleagues have shown that dendritic spines can pop into existence incredibly quickly—within an hour of a training session. Researchers have debated whether it is the number of new spines that matters or the size of the spines—their mushroom heads seem to enlarge the more an animal practices, and larger spines are stabler than smaller ones. Studying the behavior of dendritic spines is part of the larger challenge of figuring out how the brain stores memories. Memory depends on the plasticity of neural connections—that much is known—but scientists are still discovering the precise ways in which neurons make and break their numerous links.