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Women’s Health Weekly Review: July 6 – July 12
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Breast Cancer
Breast asymmetry after cancer treatment affects quality of life, U-M study finds
The gene HER2 that is overexpressed in 20% of breast cancers increases the number of cancer stem cells, the cells that fuel a tumor’s growth and spread, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Herceptin – a drug used to treat HER2-positive breast cancer – targets and destroys the cancer stem cells.
According to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences breast cancer cells secrete a common inflammatory protein, IL-8. When the the protein was blocked with an antibody, it completely stopped the spread of breast cancer to the lungs (this was in mice). They also found that the protein produced by the gene DACH1 blocks the production of IL-8 – DACH1 is commonly missing or inactive in invasive breast cancer
Pregnancy
Children born from frozen embryos weigh more and do better than those born after fresh transfer
IVF does not increase risk of developmental disorders in children
Other
In a study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry data is presented that suggests a particular variant of a gene involved in endorphin metabolism may result in women with this variant to be more susceptible to alcoholism.
Early-life nutrition may be associated with adult intellectual functioning
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Related Posts:
- New breast cancer gene discovered
- Breast cancer update – 7/16/07
- Breast cancer gene product has role in translation
July 10, 2008
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Overcoming Underearning: Book Review Part 9
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This week I’ve read Chapter 8 of ‘Overcoming UnderEarning’ by Barbara Stanny.
In this chapter Barbara goes through step 5 of the 5 steps to make you a ‘doer’.
Step 5: Respect and Appreciate Money
The name of this step pretty much describes what this chapter is about. Now, personally, I don’t have a problem with taking care of the money I have, my problem is figuring out how to make more of it. But given the rate of savings in the U.S. and how much the average person is in debt, this chapter is probably pretty valuable to a lot of people out there.
“If you want it to last, you’ve got to take care of it.”
Barbara says that she met many people while researching this book and that “the ones with the highest net worth were not necessarily the ones who made the most money“.
Next she lists the Four Rules of Money:
1) Spend less
2) Save more
3) Invest wisely
4) Give generously
She also discusses how you need to shift your mindset from whatever it is now to that of a wealth builder.
From my own experience I can say that, yes, at times it was difficult to go without something I wanted – but I keep a close eye on my savings account. And it felt really, really, good to see that number get bigger and bigger over time. Sure, it takes a while. You have to be patient. If you can only save a little bit each month it takes a while, but it does all add up. And once I had a decent amount saved I was able to think about actually investing some in mutual funds. I ended up buying the ‘Mutual Funds for Dummies’ book and that really helped me a lot to understand what I needed to do.
Anyway, back to the book:
This chapter includes a 2 part exercise also:
Part 1: Track your Spending
Part 2: Spending Review
These are really important. I used to keep a notebook where I would write down everything I bought, all my expenses, etc. And see where I could cut back so I could save as much as possible.
Barbara is really giving some good advice in this chapter – do what she says and in a few years you will be very happy that you did!
Next time – Chapter 9.
Time for my favorite quote from this chapter:
“My advice to you is if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.”
— Warren Buffett
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Related Posts:
- Overcoming Underearning: Book Review Part 10
- Book Review: ‘Overcoming UnderEarning’
- Overcoming Underearning: Book Review Part 4
July 9, 2008
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Learn from the best women fitness bloggers!
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As I mentioned in my previous post – it is necessary to be as healthy as you can to be able to achieve and succeed with many different challenges in life. When you are healthy you have more more energy and strength to be able to do what you want to with your life.
There are many important and necessary components to being healthy, but the one I want to focus on today is general fitness.
I searched the blogosphere for the best fitness blogs written by women that I could find – I’m sure I missed some though – so don’t hate me if I don’t include you here! Many of them also took time from their busy days to answer some interview questions from me over the last couple of weeks.
The following blogs – in no particular order – are written by women who we can all learn from. They all write from an unique perspective that is both realistic (at least for some of us) and not based on fear, fads or fantasy. Please take some time and visit their blogs:
- Crabby McSlacker of Cranky Fitness
– who understands that fitness isn’t always fun! Her tagline cracks me up: “Because most health and fitness advice is too damn cheerful”. Read Crabby’s interview.
- Lauren of laurensfitness.com
– who wants to give people quality information about fitness and to help them avoid all the nonsense out there, some of which can be harmful to your health. Read Lauren’s interview.
- Sally of InDenialHealth.com
– who tries to motivate and encourage ‘change with good humor and sound advice’. Read Sally’s interview.
- Spin Diva of Family In Shape
– who is “passionate about teaching others how to reach their fitness goals and bring the kids along with them”. Read Spin Diva’s interview.
- Monica Shaw of SmarterFitter
– whose tagline is “Less diet, more brain” and wants her web site to “help people make smart fitness decisions based on hard data”. Read Monica’s interview.
- JoLynn of The Fit Shack
– who believes the mind, body and spirit are all involved with making the change to a healthy lifestyle. Read JoLynn’s interview.
- Kelly Mills of Fitness Fixation
– who writes about fitness realistically and with a sense of humor! Read Kelly’s interview.
- Angie Schumacher of Women’s Diet and Fitness
– whose blogging comes from the heart and her passion of providing women to build a long and healthy life! Read Angie’s interview.
- Sally Parrott Ashbrook of Aprovechar
– who writes about a combination of self-care issues with an undercurrent of how to “embrace your life to find or create joy, pleasure, comfort, and meaning within it”. Read Sally’s interview.
There are lots of great women fitness bloggers around! Here are a few more that I wasn’t able to interview:
The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, Half of me, Amelia Burton, Fitarella and Losing it – Getting fit
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Please enjoy and visit their blogs too!
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Related Posts:
- Interview: Sally of InDenialHealth.com
- Interview: Angie Schumacher of Women’s Diet and Fitness
- Interview: Spin Diva of Family In Shape
July 7, 2008
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Women’s Health Weekly Review: June 29 – July 5
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Osteoporosis
Some supercomputing experts at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory have helped to developed bone density “measurements with a large-scale mechanical analysis of the inner-bone microstructure” – ETH Zurich and IBM improve diagnosis of osteoporosis.
Menopause
Sleep problems associated with menopause vary among ethnic groups: “Compared with other ethnic groups, Caucasian women were more likely to report difficulty staying asleep”.
Pregnancy
I’m pretty sure we’re all aware of this by now – Eating junk while pregnant can harm your baby. Apparently some new research “suggests that poor diet may also cause long-lasting, irreversible damage in offspring from heart disease to diabetes”.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Finally, a better understanding of SIDS: New research sheds light on the molecular basis of crib death – possibly there are alterations in brainstem neurons that communicate using serotonin.
Children
Seizures in newborns can be detected with small, portable brain activity monitors
Resuscitation technique after brain injury may do more harm than good: “The current standard practice of giving infants and children 100 percent oxygen to prevent brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation may actually inflict additional harm”.
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Related Posts:
- Women’s Health Weekly Review: May 25 -May31
- Women’s Health Weekly Review: June 15 – June 21
- Possible role of FSH in osteoporosis.
July 3, 2008
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Interview: Sally of Aprovechar
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(This is the ninth in a series of interviews with the top women fitness bloggers I could find!)
Sally Parrott Ashbrook writes at Aprovechar where she’s decided to “take the full measure of my life to live it the best I can”.
Sally answered some questions about her blog recently:
1) Why did you decide to start your blog or how did you start it?
I had always tried to force myself into habits that I thought would lead me to weight loss and better fitness. A variety of influences converged to flip my way of thinking around in January 2007; I had this epiphany that if I focused on self-care as a whole, the weight could come off naturally and I’d be a happier, more self-actualized person in general. I felt giddy with the idea that I could reach goals I had long struggled with if I just took good care of myself. I started a private blog (one without my name and identifiers attached) to keep myself accountable, to give myself shared space to work through some of my emotional issues concerning weight, and to share my basic philosophy with others. By the summer of 2007, my worldview was pretty revolutionized by living out that concept of self-care. After I was diagnosed with food allergies and then celiac disease, I decided to out myself and write publicly about those issues in addition to fitness, food, and weight loss. Even though it doesn’t seem like a big deal now, for me to publish my full name along with my weight was a big deal for me initially! I talk about the concepts underlying my blog more in my first post on my blog.
2) What do you think is the biggest obstacle that keeps women from engaging in a regular fitness routine and/or from living a more healthy lifestyle in general?
I think the biggest obstacle probably varies from woman to woman. For me, there have been a few basic obstacles that I had to surmount.
One was that I had a long-held belief that weight loss and fitness were all-or-nothing/success-or-failure activities when that just isn’t true. My usual way of dealing with exercise and weight loss was to jump headfirst into a program, get mad at myself for small failures, and then give up on it eventually. With my self-care, I took what was for me a radically new approach. From a diet perspective, I changed my diet gradually to a focus on fresh, local, organic vegetables, whole grains, and generally lean proteins. I didn’t (and don’t) count anything or specifically restrict anything, and I let myself have indulgences while I was (and am) still getting the maximum pleasure from them (which truly is usually just the first 1-4 bites). Exercise-wise, I started out walking daily after work; then a couple of months later, I started doing Couch to 5k 3-4 days a week. Now I usually work out 4-6 days a week for about an hour at a time—and I usually really enjoy it, but there’s no way I could have sustained that many work-outs at the beginning. Taking a gradual approach and letting my comfort level be my guide—but reminding myself that I was doing it for my own well-being—has kept me motivated and engaged in a way that none of my previous efforts did.
On the flip side, another obstacle I had to overcome was the idea that engaging in my own health was always going to be easy and pleasurable. I’ve written a good bit about finding the joy in what life has to offer you, and I do think that’s important. But I also think it’s important to recognize the opportunity cost of whatever you choose to focus on in your life. The fact is that our resources (money, time, energy, etc.) are finite. We really can’t have it all, and we will run ourselves ragged if we try. If we choose to focus on making health—and not just weight loss, which can come at the expense of health, but an overall healthy lifestyle—a priority, it will take time that we then cannot use for other activities. If we take an hour to make a homemade, healthy, tasty meal, that hour can’t be spent on cleaning house or watching tv or whatever else. If we take time to go work out, that means we may have a bit less time for our spouses or friends. I think finding support in that effort is important—for example, someone insisting she’ll make one healthy meal for the family instead of one for herself and one for others. (I heartily believe that if a mom is working on a lifestyle makeover, the family could probably use one, too!) But changing habits requires enormous reserves of energy (if not time as well), and I think it’s important for our overall health to recognize if the time and energy just aren’t there at the moment. I had a reader write to me and ask for advice about how she could eat healthier and exercise while she was coping with raising two kids alone and caring for a parent who had terminal cancer. In that case, while she could certainly work to make some small changes in the right direction, her energy was really already divided up into elements of her life that were very important, and it may just not have been the right time for her to try to divvy up her energy further to put a lot of it into being serious about weight loss.
And that brings me to my last primary obstacle, which was a huge one: I had to learn to take care of myself emotionally in order to live a healthier life. I used to mentally abuse myself about my lack of willpower, my lack of natural athletic ability, etc. I also used to eat, blindly, when I had emotional needs that were going unmet for some reason. I’ve discovered that when I treat myself empathetically, my life goes much more smoothly. I’ve cut out the negative self-talk, and if it starts up, I stop myself and remind myself that I’m doing the best I can and that I have much to be proud of—and I mean it. When I get a craving for food at a strange time or place, I stop, close my eyes, and ask myself what it is I really want. If it really is a cupcake I want, I might get one later that day. But more often than not, what I really want is a good night’s sleep, or a hug from my husband, or a friend who will listen while I rant. These days, when I stop and focus on what I need, I then try to figure out ways to fulfill that need. Sometimes that can be hard (like if I am at work and am craving a nap), but I talk to myself about getting what I need and remind myself that I will give myself what I need as soon as possible. (And I have left work a couple of times to go home and sleep when that is what I was desperate for!) When I am making sure my life is more emotionally fulfilled, the craving to overeat largely dissipates.
3) What do you consider to be the most unique or helpful thing about your blog?
My blog is an unusual combination of self-care issues, including weight loss, fitness, locavore eating, food allergies, and other things. The undercurrent of it is how to embrace your life to find or create joy, pleasure, comfort, and meaning within it. Readers tell me that they value that I’m willing to express what’s going on in my head and heart openly while also working to keep a focus on the positive. My goal is to be a support system for people in general but specifically for women who are working to take control of their health and their lives to create and maintain good lives for themselves. And, of course, as someone who maintains a gluten-free, egg-free, soy-free, dairy/casein-free diet, I want to be a resource for people who are seeking out how to have healthy, engaged, pleasurable lives as they cope with celiac disease and food allergies.
Thanks for interviewing me!
Thank you Sally for taking the time to answer my questions!
Please take some time and visit Sally’s blog: Aprovechar !
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Related Posts:
- Interview: JoLynn Braley of The Fit Shack
- Interview: Angie Schumacher of Women’s Diet and Fitness
- Health
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