This past weekend, Eric and I took Lorelei to Burlington for an end-of-summer getaway. It went really well – she’s definitely a great little traveler (which is a good thing, as Eric and I would probably continue to drag her out in any event, and it’s much more fun for the whole family when she’s [...]

Vital Voices’ film, Kakenya, is a finalist in the ViewChange Online Film Contest. Vote before September 15 to help us win the grand prize, $20,000, and the title of best film. Spread the word and vote today!

Take the new Here We Are Decluttering Poll and tell us which of the following areas of your house you'd like to tackle this Fall. There are no right or wrong answers, just an opportunity to share (and dream of organized spaces). According to the laws of Feng Shui, when you declutter an area of your house, you clear an area in your life. Select one answer (or two) that MOST requires your attention. href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/3730770/">If I had the time and energy this Fall to declutter...

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TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Weak social connections, or social fragmentation, may be one of the main reasons why people raised in cities are more likely to develop schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders than those who live in rural areas, the results of a study suggest.

"There is a substantial worldwide variation in incidence of schizophrenia. The clearest geographic pattern within this distribution of rates is that urban areas have a higher incidence of schizophrenia than rural areas," Stanley Zammit, of Cardiff University in Wales, and colleagues explained in their article, which is published in the September issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

In their study, Zammit and colleagues analyzed data from almost 204,000 people in Sweden and found that 328 (0.16 percent) had at some time been admitted to hospital for treatment of schizophrenia, 741 (0.36 percent) had been admitted for other non-affective psychoses, 355 (0.17 percent) with affective psychoses (such as mood disorders), and 953 (0.47 percent) with other psychoses.

The researchers examined whether individual, school or area characteristics are associated with psychosis and found that "being raised in more urbanized areas was associated with an increased risk of developing any non-affective psychotic disorder."

And, "this association was explained primarily by area characteristics rather than by characteristics of the individuals themselves. Social fragmentation was the most important area characteristic that explained the increased risk of psychosis in individuals brought up in cities," they wrote.

"Our findings highlight the concern that physical integration alone is not sufficient but that some of the positive characteristics traditionally conferred by segregation, such as a localized sense of safety, cohesion and community spirit, must also be maintained to enhance the mental health of individuals within the population," Zammit and colleagues concluded.

More information

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has more about psychotic disorders.

-- Robert Preidt

SOURCE: JAMA/Archives journals, news release, Sept. 6, 2010

Last Updated: Sept. 07, 2010

All women deal with adversity, but the harder part is learning to respond to adversity in a way that leads to recovery and good health.

Mary Steinhardt, a health education professor at the University of Texas at Austin, knows about adversity and resilience as the director of a resilience education program.

“Adversity is something that challenges us, that stresses our capacity in some way, that we might struggle with,” Steinhardt said. “If I have some stable foundation, adversity pushes me off of that stable foundation, and then I have to use my strength and resources to bounce back to where I was.”

Resilience is “the ability to bounce back from adversity and fully recover,” she said.

The inability to become resilient is when people “flounder,” she added.

“That’s when people get stuck in a rut,” Steinhardt said. “That’s when people are kind of putting up with just the daily stressors without doing anything about it.”

She said that’s a problem because then people aren’t growing.

“If they do that long enough, not only are they not growing, but they atrophy,” Steinhardt said.

She said she thinks everyone is born with resilience, but the capacity can increase or decrease.

“In this fast-paced world, I’m hoping that we’re out there trying to take advantage of [resilience],” Steinhardt said.

She offers an online program in resilience that covers ways to become more resilient.

“We need to take responsibility rather than live in denial or blame somebody else or make excuses or shame ourself,” Steinhardt said. “We need to take more and more responsibility, which is kind of owning our power to choose and create for ourself more in our life.”

The second way to improve resilience is to have a certain way of thinking.

“We need to think in ways that bring power to us instead of so much negativity and thinking that takes us to blame and shame and denial,” Steinhardt said.

Also, people need to make “meaningful connections” with others throughout life, she said.

“We all experience adversity, and when we experience adversity, if we can take responsibility for that, think in empowering ways and connect with others, then we have a greater chance of bouncing back…and having more and more moments of thriving in our life,” Steinhardt said.

A Psychology Today article also mentioned that having an agile mind can increase resilience, since it allows people to change their focus and create new solutions, instead of becoming rigid and limited in thinking. For example, having an agile mind can lead to new ideas of how to become happier and to overcome obstacles, and then applying those ideas.

Steinhardt uses the analogy of a muscle to explain adversity and resilience.

“If I want to get stronger physically, if I want my muscle to get stronger, I stress the muscle,” Steinhardt said, adding that this would then be followed by rest and recovery.

She said psychological and emotional wellness and other dimensions of wellness are similar.

“We stress those muscles and then we back off and rest and recover,” Steinhardt said. “The difference is that we might plan to go to the gym to stress our physical muscle, where the other dimensions of wellness we kind of get blindsided.”

However, people have to use those unexpected situations as opportunities to grow, she said.

For most people, stress is a good thing and can help in growth, but in certain circumstances it’s not as helpful.

“We have to acknowledge that sometimes bad things happen to good people,” Steinhardt said.

Steinhardt said she works with military spouses who overcome adversity daily when their husbands are in Afghanistan or Iraq.

“They see adversity as being a single parent, and they handle the day – get the kids to school, do their job, help the kids deal with the anxiety of dad being gone,” she said.

Students may also deal with adversity relating to test and homework stress, she added.

“To a student on an everyday basis who’s handling the stress of school, in their world that might be just as significant [an] adversity to them as…somebody else’s story,” Steinhardt said.

Another example is a diabetic who just hears the news that she will lose her right foot, she said.

“At some point in our lives, we all handle adversity in various degrees of stress or challenge[s],” Steinhardt said.

She said she sees more women taking on parenting and work challenges all at once.

“They have this supermom thing going on or superwoman thing going on because we tend to…care more about nurturing others and caring about others and their feelings,” Steinhardt. “We tend to spend more time doing a lot of service-oriented things and still hold down jobs and go home and cook dinner and raise children and all of that.”

Although “times are changing” and men and women are becoming more equal in their roles, she still sees women having more multiple roles.

“That’s not true in the majority of cases at least that I experience,” Steinhardt said. “I always love hearing a story where maybe you have a stay-at-home dad…but by and large, I still think women are trying to be excellent at their job, being they’re the primary nurturer of children. Often, when they come to work, they’re the primary nurturer at work.”

She also does research on burnout, stress and depression in teachers.

“It would make sense that…teachers who are more stressed tend to feel…more burned out,” Steinhardt said. “Teachers who are more burned out tend to be more depressed.”

She said the pace of life is so fast right now and people don't stop and reflect as much, and the economy can be a stressor. Some people are even having to work two jobs.

"If you lift weights and never put the weight down, you could get injured too," Steinhardt said. "When the pace of life is so fast that people never rest, they're going to break down."

Resources:
http://www.edb.utexas.edu/steinhardt/index.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/imperfect-spirituality/201005/want-b...

spastic dystonic quadriplegia icd 9 code

If you’re tired of the bar scene, or never liked the bar scene to begin with; if you’ve had no success meeting Mr. Perfect in the frozen foods section of your supermarket; if you’re newly single, separated, divorced or widowed and wanted to search for that special someone, there is a 21st century solution – online dating.

But with 21st century ideas come 21st century issues.

We’ve all heard the stories of someone meeting their soulmate online and how happy they are, yada yada yada. For some it happened relatively quickly. For others it took a little longer. Others are not quite as lucky. Instead of an exciting, safe way to meet others, online dating exposes hopefuls to a new age of crime.

Online Dating Scammers

Many of those looking to find a date through online dating sites are coming out of another relationship and just want to find someone compatible with the same likes and interests. What many must first wade through, though, are the seemingly never-ending queries, winks, nudges, emails and instant messages from those whom you’d never want to meet in your wildest daydreams. The thing is, they try to make themselves look like the perfect guy.

These guys are more than likely sitting in an internet café somewhere. Some are very skillful at crafting an online persona complete with pictures, but their goal isn’t love. Their goal is to say what you want to hear so that you will “fall in love” with the person they’ve created. About the time the phrase “too good to be true” might be ringing in your head they’ll hit you with reality--the person you thought you were corresponding with, the person you though you “fell in love with” really only wants your money.

Scammer Radar

Here are a few signs to look to keep yourself safe in this next generation of dating.

1) Remain wary of those profiles without pictures. Private pictures are okay (I will give a list of questions to ask to help weed out whether or not you should even ask to see those private pictures in my next article).

2) Read the profile very carefully. Watch out for phrases like “I will like to meet you” or strings of adjectives that seem to go on forever (“looking for beautiful, caring, loving, God fearing, genuine, spontaneous…”) or other statements that seem to not make sense or go around in circles. This is a sign that the person may not be who he claims to be. If a person claims to be well-educated, broken English, poor sentence structure, and spelling errors are a dead give-away of a fake profile and probable scammer.

3) Read the height/weight and other attributes provided and compare it with the picture. If the picture is clearly of an older, heavier set man, but the profile says that he’s 35 and weighs under 100 lbs… you know there’s something fishy going on.

4) Most online dating sites give you a chance to see who has viewed your profile. If you receive a message, wink, or other contact from someone who has not viewed your profile, do not respond. Check to see if they’ve viewed your profile even before you visit theirs, otherwise they will receive notification that you have viewed their profile and will think you’re interested in them.

5) Beware of generic answers or answers to “about them” questions that appear to read like an encyclopedia --for example, “I study Bio-Engineering at X University. A bio-engineer does….” Someone who’s really spent the money on such a course would probably use proper grammar to start, and be more specific about what they do as opposed to what a bio-engineer does. This is something you can pounce on if he ever tries to contact you, but we will deal with that in the next article.

6) Beware of messages from people asking you to, relatively soon into the communication process, contact them off-list at an email address. Until you’re absolutely positive the person you’re corresponding with is real keep the communication on the dating site. Beware of profiles that list an email address in their details. Most online dating sites prohibit this, but sometimes they sneak through.

7) There is no such thing as Basic Traveling Allowance. This is an allowance that some will claim needs to be paid in cash before they can leave the country, which they have to do rather urgently. If anyone ever asks you to send money because their daughter has suddenly become very ill, or they’ve lost all their credit cards and are on vacation, don’t believe it. It's a scam.

These are just a couple of ways to determine the real guys from the fake guys out there. In all fairness, the person in the picture probably has no idea that their picture is being used to perpetrate this scheme. That’s another sad aspect of this. This scheme has two victims: you and the person in the picture. But until someone invents a way to trace where pictures were copied and pasted from (perhaps someone’s online photo album), that person will probably never know their face has been hijacked.

It's time for back to school and back to you. Whether you are a working or stay at home mom, this time of year most likely finds you back into a routine. But, despite the making lunches, school meetings and after school activities, you still need to find time for yourself. This circuit routine done two to three times a week is a quick and efficient workout you can do to hit all the major body parts in 30 minutes. All you need is a resistance ball, band and weights. Here are the exercises from my Fitness Answer Workout Plan:

• CARDIO WARM-UP 10 MINUTES (such as walking)
• STRETCH ENTIRE BODY BEFORE AND AFTER ROUTINE

ABDOMINALS - 3 SETS OF 15-20 reps (rest 1 minute between sets)

Crunches Seated On Ball -3 SETS OF 15-20 reps
Sit on ball and walk your feet forward until the ball is resting under your mid or lower back. Place arms behind your head. Contract your abdominals as you exhale and lift your torso off the ball. Lower yourself back down,

Reverse Crunch with Ball
Lie on back on floor and bend knees at 90 degrees resting legs on ball. Place hands at your sides. Get a good grip on the ball with your legs and lift your lower body off the floor. Slowly lower ball back down.

OBLIQUES - 3 SETS OF 15-20 reps each side(rest 1 minute between sets)
Lie on back with one knee bent and foot flat on floor. Other leg should be straight out, heel resting on ball. Place arm bent knee side behind head. Roll ball in until foot is flat while bringing opposite elbow to your knee. Do 15-20 reps, then repeat on other side.

STRENGTH EXERCISES – Do one set of 12-15 reps of each exercise and then rest for two minutes. Repeat the cycle of exercises 2-3 times.

BACK
Band Seated Row
Loop band around sturdy object. Have a seat on ball and hold band at waist level in an underhand grip. Row band back, pointing elbows behind and keeping elbows in tight.

BACK
Band Lat Pulldown
Hold band overhead with arms straight up. You can adjust hands closer to increase tension. Contract the back and pull the band out while bringing the elbows towards the rib cage. Decrease tension slowly, while raising arms back up and repeat.

BICEP
Band Bicep Curls
Stand on the band and hold handles with palms facing out. Keeping abs in and knees slightly bent, bend arms and bring palms toward shoulders in a bicep curl. Position feet wider for more tension. Return to start and repeat.

SHOULDERS
Dumbbell Front Raise
Stand with dumbbells in overhand grip, weights resting on quads. Raise arms up to shoulder level, keeping a slight bend in elbow and wrists straight. Lower arms and repeat.

LEGS
Ball Squats
Place ball on a wall directly behind mid-lower back. Lean against the ball (slightly) and bend knees, lowering the body until knees are at a 90 degree angle. Push back to starting position.

CHEST
Ball Chest Press
Hold Ball in hands, elbows bent and close to your sides. Squeeze ball, creating compression and press forward, bringing arms straight out, then back to the starting position.

TRICEPS
Band Side Tricep Extension
Hold the band in both hands at shoulder level with right arm bent so that it's in front of the chest, left arm straight out. Keeping the left arm straight to hold tension on the hand, contract the triceps to straighten the right arm. Return to start and repeat before switching sides.

Reverse Crunch with Ball
Lie on back on floor and bend knees at 90 degrees resting legs on ball. Place hands at your sides. Get a good grip on the ball with your legs and lift your lower body off the floor. Slowly lower ball back down.

BACK
Band Seated Row
Loop band around sturdy object. Have a seat on ball and hold band at waist level in an underhand grip. Row band back, pointing elbows behind and keeping elbows in tight.

Joanne Sgro is a Television Fitness Expert, Certified Personal Trainer and Sport Nutritionist. She is Certified in Pilates, Pre-natal/Post-Partum, Yoga and Senior Fitness. She specializes in Weight Loss, Post-Rehab and Post Cancer Training. Joanne's fitness plans and recipes are available globally on her website www.fitnessanswer.com. She resides in the Phoenix, AZ, where she runs her personal training business, Fitness Answer, LLC.

Someday we will cure cancer. Someday we will turn off autoimmune diseases. Someday we will have joint replacements that don’t wear out. But will we be able to reverse the terrible increase in childhood obesity?

The fact is, a scary number of our children will predecease us because they are overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart trouble. You will begin hearing more and more of children having a heart attack or stroke. How can this be?

The truth is, one in three of our U.S. kids are overweight and, in some ethnic groups, this statistic is much higher--especially among Hispanics and African-Americans. Many kids eat fast food every day. They eat junk food and they are not active. Too often this behavior is modeled by their parents.

Then there is the food industry trying to make a buck by giving us what we want. Yes, there are food labels, but many people don’t read them.

If you want to see the problem, find a seat near the check stand at a Wal-Mart, a crossroads of America today. You will be bowled over by the number of customers shopping who are overweight. Their kids will be with them and besides sharing facial features they will often share body shape too. This is our future and it is not pretty.

Many experts, including pediatricians, are very worried. However, there are families striving to make a change. Ashley, a 15-year old, completed a 16-session program with her mom at Kaiser to turn things around. Ashley weighed 147 lbs at 5′1″. Her mom is the same height and weighed almost 200 lbs. Anthony, Ashley’s father, working with mom, banned junk food from the house. They are exercising, making smarter eating choices, losing weight, and making a new beginning for life.

This is the cure. And all of us adults getting our act together is part of prevention. We also need good food choices in schools and exercise requirements. We need a cultural shift or else the bombshell that will kill our future economy will be an overweight population, lower productivity and much higher health care costs.

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TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Although the hazards of smoking are well known, 20 percent of Americans still light up, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.

The number of adult smokers dropped between 2000 and 2005, but the decline has leveled out, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"The 40-year decline in tobacco in the United States has stalled," CDC director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said during an early afternoon press conference.

"Between 2005 and 2009 there was no further reduction in tobacco use," he said. And despite progress nearly 90 million American non-smokers are exposed to toxic chemicals in tobacco smoke."

Frieden laid the blame for the stalled smoking decline on the doorstep of the tobacco industry.

"The industry has gotten even better at sidestepping laws designed to get people to stop smoking," he said. "They ensure that every cigarette they sell is designed to deliver nicotine quickly and efficiently to keep people addicted."

In addition, the industry uses marketing techniques to get children to start smoking. And they create new products that get around laws to attract new smokers, Frieden said.

More men (24 percent) than women (18 percent) were smoking in 2009, says the report, which also found that people with less education and lower incomes were more likely than others to smoke.

Thirty-one percent of smokers live below the poverty level, and 25 percent never graduated from high school compared with 6 percent of those with graduate degrees, the report says.

Moreover, secondhand smoke remains a serious problem for 88 million nonsmokers. For example, 54 percent of children aged 3 to 11 are exposed to secondhand smoke, and 98 percent of kids living with a smoker have measurable levels of toxic chemicals from cigarette smoke, the report says.

Black nonsmokers are twice as likely as Mexican-American non-smokers and 33 percent more likely than white non-smokers to have measurable exposure to tobacco, the researchers say.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said a five-year stall in smoking rates suggests both "that those who now smoke may be diehards and tough to convert, and that perhaps we got a bit too complacent way too soon."

"Our goal should be nothing less than the elimination of tobacco use," Katz said. "This report tells us of the need to rededicate ourselves to this cause, and allocate the requisite resources."

Smoking and secondhand smoke exposure led to 443,000 deaths in 2009, making smoking the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States, the CDC said.

"These results underscore the need for every state and community to enact comprehensive smoke-free laws that apply to all workplaces and public places, including restaurants and bars," Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement Tuesday.

Twenty-eight states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and more than 550 cities have laws requiring smoke-free restaurants and bars, Myers said.

"The high level of child exposure to secondhand smoke also underscores the need for parents to take additional steps to protect children, such as ensuring that homes, cars and other places frequented by children are smoke-free," he added. "For parents who smoke, the best step to protect children is to quit smoking."

Smoking rates vary by region and state. One problem is that states are cutting back on the money they devote to tobacco control programs, Frieden said. "If all states funded tobacco control at the CDC recommended level there would be an estimated 5 million fewer smokers in this country, and that would prevent at least 1 million deaths," he said.

Last year, Utah and California had the fewest smokers. California's comprehensive tobacco control program has resulted in a decline in lung cancer at a rate four times faster than in the rest of the country, the CDC noted.

The good news, Frieden said, is that tobacco use can be reduced. "Tobacco control measures work. Places that implement tobacco control programs get dramatic results," he said.

In Washington state the smoking rates is less than 15 percent, in California it's less than 13 percent and in Rhode Island and Massachusetts it's less than 15 percent, Frieden said.

In addition, those who smoke may be smoking less. "Cigarette sales have declined significantly, especially in 2009 when the federal cigarette tax increased by 61 cents per pack," said Myers.

"This decline in cigarette consumption could be a precursor to declines in the smoking rate, especially if proven tobacco control measures are implemented more aggressively," he added.

More information

For more information on quitting smoking, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SOURCES: David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; Sept. 7, 2010, CDC report Vital Signs: Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults Aged ≥18 Years -- United States, 2009

Last Updated: Sept. 07, 2010

TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- The H1N1 pandemic flu, which swept across the United States last year, was actually no more serious than most seasonal strains, a new study confirms.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 43 million to 89 million cases of the H1N1 pandemic flu in the United States from April 2009 through April 10, 2010. Of these, an estimated 274,000 were hospitalized and 12,470 died.

"We found that the pandemic H1N1 virus disproportionately affected children and young adults, but the symptoms and risk of most complications were similar to those of seasonal influenza viruses," said lead researcher Dr. Edward A. Belongia, from the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wisc.

In fact, children, young adults, pregnant women and people with underlying chronic medical conditions had a higher risk of hospital admission and serious complications when infected with the pandemic virus, the researchers noted.

However, whether the pandemic flu was deadlier or caused more critical illness than the simultaneously circulating seasonal strains has not been studied until now, Belongia noted.

"One implication is that the higher incidence of death or serious illness from the pandemic H1N1 infection in other studies may have been due to the high level of transmission in susceptible children and young adults rather than greater virulence of the pandemic virus," he said.

However, this study did not address specific high-risk populations such as pregnant women, Belongia said.

The report is published in the Sept. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, Belongia's group compared the H1N1 pandemic flu with the seasonal H1N1 flu, as well as the H3N2 seasonal flu.

Out of 6,874 people who agreed to take part in the study, the researchers found 545 patients with pandemic H1N1 flu, 221 with seasonal H1N1 and 632 patients with H3N2 flu. Ages of these patients ranged from 10 to 25.

A review of hospital records revealed that, among children, H1N1 pandemic flu was not linked to hospitalization or pneumonia compared with either H1N1 seasonal flu or H3N2 seasonal flu.

Among children with H1N1 pandemic flu, 1.5 percent were hospitalized, as were 3.7 percent with H1N1 seasonal flu and 3.1 percent of those with H3N2 flu, the researchers found.

Among adults, 4 percent of those with H1N1 pandemic flu were hospitalized, as were 2.3 percent with H1N1 seasonal flu and 4.5 percent with H3N2 flu, they added.

As for pneumonia, 4 percent of adults with H1N1 pandemic flu came down with the condition, compared with 2.3 percent of those with H1N1 seasonal flu and 1.1 percent of those with H3N2 flu, Belongia's team found.

Among children, 2.5 percent of those with H1N1 pandemic flu developed pneumonia, as did 1.5 percent with H1N1 seasonal flu and 2 percent of those with H3N2 flu.

Influenza expert Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University in New York City, said that "this confirms what we were noticing from the beginning with H1N1, which is that, structurally, it was a mild virus."

As a mild virus it wasn't any more deadly, Siegel said. It had a predilection for the young and it was expected there would be more serious complications, but there weren't, he added.

Siegel said the virus attacked young people because they didn't have any immunity to it, which is typical with pandemic flu strains.

"Even though it was a mild virus, we didn't have immunity, so that made it somewhat unpredictable," Siegel said. "This study shows that despite our lack of immunity the complications were no greater than the yearly flu. That's a new finding."

This year, it is doubtful H1N1 pandemic flu will be noticed, Siegel said. In the first place, this year's flu vaccine contains this flu strain and in the second place most people are now immune to this strain, because it spread so far and wide, he said.

"I do not expect there to be a problem this year," Siegel said.

More information

For more information on H1N1 flu, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SOURCES: Edward A. Belongia, M.D., Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, Marshfield, Wisc.; Marc Siegel, M.D., associate professor, medicine, New York University, New York City; Sept. 8, 2010, Journal of the American Medical Association

Last Updated: Sept. 07, 2010

TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Pancreatic cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy after surgery don't see improved long-term survival with the drug gemcitabine, compared with patients receiving a chemotherapy regimen consisting of fluorouracil and folinic acid, new research suggests.

The finding, reported in the Sept. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, stems from work conducted by Dr. John P. Neoptolemos, of the Cancer Research U.K. Liverpool Cancer Trials Unit at the University of Liverpool in England, and colleagues.

The study authors noted that, currently, the prognosis for pancreatic cancer is very poor, with a five-year survival rate of less than 5 percent. Surgery to remove cancerous tissue can boost the odds to as much as 10 percent, however, and there is active search underway to improve a patient's chances even more by adding in additional chemotherapy following surgery.

The pool of nearly 1,100 patients that the researchers focused on were part of the large European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer trial that took place across 159 pancreatic cancer centers located in Europe, Canada, Australasia and Japan.

Between 2000 and 2007, the participants were divided into one of two six-month chemotherapy groups: one receiving fluorouracil and folinic acid post-surgery and the other receiving gemcitabine.

After nearly three years of treatment, the researchers found almost no difference between survival rates in the two groups.

Those who received fluorouracil and folinic acid chemotherapy had lived an average of 23 months. At the one- and two-year markers, survival rates for that group was approximately 78.5 and 48 percent, respectively.

At the three-year mark, patients on the gemcitabine regimen achieved an average survival rate of 23.6 months. One- and two-year survival rates were 80 and 49 percent, respectively, the investigators found.

"In conclusion, gemcitabine did not result in improved overall survival compared with fluorouracil plus folinic acid in patients with [surgically removed] pancreatic cancer," the authors concluded in their report.

However, the team did observe one appreciable difference: patients on gemcitabine were less likely to experience serious side effects as a result of their chemotherapy treatment than those on the fluorouracil/folinic acid treatment (7.5 percent versus 14 percent).

Dr. Michael Choti, a professor of surgery and oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, described the study as "important," but he does not believe it will alter the current approach to post-surgical chemotherapy.

"Really in the scope of things following major surgery, both are fairly tolerable regimens, and this study doesn't necessarily change the pattern of use in terms of choosing post-operative therapy," Choti said.

"But the point is that pancreatic cancer is a terrible disease, and really just a minority of patients are candidates for surgery. And even for those, unfortunately 75 to 80 percent of those will go on to recur even after the surgery appears to be successful. So, indeed, there has been a strong interest in giving the best additional therapy possible," Choti added.

"So this is not a revolutionary finding, but it's part of an effort to look at what we have and even to find newer regimens with more combinations of drugs," he noted. "And that's exactly what's already underway, as we search for more aggressive and more successful treatments."

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more information on pancreatic cancer.

-- Alan Mozes

SOURCE: JAMA, news release, Sept. 7, 2010; Michael Choti, M.D., professor, surgery, oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

Last Updated: Sept. 07, 2010

I had my period Aug. 2-6, it's normal for me to only have a five days period. Me and my boyfriend had protected, with a condom, sex on Aug. 10th. I'm not on birth control, and I assume he put it on right, but I'm now 5 days late on my period, I should've started on the Spet. 3rd. I'm not sure if i'm pregnant, or if it's just stress related. I've been eating alot more, but that can be stress related too. I'm having cramps and constipation. I'm getting headaches, and I'm tired alot. Please, is it stress, or could I be pregnant??

Hey, folks! Guess what? I’m BACK! I know you missed me, right? Right? Of course you did! After last week’s crisis (read: my laptop was a jerk), I am back in full force! I can’t tell you how excited I am for tonight’s tworkout! So, hop on Twitter at 8 p.m. Central and join us! [...]

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Julieanne's boyfriend Zach Galifianakis recently interviewed the Angriest Man in Hollywood, Sean Penn, for his Internet-style television-interview show "Between Two Ferns." He discusses his movie ideas for his pug named Funions and idly threatens ... Read more

 

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Let's get serious for a second: You were probably drunk at a barbecue last night, weren't you? Out celebrating laboring by drinking yourself into oblivion? Well, wherever you are right now -- hung over at home, at your hateful job that didn't give ... Read more

 

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In recent years, breast cancer awareness campaigns have decided to capitalize on our obsession with breasts. There was last year's "Save the Boobs" campaign, featuring a very jiggly woman in a bikini being ogled by everyone around her, with the ... Read more

 

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Filed under: Entertainment

Rider Strong from "Boy Meets World" was way cuter than Cory (and he had that whole "lost child" thing going for him), but did he hold onto his looks? Here's what he looked like then. Click to find out what he looks like now! ... Read more

 

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Filed under: Health, First Person, Advice

I remember looking at my gynecologic oncologist and saying, "Humanpapillomawhat?" "HPV," she replied. "The human papillomavirus." I was 31 years old, in the hospital, and recovering from the radical hysterectomy she had just performed on me. I ... Read more

 

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Filed under: Link Love

An open letter to my friends ... who are always wrong. (Crushable) It's confirmed -- Lanvin will be doing the next designer collaboration at H&M. (HotBeautyHealth) Books, food and toiletries shouldn't break the bank: 12 easy ways to save ... Read more

 

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If "The Bachelor Pad" is high school, then last night's episode was prom night ... where pig's blood got splattered all over the loser's dress. After a wonderful close-up shot of Gwen's boobies (her shirt had a sequined rose on it and says "Right ... Read more

 

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Filed under: Happy Pill

Thanks to the "latest techniques in reverse-auditory-melodic-unstickification technology," funny little site Unhear It has solved the song-stuck-in-your-head problem. The answer? Just replace it with an equally catchy new song! Hey, no one said it ... Read more

 

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Racing Down the River ? - Sept 7, 2010

Someone once said, "True freedom is not a question of doing as we like,
but doing as we ought."

Clovis Chappell, a nineteenth century minister, used to tell an
interesting story about two paddleboats.
The two boats, powered by coal, left Memphis about the same time,
traveling down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. As they traveled
side-by-side, sailors from one vessel made some critical remarks and
jokes about the snail's pace of the other boat.

Heated words were exchanged between the men on the two boats. Challenges
were made. So the race began. The competition was hot and heavy as the
two boats roared through the Deep South.

Eventually, one boat began falling behind. The problem: it didn't have
enough fuel. There had been plenty of coal for the trip, but not enough
for a race.

As the boat dropped back, an enterprising young sailor took some of the
ship's cargo and tossed it into the boat's ovens. When his fellow
sailors saw that the supplies burned as well as coal, they fueled their
boat with the material they had been assigned to transport.

Guess what? They ended up winning the race. But they burned their cargo.

How Does This Apply to Our Lives?

The men on the winning boat did what they liked, which was winning the
race. But the price for that victory was expensive. The boat's cargo,
the very reason they were traveling down the river in the first place,
was sacrificed. So they failed to do what they ought to have done, which
was to safely transport their cargo.

You may not have thought about it, but God has entrusted each of us with
cargo. Our cargo is other people, such as friends and family, and the
ability He has given us to help someone else. We are responsible for
this cargo, and ought to cherish it in our journey through life.

However, like the men on the winning boat, often we fail in that
responsibility. As Billy Graham says, "We hurt people by being too busy.
Too busy to notice their needs. Too busy to drop that note of comfort or
encouragement or assurance of love. Too busy to listen when someone
needs to talk. Too busy to care."

Are you too busy to care? When opportunities occur to help others, do
you take advantage of those opportunities? Or do you burn your cargo as
you busily do what you like?

Be diligent, and do what you ought to do. Slow down for the needs of
your family and friends. Seize opportunities to help people when it is
within your power to do so.

Finally, remember one other cargo God has entrusted to you. It is the
Good News of Jesus Christ. Diligently share that Good News with others,
and help people who are using their gifts for Christ reach even more
people.

Your diligence with the cargo God has given you will be very rewarding.

"The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to
poverty."
Proverbs 21:5

A new study from Children’s Hospital Boston has detected a rather intriguing connection between Google searches for “abortion” and local abortion rates and policies. Researchers compared data from 50 US states and 37 countries and found that greater numbers of searches correlated with stricter abortion regulations and fewer abortions, while areas with higher abortion rates and more liberal laws actually yielded fewer searches.

Search volume was higher in states with restrictions such as parental notification laws, parental consent laws, mandatory waiting periods, and mandatory counseling, as well as states where fewer than 10% of counties had an abortion provider. Whether or not abortion was criminalized at the state level made a difference too (though abortion is currently a federally protected right, many states have laws on the books that would make abortion illegal should Roe v. Wade ever be repealed): states with abortion bans yielded higher search rates, while states that would keep abortion legal had lower ones. Interestingly, though search volume and restrictive policies were directly proportional, search volume and abortion rates shared an inverse relationship: areas with higher abortions rates, such as the U.S. coastal states, produced fewer searches.

So what does this tell us? The authors of the study believe that these findings support previous research, which concludes that local restrictions on abortion have always led women to seek services outside of their area, and now they’re using the Internet to help them do so. And while it initially seems odd that the rate of abortion was inversely proportional to the number of searches about abortion, it makes sense when you consider that women who can easily access reproductive health care probably don’t need to Google it – they’re able to utilize traditional avenues like their local physicians or known reproductive health centers. Women who live in areas where abortion is relatively inaccessible and/or highly stigmatized are likely to rely on more anonymous resources like the Internet to get information.

Ideally, women would be able to easily acquire abortion services in their own neighborhoods without having to search for it, but for now the Internet seems to be a helpful and widely used tool for circumventing local anti-choice policies and community attitudes. It’s also important to remember, however, that the ability to retrieve information electronically is a privilege many don’t have. For poor women without Internet access, roadblocks to reproductive health care remain firmly in place with no way around them. These technological detours are a start, but definitely not a solution.

Photo Credit: CarbonNYC

If found guilty of intending to terminate her own pregnancy, 20-year-old Tegan Leach faces up to 7 years prison time in Australia. Her partner, 22-year-old Sergie Brennan, faces up to a 3 year sentence for obtaining the drugs to cause a miscarriage. In addition to undergoing the ordeal of a trial based on denying Leach's right to control her own body, Leach and Brennan have been forced to hide away in a secure location after their home was hit with a Molotov cocktail and car battered, acts assumed to be the work of anti-choice extremists once the young couple's names went public.

Brennan "smuggled" RU486 and Misoprostol into the country from the Ukraine in 2008 ... meaning, he asked his sister to send him the pills, and she did. Brennan and Leach, who was then 19, didn't think these drugs were available in Australia, but say they also didn't know having them shipped over and used was illegal. And why should they have? Leach decided that she was too young and ill-prepared to provide for a child, so she didn't want to continue her pregnancy. It's her body, her uterus. Leach took the pills in the privacy of her own home, miscarried without serious side effects, and intended to move on with her life. But Brennan and Leach were charged under Queensland, Australia's code criminalizing abortion after police in their home on an unrelated manner found the empty pill packets lying around, obvious because the couple had no reason to believe they should get rid of the evidence.

Despite anti-women's-right-to-decide-whether-to-act-as-an-incubator law on the books for over a century, this is the first trial in decades against a woman who illegally self-induces a miscarriage. As such, it presents not only a significant opportunity to contest the validity of the law, but also the possibility of setting a negative precedent of sending women who induce an abortion to jail in the modern-day. In the law's current wording and interpretation, there is significant ambiguity in what constitutes an illegal or legal abortion, and how a surgical vs. a medical abortion is covered, ambiguity which will likely be at least in part clarified by the outcome of this tense case.

Meanwhile, the young couple swept up in an issue much bigger than themselves have been forced to uproot their lives and move to a secure location after acts of violence against their home. Leach and Brennan already dealt with making a difficult decision, a private decision that nobody else should have the right to force their viewpoint on. Now the trauma has been compounded by the invasion of the legal system and members of the public who want to shame and pillory the couple. And now Leach could spent seven years in jail — a third of her life to date — for the crime exercising control over her own body and making the right decision for her personal situation.

Photo credit: turtlemom4bacon

Have you ever tried a button-down shirt and found that if it fits your waist it gapes or pulls around the chest, or, alternatively, if it fits your chest it makes you look like a box everywhere else? If so, we have the perfect event for you! On Tuesday, September 21st, join Urban Girl Squad [...]

Reader S has a question about religious jewelry...

I was wondering what you and all of the other readers think about wearing religious jewelry to work. I'm not talking about a head covering, or skirts as required by a religion, but more along the line of wearing a Star of David or Crucifix to work. If its small, and simple is that OK, or do readers tend to shy away from that?

The easy answer is: of course you can wear religious jewelry if you're working for a private company. (I'm not actually up on the laws regarding state workers or public school teachers or the like -- there may be special rules for those jobs.) If your boss or coworkers have a problem with silent displays of religion, I suspect there are several people in your organization and community who will want to know about it. (Pictured: Elsa Peretti Infinity Cross pendant, available at Tiffany & Co. for $175.) The harder answer is: religion is a touchy subject, and ultimately I'm not sure what to say. (And I'll be very curious to hear what readers have to say!) I have worn crosses from time to time, but tend to do so only when I'm actively praying (for a sick relative, or a friend suffering a loss, etc) -- and sometimes I'll wear it under a sweater because I want to keep my thoughts to myself. I think there's a difference between wearing a piece of jewelry and actively trying to "recruit" people to your religion, and I would generally advise against the latter, at least at the office. (Full disclosure here: I'm a cafeteria Catholic who rarely goes to Mass, and while I consider myself spiritual I don't consider myself religious. I also live in NYC, where people don't generally talk about religion.) Readers, what are your thoughts? Should religious jewelry be kept out of the office? (And if so -- why?)

I've been thinking a lot lately about the critical line that separates parent from child, thanks in part to TLC network's "Toddlers & Tiaras."

If you've never seen this program, congratulations! "Toddlers & Tiaras" is a guilty-pleasure reality show focused on the world of child beauty pageants. Each episode features two high-strung, frequently miserable little girls who are forced to wear sequined glitz wear, make up, wigs and "flippers" (don't ask) by their even more highly strung, highly competitive stage mothers. The producers try to include one semi-normal mom on each installment as well, who has a child who appears to genuinely enjoy the pageant life without stressing over its demands, no doubt to ensure the continued cooperation of the pageant folks.

Like many reality shows, the success of "Toddlers & Tiaras" lies in part in its ability to make viewers feel good about themselves at the expense of those willing to expose their quirks and foibles on national TV. So you were exhausted and snapped at your three-year-old when she spilled orange juice at breakfast? At least you didn't strip her down to her skivvies, blast her in the face with freezing cold spray tan solution, and ignore her cries for mercy. The other compelling draw, especially for me, is trying to make sense of the behavior of other human beings. What drives parents to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a rhinestone cowgirl pageant costume for their daughter vs. saving that money for college? Why would parents line up to have their five-year-old judged publicly on her "facial beauty?" What kind of person tells a little girl that "you've got to smile and win that trophy for Mama?"

Maybe people not so different from you and me.

A recent episode I saw featured a pretty young stage mother with her own pageant background; she wanted viewers to know that she'd once competed against the actress Eva Longoria. About the time I grew thoroughly disgusted with the way this woman was driving her three-year-old daughter to tears with hair and make up, she looked into camera and said something like, "As soon as I knew I was having a girl, I was so happy. I always wanted to have a little girl to do pageants and cheerleading like I did."

I can't imagine wanting my daughter to enter a beauty pageant, but still, I found myself strangely sympathetic. This mother wanted to share something that had been a huge part of her life with her child, but somehow she'd gone off the rails. When Mommy is growling, "You will wear this wig!" at her weeping toddler, she's definitely lost sight of where she ends and the child begins.

I think most parents struggle with that boundary between our stuff and their stuff more than we care to admit.

The other night at a barbeque, for example, I watched as another mom struggled to get her eight-year-old son to thank the hostess and exit the party. The rest of the kids were crowded around the TV playing video games, and the boy whose mother wanted to leave couldn't keep his eyes off the fun long enough to comply.

"You're embarrassing me," the mom hissed. Her frustration felt a little over the top, since his behavior seemed totally normal to me, and no real reflection on her.

Thirty minutes later, my own eight-year-old son was pretending he couldn't hear my announcements that we were leaving, and instead kept kicking a soccer ball over and over against the side of the house as our hostess stood by with a frozen smile, waiting to see us off. As my frustration grew, I resorted to stealing the ball and grabbing my son's arm to get his attention. "You're done," I whispered coldly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our hostess wince.

Like that other mom at the party, I felt my son was embarrassing me, just by acting like a normal kid. Like the hyper moms on "Toddlers & Tiaras," when I got furious because my kid would not "perform," I ended up embarrassing myself. Thank goodness nobody put it on TV.

The weather is superb, fantastic, spectacular. After days and weeks of hundred-degree heat it finally cooled down and it's perfect, not even 70 degrees yet in the Valley. When it's a bazillion degrees out I don't even leave my house,...

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I'm sure there is a thread somewhere, but I can't find it! My DS is almost 7 months old. He hates all purees, and I'm fine with that. He's EBF, and I know solids are just "practice" at this point. This weekend he started showing interest in table foods - he ate some homemade bread & muffins...

Tavi may favor Miu Miu and Marc Jacobs on her site, StyleRookie, but for New York Fashion Week SS11 she's mixing things up. The petite blogger will write for Barneys new blog, B-sides, and then style part of the Alice & Olivia presentation. Stacy Bendet's debuting the line's first shoe collection and the show itself will be styled by Isabel Dupré. But the Alice & Olivia show's always half-party, half-show and the party part, featuring...

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Diane von Furstenberg's designed new hospital gowns for a clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. It's not quite the news you expect to hear on the eve of New York Fashion Week, especially from a woman whose side projects have included designing suites for Claridge's in London or leading New York's fashion industry through a recession. But the designer met the CEO of the clinic at a medical conference in Idaho (also surprising?) and though they were...

Signature Cuffs - CBD by Charlotte Bjorlin Delia, sterling silver with 20K gold plate, $670 at Roseark. Call 323.822.3600 or click here for more information. —Kate Davidson Hudson

True Blood took a break last week for Labor Day weekend—vampires, they're just like us!—but this Sunday the ultimate “nighttime soap” is back for its third season finale. The penultimate episode left Eric, our rogue vampire sheriff, and Russell, the murderous Vampire King of Mississippi, in the sunlight, ready to go up in flames. We asked Kristin Bauer, who plays Pam, everyone's favorite vampire dominatrix, to give us a taste of what's to come. Her...