Pregnancy May Protect Against MS

Pregnancy May Protect Against MS, Study Says -- New research suggests that pregnancy may decrease women's risk of developing multiple sclerosis.

"Even one pregnancy was associated with nearly a halving of risk [of developing MS symptoms]," said study author Anne-Louise Ponsonby, head of the environmental and genetic epidemiology and research group at Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. The team also found that women who were pregnant two or more times had only one-quarter of the risk of developing MS symptoms as those who were never pregnant.

The study was published online March 7 in the journal Neurology.

Previous research has found that pregnancy in women who already have MS -- an autoimmune disorder -- is linked with lower rates of relapse.

Ponsonby's team found an association between pregnancy and a lower risk of MS symptoms, not a direct cause-and-effect link. They say, however, that this association may help explain why the incidence of MS in women has inched up over the past few decades, as more women delay pregnancy or have fewer babies or none at all.

The researchers evaluated information on 282 Australian men and women, aged 18 to 59, who had MS symptoms -- which can include fatigue, numbness, balance or walking problems -- but had not been diagnosed with the disease. The researchers looked at both the number of live births and pregnancies lasting at least 20 weeks in the women. They also recorded the number of children born to men. They compared those statistics to 542 men and women without MS symptoms.

No link was found between the number of children men had and their risk of MS symptoms. There was an association with women, however: the risk of developing MS symptoms decreased as the number of pregnancies increased.

The researchers couldn't say exactly why pregnancy may lower MS risk, but they speculated it could be the increase in estrogen during pregnancy or the effect pregnancy has on inflammatory genes involved in MS.

The study was funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and other organizations.

Women are more likely than men to develop MS. Having a close relative with MS also increases your risk. About 400,000 people in the United States have MS, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The new data supports information already known about MS and pregnancy, said Karen Blitz-Shabbir, director of the Multiple Sclerosis Care Center at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Manhasset, N.Y.

"It is generally accepted that pregnancy is 'protective' in that it reduces the relapse rate during pregnancy," Blitz-Shabbir said. "While these study results should be replicated, it again shows us favorable effects of pregnancy in women. This may help us frame future studies looking into hormonal treatment or other treatments that may alter the disease course." ( HealthDay News )

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Sleep study video captures last hours of man’s life

Sleep study video captures last hours of man’s life - Grainy, black and white video camera designed to capture Brandon Harris' routine sleep study instead recorded the last few hours of the 25-year-old's life.

This video, given to FOX 5 by Harris' family, is now at the heart of a wrongful death lawsuit, and a new bill calling for tougher regulations of Georgia's sleep centers.

"We think that the people who his care was entrusted to should have acted quicker and they should have acted better to save his life,” said Sen. Vincent Fort.

Harris, who was mentally-handicapped, had been referred by his doctor to the Emory Sleep Center at Wesley Woods for a routine sleep study to determine if he had obstructive sleep apnea.

But his family says he was very overweight, and suffered from congestive heart failure, cardiomyopathy, diabetes and high blood pressure - conditions that made it risky for him to lie on his back for long periods.

About 4.5 hours into his sleep study, Harris began gesturing, which Fort says should have signaled to the sleep technologist he was in trouble.

"He said "Am I dying?" Brandon knew that he was in a situation that was life-threatening. They should have done more than just reassure him that he was okay. They should have done the things necessary to save his life,’” said Fort.

The proposed Brandon Harris Act would:

Require sleep centers have 24-hour staffing by a licensed sleep specialist or licensed professional nurse
Mandate basic CPR training/certification for sleep technologists
Place defibrillator in each room

Emory Healthcare would not comment on the bill because of the Harris family's pending lawsuit. But last year, Emory said Harris died of sudden cardiac death and called his care "appropriate" for his medical condition.

Renee Sunshine Lewis , Brandon Harris' mother, says his death could have been and should have been prevented.

"I hope through this legislation no other person, no other mother will have to hurt as bad as I have. And that Brandon's death will save other lives,” said Lewis.

On the 40 minute video, the sleep technologist does come eventually come and help Harris sit up, but Harris collapsed and died before he got to the ER.

Emory Healthcare said in a written statement last year that its sleep center has performed 15,000 sleep studies since the early 1990s and this is the first incident of its kind. ( foxnews.com )

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How to Approach a Woman

How to Approach a Woman - If you have been out of the dating game for a while, the idea of somehow getting a date with a woman can be daunting. But don't worry -- you are just out of practice! If you want it, love and a successful relationship can be just around the corner.

Below is everything you need to know to get back into the dating game with confidence. Who knows? You may even find the love of your life!

Get Ready ...
Get ready for love and dating in the following ways:

1. Know what you want. Are looking for a long-term -- or even a lifelong -- relationship, or is more casual dating your goal? Define what you want so that you and the people you date are not confused.

2. Take care of yourself. If you are lonely, sad, angry, need touch, need to talk, or have other needs, get these handled by your family, friends, masseuse, etc. Dating is not a good way to get needs met since it will be a while before you know the people you are dating well enough to ask for their help.

3. Groom. Women find well-groomed men attractive, while men who are not well-groomed turn them off. Well-groomed covers everything from personal hygiene to clothing. Be very clean from your hair to your toes and everything in between. Wear clean, fresh clothing, even if you dress casually.

Get Set ...
Next, you want to set yourself up to win at meeting compatible women.

1. Get a buddy. Find a buddy who is in the same position of starting to date after a long time on the bench. The two of you can swap war stories and strategies and offer each other moral support. This will make the whole process easier.

2. Get out there. Be social at least two times per week.

3. Find your niche. If you had all the time in the world and wanted to do something interesting with other people, what would you do? Good, now go do those things! You want to be around people who are a nice match for your personality so that it is easy and natural to meet women who are a good fit.

Go!
Keep these tips in mind on your approach:

1. Aim for friendship first. If you are having trouble approaching women, start by just being friendly. Friends make for great relationships. Friendships are easier to start than a romance. Friendships are non-threatening. Women respond to invitations to friendship.

2. Be confident. Women appreciate men who are confident yet not cocky. Find a way to be genuinely confident about your life, your appearance, your job, your ability to attract a woman of your choice-- while not letting it go to your head. Let this confidence shine through.

3. Talk. Women live in a world of words. A sure way to successfully approach and connect with a woman is by talking with her. Ask about her interests, her life, her opinions, and be open to sharing your own. Don't stop this practice once you are in a relationship -- a woman will always need for you to communicate and talk with her.

4. Be honest about yourself. Weave real details about yourself into the conversation, disclosing information a woman may want to know about you, such as how long you have been out of a relationship, whether you have kids, etc. ( thirdage.com )

Now, get out there and make it happen!

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How to Get Men to Approach You

How to Get Men to Approach You - Want to know a secret to attracting a wonderful man, ladies? Be seen in public in a joyful mood.

It sounds simple, doesn't it? But many single women have trouble attaining such a playful mood in public, and accomplishing it takes self-mastery and focused intent -- which will immediately put you in a category apart from all others.

How to Get Men to Approach You

A happy and spontaneous woman who's obviously in a leisure moment, and not too occupied to pay attention to social overtures, is much more likely to receive attention than a woman who's rushing somewhere on a vital mission, head bowed in anxiety, face stiff with the fear of an unwanted approach. And most single women in public act as though they want to avoid what they actually wish would happen: that a man of Robert Redford-like charm would make intriguing small talk with them.

Feeling confident in public places widens the range of eligible men to whom a single woman will be exposed. And it lessens the chances of being approached by the truly predatory, who are more interested in the wounded, fearful, and anxious. Easier said than done? Nonsense.

First, identify a public place and turn it into your personal parlor.

Find a place where you feel comfortable visiting with friends, eating a meal, or having a cappuccino and reading the paper . . . alone. Get to know the staff and management, and become a recognized and welcome customer.This need not be a bar. But it does need to:

• Be within easy walking distance from your home
• Be open as many hours a day as possible
• Have a social atmosphere congenial to you
• Have a friendly service staff
• Offer comfortable chairs where your feet reach the floor
• Have lighting soft enough to enhance your skin and strong enough to read by

It may be a cybercafe, or a neighborhood bar and grill that serves breakfast on the weekends, or a place where you can drop in for a double espresso and read the paper after Sunday grocery shopping. Perhaps it's a favorite restaurant where you can eat a snack or a full meal, depending on your mood.

Consciously make this place your hangout.

Make this comfortable spot the place you have lunch with your girlfriend once a week, entertain clients, or meet new acquaintances for a drink or coffee.

Get to know the names of the service staff, and tip well, so that when you show up everyone recognizes you -- and they'll always note when you're talking to someone new. Become a favorite customer. In particular, get to know the bartenders and hostesses in such places because they are like the captains of the ship and watch everyone who comes and goes. You'll never fear being approached by a weird stranger once you feel surrounded by friends.

Although you can start frequenting such a place with someone else, make sure you also show up regularly by yourself.

If you're going to be seen with friends, make sure they are a delight, so that you laugh and smile frequently. If alone, make sure you look around you frequently and make eye contact with someone occasionally. If you cultivate the right place, it will feel like a home away from home. And you will notice who comes and goes. Feel free to relax and be receptive to eye contact and smiles from people you don't know . . . yet. Why not? You've created your own safe, public parlor.

Certainly, at first you'll probably have to consciously create the circumstances in which to relax in public. Then, you can expand and similarly create other public spaces in which you feel "at home" enough to receive attention from men. Say, you branch out to a local bistro where you can listen comfortably to jazz music on a Saturday evening. Remember, you're in charge, not the space, not the people around you. When you do this, your face will relax enough to invite an approach from a man who is assertive enough to make a small overture, and healthy enough to choose a confident woman with whom to do so.

I recommend that any single woman who wants to meet more men practice the discipline of socializing where she can give and receive mild flirtations without endangering herself or feeling anxiety. Think of it as a discipline, like meditating in public. Walk that razor's edge of being both relaxed and alert to the world around you, and you will never feel dis-empowered in a social situation. The end result? You'll meet a lot more of the kind of men you want to meet. ( thirdage.com )

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Smoking pot tied to slacking off at work

Smoking pot tied to slacking off at work - According to a real shocker from the world of bona fide science, smoking marijuana is tied to less motivation at the office.

The author of the study said it can't prove whether that's due to the drug's effects, the social environment in which it's used or whether pot smokers are just more likely to be laid-back from the get-go.

Though researcher Christer Hyggen suspects pot is the culprit, another possible explanation is that people who aren't so happy with their work situation or motivated on the job are more likely turn to drugs.

"There's a popular belief that people who smoke cannabis are slackers and that they don't want to work," Hyggen, from the Oslo-based social research institute NOVA, told Reuters Health.

To see how well that perception held up, he analyzed data from a 25-year-long study of close to 1,500 Norwegians. Starting in 1987, when they were in their late teens and early 20s, participants filled out surveys that included questions on their recent pot use on five different occasions, into their 40s.

They also rated their attitudes on statements that reflected work commitment, such as "It is very important for me to have a job" and "I feel restless when I have no work to do," ranked on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 reflecting the most commitment.

People who reported smoking in the past year generally reported less dedication to work than abstainers, according to findings published in the journal Addiction.

The pattern held after Hyggen took into account their mental health, satisfaction with their work environment, their economic background and how much alcohol they drank.

He also found that those who only reported recent smoking on one survey -- the "experimenters" -- tended to be as committed as abstainers as they got older. That wasn't the case for participants who repeatedly acknowledged marijuana use: their work commitment continued to decline into adulthood, and remained significantly below that of never-smokers.

By the last survey, in 2010, the 63 repeat users had an average score of 3.9 on questions of work commitment. That compared to scores between 4.2 and 4.3 in participants who had only experimented with marijuana or never tried it, including those who said their friends used the drug but they didn't.

The findings suggested that over time, "people who quit smoking cannabis increase their work commitment, and people who take up smoking cannabis reduce their work commitment," Hyggen said.

While his results can't prove a cause-and-effect relationship, "we were able to at least close in on this association."

Such a link fits logically, according to another researcher not involved in the study.

"For adolescents who are engaged in marijuana use and substance use, to the extent that that decreases or limits the academic achievement they would have achieved otherwise, that would limit their employment opportunities," said Kimberly Henry, from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, who has studied marijuana and truancy in adolescents.

Still, she told Reuters Health, "I think like many of these kinds of behaviors, there is kind of a spiral cycle where one reinforces the other."

Hyggen said that it's not a bad idea to stay away from drugs including marijuana.

"At the same time I don't think we should be overly afraid of people experimenting with drugs in youth," he said, as young people with that type of marijuana use didn't end up with a diminished work ethic as adults.

Henry agreed that heavier marijuana use is what's worrisome when it comes to school and work performance.

"This idea that makes sense from theory and just conventional wisdom is that it's the higher-level use that's probably causing the most problems," she said. ( Reuters )

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Regrets? We've had a few (our love lives, health, childhoods, finances, smoking and careers...)

Regrets? We've had a few (our love lives, health, childhoods, finances, smoking and careers...)- We spend three quarters of an hour dwelling on our regrets every week, a study has found.

The most common cause for remorse is not having saved more money, followed by a wish that we had put more effort in at school.

Starting smoking, not exercising enough and not seeing more of the world also feature in the survey’s top five regrets.

Pondering: We spend 45 minutes a week dwelling on our regrets, according to a survey

Three quarters of those surveyed said they did not believe it was possible to live a life without regrets, perhaps explaining why, on average, we spend 44 minutes a week thinking about things we could or should have done differently.

Our main areas of regret are our love lives (20 per cent), family (18 per cent), career (16 per cent), health (14 per cent) and finances (14 per cent).

On average, we have two main regrets in life – and 17 per cent of those interviewed laid the blame at someone else’s door.

But two thirds of those interviewed said they thought their regrets had led them to act more positively and that they had learnt from their mistakes.

A quarter of the 2,000 people questioned by Electric Zebra, an electronic substitute cigarette firm, said their regrets had made them into the person they are today.

Common regrets range from not getting on the property ladder sooner to not being more promiscuous when younger. Others include regretting not telling someone we loved them and wishing we had repaired a damaged friendship.

The top ten regrets were:

1. Not having saved more money
2. Not having worked harder at school
3. Not having exercised more
4. Not seeing more of the world
5. Taking up smoking
6. Not staying in touch with people more
7. Not having taken more care of our bodies when younger
8. Not having appreciated an elderly relative more before he or she passed away
9. Not having taken more photos of experiences growing up
10. Getting married too early. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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