Being Obese in Your 20s Can Cut Your Life Short–by a Lot
We all know that being obese increases your risk of developing all sorts of potentially deadly health conditions, including blood clots, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and more. Most people think that those risks might reduce your lifespan by a few years—apparently not enough to shock overweight and obese people into changing their behavior. But new [...]
read moreViolence and Gun Control: More Evidence That Too Many Schools Aren’t Clear on the Concept
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about gun control and a number of cases where children had been expelled or charged with crimes for bringing “weapons” to school. In one case, the instruments of violence were plastic toy soldiers; in another, a boy had chewed a pastry into the shape of a gun. I was hoping that we’d heard the last of these cases of good intentions gone completely crazy. In a variation on gun control run amok, a 10-year-old California boy was suspended and threatened with expulsion after he brought a Swiss Army Knife on a...
read moreSperm Stories, Part II
In Part I of Sperm Stories, we talked about how temperature—both cold and hot—affects sperm production, swimming speed, and quality. In this article, we’ll take a look at several recent studies explore non-temperature-related factors. Turn off the tube. Men who watch 20 hours or more of TV have half the sperm count of men who [...]
read moreA Bank Account to Empty
“You tell me I need to lose weight. How do I do it, Doc?” “My dear patient, it’s simple: treat your body like a bank account, but one that you should empty. Put less in and take more out.” Obesity in America You’ve heard the rumors; here are the facts: The United States is one of the most obese [...]
read moreSolutions and Cures for Passivity
The bottom line is: Passivity is the compulsion to try to get what we are desperately longing for, while doing all the wrong things or nothing to get it. (Note: This should not be confused with patience, which is knowing something worth waiting for is just around the corner — and taking appropriate steps to [...]
read moreChild Safety, Part II: Even More Accidents Waiting to Happen
In Part I of our series on child safety we talked about risks associated with bouncing around on those seemingly innocent horsey rides at stores or in bouncy houses. Speaking of bouncing, let’s talk about those backyard trampolines. The American Academy of Pediatrics. a group that’s always concerned about child safety, now recommends against using trampolines. Their data show that 70 children per 100,000 are injured on them (compared to only 5 per 100,000 who are injured in bouncy rooms). The majority of the injuries happen when...
read moreTwo Flights Of Stairs A Day — The Heart Healthy Prescription For Sex
Heart disease is pervasive in the United States, representing a substantial health concern. Over 17 million Americans have the condition, including 8.5 million people who have had a heart attack. In fact, heart disease is the number one cause of mortality for women. For the many that live with heart disease, questions frequently arise regarding [...]
read moreMice Sperm in a Dish
It’s not the mother load of discoveries in our field, but it’s pretty close. It tells us that the mother load is definitely out there…and within reach. Yup, the good news is that real. live, old-fashioned sperm were made in a dish… at least for mice. The Holy Grail: Artificial Sperm For the 55,000 reproductive age cancers survivors annually in the [...]
read moreStereotypes 101, Part II: Women Prefer Big Men with Deeper Voices (and Men Prefer the Opposite in Women)
Okay, we’ve established that women find men with heavy stubble most attractive and men with full beards as the most masculine and best-suited for fatherhood. Since you’re going to be shaving less, consider spending all that free time working on dropping your voice an octave or two. Turns out that women prefer men with husky, [...]
read moreModern Fatherhood: Changing, but Not Necessarily for the Better
Two of the most cherished parts of becoming a modern father—witnessing the birth of his baby and cutting the umbilical cord—are coming under attack. In the first case, researchers at Oxford University found that some dads who witnessed life-threatening, traumatic, or especially complicated labors and births were more affected by what they’d seen than the women who actually went through it. So affected, in fact, that they were diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that’s usually associated with combat veterans or people who’ve undergone...
read moreSperm Stories, Part I
No one is quite sure why, but over the past few decades, there has been a major decline in the quality of men’s semen (the fluid that contains the sperm) and fertility rates throughout the industrialized world. As you might expect, there’s no shortage of theories, explanations, and proposed solutions. In this article, we’ll look [...]
read moreTeens Who Text While Driving Are More Likely to Take Other Risks While Driving
In 2011, nearly half of high school students 16 and older reported admit that they text while driving in a large national survey. The study “Texting While Driving and Other Risky Motor Vehicle Behaviors Among High School Students,” is in the June 2013 issue of Pediatrics and will be published online May 13. Researchers surveyed more than 15,000 students as part of the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which assessed texting while driving during the prior 30 days. The survey also assessed other risky behaviors, including irregular seat...
read moreMen, In Particular, Must Safeguard The Health Of Their Gums
There is a direct link between men and gum disease and cancer. A man who has a history of gum (periodontal) disease is 14 percent more likely to develop cancer than a man who has healthy gums. Periodontal refers to the area “around the tooth.” The Connection Specifically, periodontal disease and the development of blood [...]
read moreSoul Mates: Expanding Your Possibilities
I remember reaching my fiftieth birthday. I’d relocated to theSan Diegoarea, was single again, and broken-hearted. I so wanted to be with my “soulmate,” and each time I fell in love, I was sure he was “the one.” Now I’d reached “the big 5-0,” and another relationship had ended, leaving me baffled, unsettled, despairing. After [...]
read moreChild Safety, Part I: Unfortunately, Accidents Happen–A Lot More Often Than We Think
When it comes to child safety, those mechanical horsies outside the grocery store couldn’t be dangerous, could they? How ‘bout those inflatable bouncy castles? Or backyard trampolines? Or even your stairs? According to a number of recent studies, the world of play could be a lot more dangerous than we think (but probably not dangerous enough to get parents and grandparents to stop using them completely, but hopefully enough to get us to pay a little more attention to basic safety). Let’s start with the ponies. A new child safety study...
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