While focusing on crunches will definitely strengthen your core, it unfortunately won't dissolve the tire or muffin top around your waist. To get rid of ab flab, you've got to include gut-wrenching, calorie-burning cardio regularly in your routine. And not just any kind of cardio — you need interval training. Alternating between moderate and speedy bursts is the key. How do I know?

A recent study in the International Journal of Obesity revealed that "women who alternated cycling as fast as possible for 8 seconds with 12-second rest periods repeated for 20 minutes dropped 9.5 percent of their mushy middles, whereas those who cycled steadily for 40 minutes gained."

If you need some interval training ideas to beat the bulge read more.

You can do intervals with virtually any type of activity. Here are some ways to do it:

• Use visual goals. Run or bike at a moderate pace, and then look ahead and sprint to the mailbox that's 50 feet away, or up the hill, or to the end of the street. Once you reach your goal, reduce back to your moderate speed. After your breathing returns to normal, choose another goal to race to.
• Use time. Watch the clock and move moderately for five minutes and then zoom as fast as you can for one minute. Repeat this pattern for at least 30 minutes.
• Use music. Make an interval playlist, alternating between fast-paced peppy tunes, and slower, chill tunes. Walk, run, or dance to the beat. Here are some of my playlists for intervals.
• Use a FitSugar interval workout. I always find it is easier to follow a cardio routine and intervals are no exception. I have made many interval workouts, from treadmill to swimming, from stationary bike to elliptical. >>>>

Sarah Baldauf

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Three Ways to Get Better Sleep and Improve Your Health

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Deborah Kotz

The fried foods, salty snacks and meats that are staples of the Western diet account for about 30 percent of heart attack risk across the world, a new report suggests.

Meanwhile, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, the so-called "Prudent" diet, is tied a low risk of heart attack, according to the study, published in the Oct. 21 issue of Circulation.

The research, which looked at dietary habits in 52 countries, found people who ate a Western diet had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack compared to those who ate little or no fried foods and meat. Those who followed a "Prudent" diet had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack compared to those who went light on fruits and vegetables.

The authors also looked at an "Oriental" diet, rich in tofu, soy and other sauces, and found it did not increase or decrease the risk of a heart attack.

Previous studies have reached similar conclusions about the "Prudent" and Western diet in the United States and Europe, but did not include the Oriental pattern of eating. While some components of the Oriental diet may protect against heart trouble, the higher sodium content of sauces counter that benefit.

"This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in Western countries exist in different regions of the world," study senior author Salim Yusuf, a professor of medicine at McMaster University and director of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, said in an American Heart Association news release.

The Canadian researchers analyzed risk factors in food choices and the risk of heart attack in about 16,000 people in 52 countries. Almost 6,000 people had heart attacks, while the rest had no known heart disease.>>>>

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Western Diet Is a Global Heart Risk

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The INTERHEART study, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, shows that the risk of heart attack crosses geographic boundaries and correlates strongly to the so-called Western diet that favors salty snacks and fried foods, and to a lesser extent, meat.

The risk, spread over five continents, is 30% higher for those who eat a Western diet, the study shows, than for those who adhere to a "prudent diet," or one rich in fruits and vegetables. An Oriental diet, which is high in tofu and other soy products, doesn't seem to lower or raise heart attack risk overall, according to the study.

Researchers out of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, examined dietary trends among more than 16,000 participants in 52 countries who were recruited between 1999 and 2003. One-third of the participants, or 5,761 people, were interviewed after having a single heart attack; the remaining 10,646 had no known heart disease, including angina, and did not suffer from diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol. The mean age of participants was between 53 and 57 years old.

The study categorized eating patterns as Western, Oriental, and prudent. Participants answered written questions and were interviewed by medical personnel about their consumption of 19 food categories, including leafy greens, pickled foods, dairy products, and desserts. All answers were scored according to dietary risk.

The study accounted for other risk factors like smoking, body mass index, age, physical activity, sex, and geographical region in assessing overall heart attack risk. It did not track long-term changes in regional eating habits and their link with health problems.

Researchers concluded that the higher the regular intake of fried and salty foods, the higher the risk of heart attack regardless of which region of the world one resides in; prudent dietary habits carried the lowest risk. An Oriental diet seemed to be protective against heart attack in some regions of the world, but was not the best hedge overall, perhaps because of the high salt content of soy and other sauces common in the dining choices.

"The objective of this study was to understand the modifiable risk factors of heart attacks at a global level," says Salim Yusuf, DPhil, the study's senior author. "This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in Western countries exist in different regions of the world."

Yusuf is a professor of medicine at McMaster University and is director of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

The study acknowledges that serving sizes and preparation technique (the type of fat used in cooking, for example) could play a role in increasing heart attack risk in participants adhering to a Western diet.

A new study suggests that people become obese because they eat too much and they eat too much because they have weakened reward circuitry in their brains, which forces them to eat more to get satisfied with the foods they eat. The theory is plain and simple, but more work is needed.

The study led by Eric Stice and colleagues at the University of Texas and the University of Oregon and Yale University found that young females who were positive for a genetic variant and had less activation in the dorsal striatum part of the brain were more likely to gain weight within one year of the study.

The study involved 43 female college students ages 18 to 22 with a mean body mass index of 28.6 and adolescents ages 14 to 18 with a mean BMI of 24.3.   Stice and colleagues measured how the subjects' brains responded when they were ingesting a milkshake and tested them for the presence of Taq1A A1 allele.   And then they waited for a year to see how much weight the subjects gain.

They found subjects who were less excited for the food they were eating gained more weight after one year. The weight gain was even more significant in those who were less sensitive to the pleasure from eating the food and also had the genetic variant.

The results of the study seem to suggest that those who gained more weight ATE more foods than others because they were less sensitive to the pleasure from eating food and they would have to eat more to compensate the deficiency.

A health observer suggested that those who gained more weight did not have to eat more to gain weight.   They could be less physically active than those who gained less weight.

Additionally, the milkshake test is also very limited and it may not be universally indicative of how people’s brains respond.   Some people were less responsive to the intake of milkshake, but that does not necessarily mean they would equally be less responsive to other foods.   After all, milkshake is not the main staple people use. This means it is not convincing to say that people who are less responsive to milkshake would tend to eat more foods and gain more weight.

Taq1A variant carriers have been found to have a low number of dopamine D2 receptors, meaning the gene variant has something to do with an individual's response to the pleasure from eating food.   More of dopamine resulting from use of food, alcohol and illicit drugs results in a better sensation of the pleasure or joy.

But the status of the gene variant by itself does not mean the carriers would be more likely to eat more food to compensate the "deficiency". Studies on the issue are controversial or even confusing and no solid conclusion has been made yet although some studies have linked the gene variant to obesity.

David C and colleagues from the York University in Toronto, Canada suggested that the people with who are obese or have binge eating disorder may possess another genetic variant in addition to the Taq1A A1 allele that interacts with the A1 allele to produce higher dopamine activity.

David and colleagues noted in their study report that the sensitivity of dopamine reward pathways has been implicated in the risk of certain disorders such as overeating and obesity, but it was not clear whether a Reward Deficiency Syndrome or hyper-sensitivity to reward prompt people to eat more for the pleasure.

They found from their study that binge eating disorder and obese subjects actually "reported greater reward sensitivity than normal-weight controls, but only among those carrying the A1 allele."

They also found that "normal-weight controls with at least one copy of the T allele of the C957T marker (AT or TT genotypes) had significantly lower reward sensitivity scores than any of the other groups who did not differ from each other."

The study was published in the April 1, 2008 issue of Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry.

Anti-obesity drug may be developed to suppress one’s appetite and reduce his intake of calories.  But for now, those who want to control their body weight or want to avoid becoming obese may consider doing two things: eating a whole foods plant-based diet and doing moderate amounts of physical excise.

Sue Mueller

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Study finds food for thought

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Experiments with young women drinking chocolate milkshakes have explained why some people become obese: the "reward circuitry" in their brains gives them less satisfaction than normal when they eat and drink, so they consume more to compensate.

Scientists at the University of Texas, Yale University and Oregon Research Institute carried out brain imaging studies on 76 women students in their teens and early 20s as they consumed flavoured milkshakes and tasteless drinks. The results are in the journal Science today.

Fatter volunteers had less activation in the dorsal striatum part of the brain than their leaner counterparts as they drank. This region releases dopamine, a brain chemical, in response to food and drink. The amount released corresponds to the degree of pleasure produced by the experience.

The effect was strongest in women with a genetic variation that gave them fewer dopamine receptors and, therefore, a less responsive reward system in the brain. Follow-up to the original tests showed these subjects were most likely to gain weight over time. "These results suggest that individuals with [underactive] reward circuitry are at increased risk for unhealthy weight gain," said Eric Stice, of Oregon Research Institute. "Thus, it is possible that behavioural or pharmacological interventions that correct this reward deficit may help prevent and treat obesity - an avenue we are currently pursuing in our research."

Clive Cookson

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Study Concludes Brain Signals Can Predict Weight Gain

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A study published in the October 17 issue of the journal Science has revealed that overweight persons’ brains did not get enough gratification from eating, therefore making them eat more in order to compensate.

Researchers looked at 43 female college students aged between 18 to 22 years old and at a group of 33 teenagers ages 14 to 18, who covered the whole range within the very skinny and obese limits.

While inside a brain scanner, the women drank small amounts of both chocolate milkshakes and a tasteless solution that mimicked saliva, which were given to to them through a syringe used to squirt the liquid into their mouths (since moving inside a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner hinders accurate measurement of the brain's activity).

Results showed that swallowing the milkshake triggered activity in the brain’s dorsal striatum, a region rich in dopamine, while ingesting the saliva-like drink had no such effect on the pleasure center.

In addition, brain scanning revealed that the aforementioned area was less active in the women who were overweight and in those who carried a particular gene version named Taq1A1, which has previously been linked to low dopamine levels in humans.

The researchers reported that the two categories of women were prone to weight gain during the following year.

Although the study has been conducted on only a few volunteers, its findings are undeniably important to further research into the role that genetics play in obesity. Consequently, doctors could determine whether a person carries the A1 gene version from an early age, thus urging parents to make sure that their children have a healthy diet and get enough exercise, in order to prevent obesity.

Medically speaking, obesity is a condition in which the body has accumulated excess fat to such extent that it may have a negative impact on one’s health. Associated to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus type 2, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer and osteoarthritis, obesity has been also found to reduce life expectancy.

The statistical measurement used to determine whether a person is obese or not is called the body mass index (BMI) and is defined as the person's body weight divided by the square of their height. Obesity translates as a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or higher, while an overweight individual’s index ranges from 25 to 29.9 kg/m2 .

Generally, the causes for the medical condition are lack of physical exercise and an unhealthy diet. The treatment includes dieting and exercising more, but if the latter fail to work, doctors can prescribe anti-obesity drugs or, in severe cases, the patient can undergo bariatric surgery, which entails modifying the gastrointestinal tract in order to reduce nutrient intake and/or absorption.

Currently, the Unites States is facing an obesity epidemic, the rates having soared in recent years, raising much concern among health officials. Statistics show that eight in ten Americans aged 25 or older are overweight (approximately 58 million), the number of obese ones having reached 40 million. Moreover, an increase by 76 percent in Type II diabetes in adults aged between 30 and 40 years old has been registered since 1990.

Jenny Huntington

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Overweight People Find Sweets Less Satisfying

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Overweight people actually don’t enjoy eating fatty food and sweets, a brain study found. The thought of future gain weight triggers for obese women a brain’s response to food which makes them get less pleasure from food.

Two studies, one in 43 female college students aged 18 to 22 and the other in 33 teenagers aged 14 to 18, measured the brain’s activity using a technique called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) while they drank a chocolate milk shake or a tasteless drink. The researchers also tested for a particular genetic variant - TaqA1 - which is linked to fewer dopamine receptors in the brain.

The brain scans showed that women with one form of the D2 dopamine receptor gene had the lowest pleasure response when drinking a milkshake. Obese women had less activity in their brain’s pleasure centers. Activity in the brain’s dorsal striatum was much weaker in weighty women. Moreover, they had to drink more than one milk shake to get the same pleasure response. After a year, these participants were also more likely to gain weight over the following year.

The study, published in the Oct.17 issue of Science, was done by researchers at the Oregon Research Institute in Portland in collaboration with researchers at Yale University and at the University of Texas at Austin.

“This is the first imaging study which found less activation of dopamine receptors in [some] humans,” said study lead author Eric Stice, a scientist at the Oregon Research Institute in Portland. “The research reveals obese people may have fewer dopamine receptors, so they overeat to compensate for this reward deficit,” he added.

Previous studies had linked this form of the gene, called Taq1A1, to obesity and this new study reveals that overweight people have fewer dopamine receptors in the brain, so they overeat to compensate this deficit. These people who carry a variant gene that dulls dopamine responses are more likely to get less pleasure from eating even if they are not obese. This process determines a vicious circle: people tend to eat more and overcompensate the fact that they don’t get enough reward.

Dr Eric Stice, from the Oregon Research Institute said this is the first study to link the fact that obese people get les pleasure when eating with their future weight gain. The results of the study are crucial for understanding weight gain and for helping individuals who are at risk to become obese. Studies of obese animals have shown that dieting increases the D2 dopamine receptor’s response to food. Stice said that diet pills won’t work, but physical activity may be the right solution for overweight people, as exercise also activates the dopamine pathway.

An active lifestyle may help people combat obesity. Studies found that being genetically predisposed to obesity had no effect on those with above average level of exercise. The increased risk of obesity due to the fat mass and obesity associated gene can be blunted through physical activity.

Alice Carver

A variety of studies have suggested that engaging in mental heavy lifting of any sort not only draws the brain into the task but actually can change the way the brain responds to the task. The greater mental engagement that results is thought to create a sort of mental reserve that can protect the brain in the face of insult and injury; it also appears to preserve mental function in the face of aging.

A new study of older individuals has now looked at brain activity as subjects undertake Internet searches and it concludes that, for regular Internet users, far more of the brain gets engaged when searching than when reading.

Like other studies that rely on fantastically expensive functional MRI equipment, this one had a small subject population: a dozen each of regular Internet users and Internet novices. The savvy users typically went online a minimum of once daily, while, on average, the novice group reported using the Internet either not at all or once a month. The average age of both groups was in the early to mid-60s.

Once in the MRI tube, the subjects were given one of two tasks: read some text formatted along the lines of a typical book page or undertake a simplified Internet search. Both tasks could be managed by a simplified set of controls that both fit in the MRI apparatus and did not cause significant head movement. Runs lasted for four minutes for each task, and the topics of the reading passages and searches were identical, which should limit the impact of the details of the task on the mental processing involved

For the Internet novices, searching didn't significantly change the areas of the brain that were engaged, which have previously been implicated in mediating language, reading, memory, and visual activity. Although there were differences within these regions, the most significant difference was that reading engaged more areas of the brain than searching did for Internet novices.

This was most certainly not the case for regular users of the Internet; far more areas of the brain were active when these users were engaged in searches than when they simply read static content. Volume measurements suggest that nearly twice as much of the brain was engaged when the experienced users searched than when naive users did. The additional areas engaged included those thought to be involved in decision making and complex reasoning. The implications are that those familiar with Internet searches have learned to become mentally engaged in the process in a way that goes well beyond reading.

The authors caution against reading too much into the results, given the small sample size. They also suggest that factors beyond the actual process of searching could influence the neural activity. "The decision to avoid technology may reflect a pattern of other lifestyle choices that could explain our findings," they note.

Still, taken at face value, the results appear to suggest that frequent access to information on the Internet can create a higher mental engagement with the content. Given the value of mental engagement in helping preserve brain function, especially as people age, the results suggest a potentially positive role for Internet use in aging populations

John Timmer

The armed forces and cigarettes have a long history, going back to World War II. That's when Ancel Keys, a scientist who spent his career studying the relationship between diet and disease, helped the

military develop an adequate meal suitable for combat. Named K-rations, after Keys, the meal considered sound at the time contained bacon, canned cheese and dextrose tablets. For relaxation, the military threw in gum and cigarettes, triggering massive nicotine addiction in young GIs.

The post-war tragedy unfolded over decades as smoking by WWII veterans led to a nine-fold increase in lung cancer deaths by 1980.

Cigarettes are no longer freebies in field K-rations, but the nicotine addiction rate in the military is still sky high, according to a news release put out by the University of Wisconsin's Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.

"Soldiers are going to war zones in Iraq," says Dr. Michael Fiore, head of the center, "and, God willing, they survive the imminent risks of that deployment. But they often return addicted to tobacco -- a powerful addiction that puts them at risk for collateral damage for the rest of their lives."

By about the mid-1970s, military officials realized that smoking did more than relax soldiers. Soldiers who smoked didn't perfom as well on tests of athletic fitness, they got hurt more often, and they were more likely to fail basic training. Cigarettes were removed from K-rations, smoking was banned indoors and the services began offering smoking-cessation programs. Smoking rates dropped for awhile, but began rising again with the Iraq war.

"Young soldiers are especially vulnerable to the risks of tobacco," says Fiore. "Smoking is still normative in the military."

In civilian life, fewer than 20% of Americans smoke. Overall in the military, abut 33% of soldiers smoke, and about half of the men and women deployed to Iraq smoke.

"The one critically important fact is this: for returning military personnel, in most cases, it is still early enough to alter the course of health damage resulting from smoking and, hopefully, prevent any permanent heart and lung damage," Fiore says.

--Susan Brink

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2008/10/soldiers-and-ci.html

Swiss high court strikes down Geneva smoking ban

 

Smokers in Geneva were given a reprieve on Tuesday after the top Swiss court struck down a ban on smoking in public places, in force since July 1, saying the local government had overstepped its powers.

The ban was approved by nearly 80 percent of Geneva voters last February.

But the Federal Tribunal has ruled that the local government had no legal basis to impose the ban, having failed to wait for the cantonal parliament to adopt a formal law after the referendum, the Swiss news agency ATS said.

"The Federal Court's decision will have the effect of delaying for several months the application of a decision which Genevans have clearly taken," Geneva's government said in a statement about the ruling by the Lausanne-based court.

Smokers in public buildings, bars or restaurants risked a fine of up to 1,000 Swiss francs ($90 , while owners of establishments risked a fine of up to 10,000 francs for violating the ban.

Voters in eight of Switzerland's 26 cantons have approved bans on smoking in public places although not all have come into force yet. Both Zurich and Basel voted at the weekend in favor of more restrictive smoking regulations.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/od_nm/us_swiss_smoking;_ylt=ApHFFb39EppqY8n7ERy.1NwuQE4F

Senate Approves Nuclear-Energy Pact With India

U.S. Technology Companies Are Eager to Tap the Multibillion-Dollar Market in a Deal that Bush Has Made a Top Priority

The U.S. Senate passed a landmark nuclear pact with India on Wednesday night, opening the door for U.S. energy companies to enter India's fast-growing market.

The agreement, which now only needs the signature of President Bush, will require India to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities. The Bush administration has made the deal a top priority. It has also been working to end nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran in the final months of Mr. Bush's term, though those efforts have run into roadblocks in recent weeks.

The Senate voted 86-13 to approve the treaty, in a vote held immediately before the chamber passed the $700 billion financial rescue package.

India's power-generation capacity is lagging far behind the country's expanding energy needs. The economy has grown an average of 8.7% each year over the past five years. That trend, combined with rising incomes, has lifted electricity demand by 9% a year.

Other countries have expressed interest in getting into the Indian market, and France concluded its own civilian-nuclear deal with India on Tuesday.

For U.S. companies, the deal will open a multibillion-dollar market for the sale of everything from power-transmission equipment to airplanes.

Suppliers of technology and equipment, including General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Electric Co., a unit of Toshiba Corp., hope to benefit from India's nuclear-power plans.

General Electric built nuclear power plants in India in the 1960s and is interested in building new reactors there, as well as providing fuel and other services for new and existing reactors. General Electric said it has had "limited" discussions with Indian officials about the country's energy plans.

Westinghouse Electric, based outside Pittsburgh, plans to build up to eight reactors in India for $5 billion to $7 billion each. It stepped up meetings with government and industry officials in India this year in anticipation of an agreement.

Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have bid to sell 126 fighter jets to the Indian government, in a deal valued at $8 billion to $10 billion.

The White House and State Department held last-minute negotiations over the past two weeks with key members of Congress to get the deal completed before the president leaves office. The House of Representatives approved the treaty, which was three years in the making, on Saturday.

The U.S. has sought to curb the spread of nuclear technologies globally. It has also tried to strengthen ties with India, which it sees as a potential counterweight to China.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has staked his government's survival on the deal, which he argues is crucial for India's energy needs.

Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, urged colleagues in the Senate to approve the deal, saying, "To have a good strong relationship with this country in this century will be of critical importance to our safety as a nation and to the safety of mankind."

Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, however, raised concerns that President Bush failed to set sufficient safeguards against India testing nuclear weapons. Sen. Dorgan said the agreement hadn't received adequate consideration by Congress and that it rewarded India for what he described as the nation's defiance of international nonproliferation principles.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Singh met in Washington last week, when the two sides first hoped the agreement would be sealed. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office then, Mr. Bush said the deal had "taken a lot of work on both our parts."

LOUISE RADNOFSKY

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Court Won't Reconsider Ban on Execution for Child Rape

The Supreme Court yesterday declined to revisit its June decision that imposing the death penalty on child-rapists is unconstitutional, although two justices said they would have reopened the case and two others sharply criticized the majority.

The state of Louisiana and the Justice Department had asked the court to reconsider the 5 to 4 decision because the justices had not been presented with what the state and federal government considered an important fact: that Congress in 2006 made child rape a capital offense under military law.

No one argued that point -- it seems none of the parties even knew it at the time -- before the majority ruled at the end of the term that there was no evidence of a national consensus in favor of putting child-rapists to death.

But that was only part of the court's reasoning. It also said that in its "independent judgment," child rape could not be compared to murder in terms of warranting the death penalty, just as the court had held that raping an adult did not merit execution.

Today, the same five justices said that the opinion would be amended to reflect the existence of the military law but that it did not bear upon their reasoning.

The military law "does not draw into question our conclusions that there is a consensus against the death penalty for the crime in the civilian context and that the penalty here is unconstitutional," wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, author of the original decision.

He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Without comment, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have granted the rehearing. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., said he thought there was no point in rehearing the case, because the majority would reach the same -- and in his mind, misguided -- conclusion.

"The views of the American people on the death penalty for child rape were, to tell the truth, irrelevant to the majority's decision in this case," Scalia said. "The majority opinion, after an unpersuasive attempt to show that a consensus against the penalty existed, in the end came down" to its own judgment that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments renders capital punishment unacceptable for the crime of rape.

Scalia continued: "Of course, the Constitution contemplates no such thing; the proposed Eighth Amendment would have been laughed to scorn if it had read 'no criminal penalty shall be imposed which the Supreme Court deems unacceptable.' " The June decision was among the court's most controversial of the term. Both presidential candidates criticized it.

The decision overturned the death penalty for Patrick Kennedy, 43, who was convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter in Louisiana in 1998. Justice Kennedy noted in his opinion that Louisiana was one of six states that allowed the death penalty for the crime.

Louisiana did not note in its briefs the little-known change that Congress made to military law provisions or an executive order, signed by President Bush, that added the provision to the Manual for Courts-Martial.

The Justice Department said it erred in not seeking to join the case or advising the court of the law.

The court rarely grants new hearings in cases it has decided. A rehearing would have required five votes, including one from the previous majority.

The existence of the military law came to light only after a civilian Air Force lawyer, Dwight Sullivan, noted it in his military law blog after the decision. His report led to a front-page New York Times story on the omission.

Robert Barnes

A five-justice majority says the court's ruling barring capital punishment in the rape of a child will stand, despite a military law allowing the death penalty in such cases.

A divided Supreme Court refused Wednesday to reconsider its ruling barring the death penalty for raping a child, despite having overlooked a recent federal law that authorized capital punishment for members of the military who committed the same crime.

The five-justice majority brushed aside calls to reopen the issue. On June 25, they ruled the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment for crimes that did not involve murder, and they overturned a Louisiana man's death sentence for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

In declaring such laws unconstitutional, the court's opinion said there was a "national consensus" against the use of the death penalty for crimes such as rape. The justices also said it was their "independent judgment" that the ultimate punishment should be reserved for people who killed.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the opinion, and justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer agreed with it.

But shortly after the decision was handed down, a military blog noted that Congress and the president had updated the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 2006, and had authorized the death sentence in the rape of a child. This made for an embarrassing oversight.

Neither the justices, their clerks nor the government's lawyers had taken note of the child-rape provision in the military code. Once alerted to it, state lawyers for Louisiana, joined by the Bush administration, filed motions urging the court to reopen the case and to revisit its ruling.

But none of the justices were inclined to change their minds. The justices in the majority issued a four-page opinion that rejected the request to reopen the case.

Instead, they said, a footnote would be added to the decision in the case of Patrick Kennedy vs. Louisiana. It takes note of the updated military code and ends by saying, "We find that the military penalty does not affect our reasoning or our conclusions."

Kennedy pointed out that no member of the military was facing a death sentence for raping a child. "In any event, authorization of the death penalty in the military sphere does not indicate that the penalty is constitutional in the civilian context," he said.

The four dissenters made clear again that they thought the decision was mistaken.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted to rehear the case. Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said they continued to disagree with the court's ruling but saw no need to rehear the matter.

"I am voting against the petition for rehearing because the views of the American people on the death penalty for child rape were, to tell the truth, irrelevant to the majority's decision in this case," Scalia wrote.

No one has been executed for rape in the United States since 1964, and the high court ruled in 1977 that capital punishment for rape was unconstitutional.

But that decision involved the rape of an adult woman. In recent years, six states, including Louisiana, enacted death penalty laws that authorized capital punishment in the rape of a child. Kennedy, the Louisiana man, was the first person sentenced to die under the state's new law, and the court took up his appeal.

Separately, the court said it would hear an environmental cleanup case from Arvin, Calif., near Bakersfield.

The federal government paid $7.8 million and California paid $401,000 to clean up contamination from an abandoned storage facility for farm chemicals. A federal cleanup law calls for those costs to be paid by the polluters. But the law is not clear about how the costs are to be divided up.

"The issue involves the proper allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars of liability at thousands of cleanup sites nationwide," lawyers for Burlington Northern Railroad told the court.

The railway said the owners of the chemical storage company leased a small parcel of its land. Burlington questioned why it should be forced to pay any of the cleanup costs. Similarly, Shell Oil Co., another defendant, said it merely shipped chemicals to the facility.

But in March, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that because Burlington Northern and Shell were responsible in part for the pollution, they could be held liable for the full cost of the cleanup.

Burlington Northern called that a "radical change in the law," and the court voted to hear its appeal, probably in January.

David G. Savage

Besides less intake of fatty and sugary foods, older adults need less sleep, says a new study, which found that healthy older people lose some capacity for sleep as they age.

The researchers reported that when asked to stay in bed for 16 hours in the dark each day for several days, younger people get an average of 9 hours of shuteye compared to 7.5 hours for older people.

“The most parsimonious explanation for our results is that older people need less sleep,” said Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women’’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School.

“It’’s also possible that they sleep less even when given the opportunity for more sleep because of age-related changes in the ability to fall asleep and remain asleep,” she added.

The results of the study apply only to healthy individuals taking no medication and having no medical conditions or sleep disorders.

The study also found that most healthy people, and young people in particular, don”t get as much sleep as they need.

The idea that sleep changes markedly across the life span isn”t new. In fact, insomnia is a common complaint among older people. But whether age-related changes in sleep were due to changes in social factors, circadian rhythms, or shifts in an internal “set point” for sleep need or the ability to sleep had remained unresolved.

In the study, the researchers set out to compare the capacity for sleep in young people (between the ages of 18 and 32) compared to older people (age 60 to 72) under conditions that controlled for circadian rhythms by allowing the chance to sleep during both the night and the day and by controlling individual choices in sleep opportunities.

“While humans can sometimes override the homeostatic set point and not sleep when tired, there is no evidence that they can sleep when they are not tired,” Klerman said.

Given the same amount of time in bed, older people take longer to fall asleep and sleep for less time than younger people do, they found. When required to remain in bed for 16 hours a day, older people slept 1.5 hours less on average than younger people, they showed.

That age-related decline in sleep included an even split between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is associated with dreaming, and non-REM sleep, they found.

Most of the younger subjects slept for many more hours during the study than their usual self-selected sleep times. Given the evidence that insufficient sleep is associated with increased risk of accidents, errors, and metabolic changes similar to diabetes, Klerman emphasized that younger people should sleep more.

The findings may also influence treatment for insomnia in older people, Klerman said.

The study is published online on July 24th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. (ANI)

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How Sleep Smart Are You?

A new campaign called Sleeping Smart is about to happen as a joint project between the National Sleep Foundation and Sanofi-Aventis, a pharmaceutical company and the makers of the popular sleep aid Ambien.  The goal is to educate people about the value of sleep, and help those who suffer from insomnia understand its consequences.

I’m all for campaigns like this, because I think insomnia is sorely underestimated. What’s also highly underestimated is the effect insomnia can have on a person—from mood swings and irritability to decreased capacity to function at optimal levels, get things done, and generally feel good. I challenge anyone who looks and feels worn-out to prioritize sleep for one week and see the difference.

There are numerous health-related risks associated with insomnia, too. But perhaps the most stunning realization of all is the fact so few people even recognize they have insomnia. And those who think they do never mention it to their healthcare professional. In fact, two-thirds of those at increased risk for insomnia don’t consider themselves to have the condition, which may further perpetuate reasons for not seeking help.

Here’s a few questions to ask yourself (especially if you have trouble sleeping):

• Do you engage in stimulating activities before bedtime (e.g., watch television, send e-mail, surf the Internet, do household chores)?
• Does it take you more than 20 minutes to fall asleep?
• Do you resort to taking anything to help you sleep soundly, be it prescription drugs or over-the-counter remedies (Tylenol and Advil PM count!)?   
• Would you fall asleep if you were to read quietly in the afternoon? By the same token, do you drift off at afternoon meetings?
• Do you sleep on airplanes?
• Do you sleep when you are a passenger in a car?
• Do you look and feel older than you really are?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, it may be time to check in with your inner sleep thief. (This last question usually gets people—they don’t realize that restful sleep can physically de-age you, taking years off your looks and work at the cellular level.)

Insomnia does not have to be a fact of life, even if it’s more common today than ever before due to our chosen lifestyles. There are plenty of combination strategies that you can use to become a better sleep.

The top three:

1. Develop a consistent and routine bedtime habit that calms you down and prepares you for sleep; know how much sleep you need and be sure to get it consistently.
2. Learn how to out-smart negative self-talk that can enter your mind when you hit the pillow. 
3. Exercise regularly and avoid caffeine and alcohol within three hours of bedtime.

You’ll become a better—younger—person overall. Everything about you can benefit. >>>>

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Small Study Suggests Older Adults May Need Less Sleep

News Brief

This is a very small study of 18 people. Its findings, though, may offer a peek at what older people talk about so often.

They aren’t sleeping well. They’re not sleeping enough.

This is step one in the research. Will a larger study confirm this? Is this true?

If yes, then scientists need to go to work on why older people might need less sleep.

Sleep is a complex process. When people feel that the sleep they are getting is inadequate because they have trouble concentrating or feel off, it is disruptive.

Intriguing study. Much more needs to be learned here.

Medpage Today

“Aging induces specific changes in sleep architecture that reduces the need for sleep, providing a possible clue to age-related insomnia, results of a small study of healthy adults suggest.

“Older adults took longer to fall asleep and spent less time asleep, contributing to an overall reduction of about 1.5 hours in total sleep time compared with younger adults, Elizabeth Klerman, M.D., of Harvard, and Derk-Jan Dijk, Ph.D., of the University of Surrey in England, reported in the Aug. 5 issue of Current Biology.

“The findings have potential implications for diagnosis and management of insomnia in older individuals.

“If older people believe that they need more sleep than they can achieve, even when they spend extra time in bed, then they may complain of insomnia,” said Dr. Klerman. “They may start using medications needlessly. If they are tired during the day, they should consider evaluation for a sleep disorder that may be interfering with their ability to obtain good sleep at night.”

“Sleep changes markedly across the human life span, such that insomnia is a common complaint among older people, the researchers said, but the reasons for age-related alterations in sleep are unclear.” >>>>

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Older Adults May Need Less Sleep

Although sleep deprivation is a condition approaching epidemic proportions, a new study suggest that changes accompany the aging process may include a need for less sleep.

The report, published online in Current Biology, finds healthy older people lose some capacity for sleep. When asked to stay in bed for 16 hours in the dark each day for several days, younger people get an average of 9 hours of shuteye compared to 7.5 for older people, the researchers report.

” The most parsimonious explanation for our results is that older people need less sleep,” said Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School.

“It’s also possible that they sleep less even when given the opportunity for more sleep because of age-related changes in the ability to fall asleep and remain asleep,” she added, noting that the new results apply only to healthy individuals taking no medication and having no medical conditions or sleep disorders.

The study also found that most healthy people, and young people in particular, don’t get as much sleep as they need.

The idea that sleep changes markedly across the life span isn’t new. In fact, insomnia is a common complaint among older people. But whether age-related changes in sleep were due to changes in social factors, circadian rhythms, or shifts in an internal “set point” for sleep need or the ability to sleep had remained unresolved.

In the new study, Klerman and her colleague Derk-Jan Dijk, of the University of Surrey in the UK, set out to compare the capacity for sleep in young people (between the ages of 18 and 32) compared to older people (age 60 to 72) under conditions that controlled for circadian rhythms by allowing the chance to sleep during both the night and the day and by controlling individual choices in sleep opportunities.

” While humans can sometimes override the homeostatic set point and not sleep when tired, there is no evidence that they can sleep when they are not tired,” Klerman explained.

Given the same amount of time in bed, older people take longer to fall asleep and sleep for less time than younger people do, they found. When required to remain in bed for 16 hours a day, older people slept 1.5 hours less on average than younger people, they showed. That age-related decline in sleep included an even split between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is associated with dreaming, and non-REM sleep, they found.

Most younger subjects slept for many more hours during the study than their usual self-selected sleep times. Given the evidence that insufficient sleep is associated with increased risk of accidents, errors, and metabolic changes similar to diabetes, Klerman emphasized that younger people should sleep more.

The findings may also influence treatment for insomnia in older people, Klerman said.

” If older people believe that they need more sleep than they can achieve even when they spend extra time in bed, then they may complain of insomnia: being awake when wanting to be asleep. They may start using medications needlessly. If they are tired during the day, they should consider evaluation for a sleep disorder that may be interfering with their ability to obtain good sleep at night.” >>>>

According to the results of a new study, increased waist to hip ratio, a marker of abdominal obesity, significantly increases the risk of having a stroke or TIA (transient ischemic attack, or “mini-stroke”). Past studies have documented belly fat as a risk for heart disease and heart attack, but researchers haven’t been certain if increased waist circumference also affects stroke risk. The study results are published in the August 14 Online First issue of Stroke.

Increased body mass index (BMI) has been associated with the development of heart disease, but research has shown abdominal fat mass is a stronger predictor of heart disease and heart attack risk. Until now, it hasn’t been certain whether abdominal obesity affects stroke risk. First author Yaroslav Winter, MD, from Klinikum Mannheim at the University of Heidelberg, Germany say, "Thus, data on the role of abdominal obesity for stroke are limited and completely lacking for transient ischemic attacks."

To determine the effects of abdominal obesity and stroke risk, Dr. Winter and colleagues recruited 379 patients with stroke and 758 subjects matched in age and gender as a control. After adjustments were made for other risk factors, the researchers did find an increase in stroke incidence in people with increased BMI, but it wasn’t significant when inactivity, smoking and other risk factors were taken into account. However, markers of abdominal obesity were significantly associated with increased risk for stroke and TIA. The study authors also found that the risk increased with bigger waistlines.

The group concluded, "The redefinition of obesity based on the waist-to-hip ratio or waist circumference instead of BMI increases considerably the estimate of cerebrovascular events attributable to obesity. Senior author Tobias Back, MD, from Saxon Hospital Arnsdorf in Arnsdorf/Dresden, Germany says, "We urgently need trials to test the effect of weight loss on vascular risk profiles, especially on the risk of stroke."

Obesity statistics

Obesity is a huge public health issue worldwide. Estimates in Germany show that 49.6% of people are overweight, with 13.6% considered obese. In the US, 65.7% of adults are either overweight or obese.

The effects of obesity are have a huge impact on healthcare, and are not to be taken lightly. Weight loss may seem difficult, but many options exist. A sensible weight loss program includes beginning with an exercise program and dietary plan that is satisfying to you. The best way to get started, especially if you have been inactive, is by speaking with your doctor.

Getting Started

Start with a simple walking program. A Mediterranean diet is heart healthy and has been shown to help with weight loss. Start by cutting out sugars and products containing white flour and cutting down on portion size. Studies have shown that a glycemic index (GI) diet is also very beneficial for weight loss. Explore the links below to get started.

Choose a weight loss plan that will work for you, approved by your healthcare provider. The important message is in the obesity statistics. More than half of the US population needs to take weight-loss action. Take time, and don’t look for a rapid weight loss solution. We now know the importance of looking closely at our waistlines as a definite risk for heart disease and stroke. >>>>

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• The Glycemic Index Diet (Low Glycemic Diet)
• Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet
• Is Weight Loss Surgery Right for You?
• The Worst Diets Ever: Diets That Don't Work
• Obesity Basics
• Don’t be Duped by Food in Small Packages – Study Shows You’ll Eat More
  Carbs and Sugar Damage Brain Cells that Regulate Appetite - Study
• Mushrooms may Combat Obesity and Provide Essential Vitamin D
• MSG Strongly Linked to Obesity
• Combination of Genes and Migraines May Increase Stroke and Heart Disease in Women
• New Evidence Links Low Levels of Vitamin D to Stroke Deaths
• High Intensity Interval Training Superior to Moderate Exercise for Reversing Metabolic Syndrome- Study
• Pedometer Based Walking for Weight Loss
• Increased Thyroid Hormone and Weight Gain

Heads up: If you sleep too much, you could be putting yourself at higher risk for a stroke.

The first line in the article I read with this news amused me: “It seems that just about every ailment out here is linked to whether we’re getting enough sleep or not…” True, every day we find new reasons to nurture our sleep as we uncover how it relates directly or indirectly with our risk for disease. And for the most part, we’re plagued with news about how too little sleep can be detrimental to our health and happiness. But too much sleep? That’s hard to come by these days.

The interesting part about the recent study, which focused on more than 93,000 post-menopausal women over a seven-year period, found too much sleep may be harder on our hearts, which is linked to stroke risk, than too little sleep. Compared to the women who slept seven hours a night, those who slept six or fewer hours had a 14 percent higher risk of stroke, while those who slept eight hours had a 24 percent higher risk. The most astonishing numbers are for those who caught nine or more hours of sleep each night. They had a 70 percent higher risk of stroke!

Don’t panic. If you get nine or more hours of sleep a night, you’re not doomed. You might, in fact, need it. Everyone is different. So long as you feel refreshed in the morning and charged all day, you’re probably meeting your body’s sleep needs. I’d only be concerned if you’re sleeping until noon and still tired.

Keep in mind that this study looked at older women, and as one of the researchers pointed out, there’s no way of knowing whether the longer sleep time was the reason for the increased risk or whether there was some other factor that both led people to sleep more and was also a risk factor for stroke. If you cut back on sleep, which is a prescription I don’t fill for most people, you may not necessary cut your risk for a stroke.

The lesson here? Pardon the cliché, but everything in moderation—sleep included. Keeping a healthy heart and cardiovascular system requires a multifaceted approach:

• Eat well (you know what that means by now)
• Move well (daily exercise)
• Sleep well (for most of us that means whatever you can get)
• Live well (no smoking)

Sound like old news? It is. Just don’t start counting minutes in bed like you count calories. >>>>