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The Forsyth County Health Department has been picked to run a nurse-family partnership program that advocates say will reduce infant mortality and improve child health and the lives of mothers pregnant with their first child.

The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust has awarded the county $2.5 million over five years to carry out the program.

The program focuses on low-income first-time mothers. They will get help with prenatal care, improving their diets and reducing any use of cigarettes, alcohol or illegal drugs.

The program works by pairing the mother-to-be with a registered nurse, who will make home visits that continue through the child's second birthday. A national group, Nurse-Family Partnership of Denver, developed the program and authorizes local agencies to run it.

Bob Whitwam, the environmental health director of the Health Department, said the agency has been getting ready to run the program for a couple of years.

"Nurse-Family Partnership can substantially reduce infant mortality rates," Whitwam said. "The target is first-time moms, making sure they understand what the doctor tells her, developing parenting skills."

The program is not a cure-all for infant mortality because there are other causes, and the new program addresses only first-time mothers, not women with other children.

"It is a little piece of a complex infant-mortality issue," Whitwam said.

Forsyth has the highest infant-mortality rate among the 10 most populous counties in the state, health statistics show.

Whitwam told the Board of Commissioners on Thursday that he wants the program to start work July 1, when the new budget year starts. Staffing would include four nurses to be home visitors as well as a data entry position and a nurse supervisor.

More here:
Program will aid first-time moms

Editor's Note: Daily Courier reporter concludes the 11-week Highlands Hospital Health Challenge.

Old B horror movies sometimes closed with "The End." That's how I feel about the Highlands Health Challenge. The jumpstart has ended, and the experience created two monster exercise enthusiasts, Bryan and me.

This week marked the final weigh-ins of the challenge. The team-based contest lasted 11 weeks, from Jan. 19 until Thursday. The first week established our base weights. The new challenge is to individually keep the weight off through late September.

Challenge organizers ended this phase with facts on fad diets and healthy weekends.

When I was young, my mom had a book by comic Totie Fields (1930-1978), called "I Think I'll Start on Monday: The Official 8 1/2 Ounce Mashed Potato Diet." The only thing I remember about the book is an illustration of bathroom graffiti that included this: "Jean Nidetch sneaks Pop-Tarts." Nidetch founded Weight Watchers.

Fields fought obesity all her life, and once said, "I've been on a diet for two weeks, and all I've lost is 14 days."

Her act often centered about her weight and wild efforts she tried to become slim. For those of us embarking on the long, strange trip of lifetime wellness, fad diets do not belong.

A handout called "Why Are Fad Diets an Unhealthy Way of Losing Weight" put them into perspective. "In most cases, only 5 percent of dieters manage to keep their lost weight off," reports the American Council on Exercising. "The tried-and-true method of weight loss, followed by most of the 5,000-plus members of the National Weight Control Registry -- a group of successful dieters who have kept off an average of 66 pounds for at least five years -- is calorie restriction coupled with regular exercise."

I once fasted in high school for religious reasons but have never tried a fad diet for weight loss. I do remember some friends' mothers (never fathers) trying the liquid protein diet and felt alarm when news reports said the nutrient-deficient diet had killed some people. None of my friends' moms died, but I don't remember them keeping weight off, either.

Challenge organizing committee member Marcy Ozorowski has tried fad diets. "I tried the skinny soup diet and ones that had you eating only one food a day then switching to another. They were awful and didn't work."

Read more from the original source:
The end is here and she loses more than 11 pounds

Hundreds pack into new Whole Foods store

By John Wolcott SCBJ Freelance Writer

LYNNWOOD Whole Foods Market opened its first Snohomish County store in Lynnwood on March 15 with a bread-breaking ceremony that symbolized the store's focus on breaking bread with the community, said the store's team leader, Mindy Jahn. We've had a wonderful welcome here.

Nearly 300 people showed up for the opening. Dignitaries who helped break that loaf of bread included Jahn, Whole Foods Market regional vice president Tee Ayer, regional president Joe Rogoff, Lynnwood Mayor Don Gough and Shannon Affholter of Economic Alliance Snohomish County.

Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1980, Whole Foods Market has 315 stores in North America and the United Kingdom with 64,000 employees, or team members as they're called by the chain. Fortune magazine has named the business one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for 14 consecutive years.

Whole Foods Market is the nation's leading retailer of natural and organic food and the first nationally certified organic grocer. Health Magazine has named it America's healthiest grocery store. Its motto, Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet, reflects its mission and goals of ensuring customer satisfaction and good health.

Customer comments have been wonderful, Jahn said. We've also had suggestions about how to improve, which is how we operate, seeking customer feedback. Right now, we're still experiencing the early crowds of a lot of smiling people who are glad we're here. In a while, we'll be settled into a more regular operation. We've been so busy since the opening that we've set up a valet service for customers to help handle the crowds.

Jahn said the store's location at 2800 196th St. SW, a former Circuit City store near Alderwood mall, is a perfect location.

We were attracted to Lynnwood by its location, near the intersection of I-5 and I-405, but also by the way Mayor Don Gough and people at Economic Alliance Snohomish County wanted us here and helped us so much, she said.

Whole Foods Market seeks out the finest quality natural and organic foods that meet the highest standards in the grocery industry, store executives said. That means marketing nutritious foods that lack artificial additives, sweeteners, colorings and preservatives.

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2012 Market Facts

Important pollinators, both bumblebees and honeybees have trouble functioning after being exposed to pesticides, two new studies say. Industry experts question several aspects of the work.

A common class of pesticide is causing problems for honeybees and bumblebees, important species already in trouble, two studies suggest.

But the findings don't explain all the reasons behind a long-runningbeedecline, and other experts found one of the studies less than convincing.

The new research suggests the chemicals used in the pesticide designed to attack the central nervous system of insects also reduces the weight and number of queens in bumblebee hives. These pesticides also cause honeybees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives, the researchers concluded.

The two studies were published online Thursday in the journal Science.

Just last week activists filed a petition with more than a million signatures asking the government to ban the class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it is re-evaluating the chemicals and is seeking scientific help.

For more than a decade, pollinators of all types have been in decline, mostly because of habitat loss and perhaps some pesticide use. In the past five years, a new mysterious honeybee problem, colony collapse disorder, has further attacked hives. But over the last couple of years, that problem has been observed a bit less, said Jeff Pettis, leadbeeresearcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's lab in Beltsville, Md.

Other studies have also found problems with the pesticide class singled out in the new research. These "strengthen the case for more thorough re-assessing," said University of Illinois entomology professor May Berenbaum, who wasn't involved in the new studies. "But this is not a slam-dunk indictment that could compel a ban. It's complicated."

In the honeybee study, French scientists glued tiny radio transmitters to thebeesmanaged for orchard pollination. Thebeeswere tracked when they came and left the hive. Thebeesthat were dosed with neonicotinoids were two to three times more likely not to return.

In the bumblebee study, British researchers dosedbeeswith the pesticide and moved their hives out into the field. After six weeks, they found the pesticide-treated hives were 10 percent lighter than those that weren't treated. And more important, the hives that had pesticides lost about 85 percent of their queens.

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Are pesticides responsible for bee deaths? (+video)

Mar 27, 2012 5:00pm

Some people cant get enough of the painful pleasure of spicy foods. Now, new research on hamsters suggests that those who like it hot may get some added heart-health benefits from capsaicinoids, the compounds that give chili peppers from jalepenos to habaneros their kick.

Scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong studied how capsaicinoids capsaicin and its chemical relatives affected the blood vessels of hamsters. Researchers fed hamsters diets high in cholesterol, and spiced up the food for some groups of the animals with varying levels of capsaicinoids.

The hamsters fed any capsaicinoids had lower levels of cholesterol in their blood, particularly LDL or bad cholesterol. They also had decreased plaque in their arteries compared with the hamsters that got no capsaicinoids.

The findings were presented today at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego.

Zhen-Yu Chen, a professor of food and nutritional science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and one of the studys authors, said the findings give scientists a better idea of just how spicy foods might work to improve heart health in humans.

But we certainly do not recommend that people start consuming chilies to an excess, Chen said in a press release. They may be a nice supplement, however, for people who find the hot flavor pleasant.

Scientists have been hot on the trail of capsaicins potential health benefits in recent years. The compound is currently used as an effective remedy for pain associated with arthritis, neuropathy and psoriasis. Dr. Paul Bosland, co-founder and director of New Mexico State Universitys Chile Pepper Institute, told ABC News that capsaicin works against pain by prompting the body to produce endorphins.

The endorphins work to block the heat. The body produces them in response to the heat, which it senses as pain, Bosland said.

Some studies have also suggested that capsaicin may help prevent prostate cancer.

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Hot Peppers May Boost Heart Health

Important pollinators, both bumblebees and honeybees have trouble functioning after being exposed to pesticides, two new studies say. Industry experts question several aspects of the work.

A common class of pesticide is causing problems for honeybees and bumblebees, important species already in trouble, two studies suggest.

But the findings don't explain all the reasons behind a long-runningbeedecline, and other experts found one of the studies less than convincing.

The new research suggests the chemicals used in the pesticide designed to attack the central nervous system of insects also reduces the weight and number of queens in bumblebee hives. These pesticides also cause honeybees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives, the researchers concluded.

The two studies were published online Thursday in the journal Science.

Just last week activists filed a petition with more than a million signatures asking the government to ban the class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it is re-evaluating the chemicals and is seeking scientific help.

For more than a decade, pollinators of all types have been in decline, mostly because of habitat loss and perhaps some pesticide use. In the past five years, a new mysterious honeybee problem, colony collapse disorder, has further attacked hives. But over the last couple of years, that problem has been observed a bit less, said Jeff Pettis, leadbeeresearcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's lab in Beltsville, Md.

Other studies have also found problems with the pesticide class singled out in the new research. These "strengthen the case for more thorough re-assessing," said University of Illinois entomology professor May Berenbaum, who wasn't involved in the new studies. "But this is not a slam-dunk indictment that could compel a ban. It's complicated."

In the honeybee study, French scientists glued tiny radio transmitters to thebeesmanaged for orchard pollination. Thebeeswere tracked when they came and left the hive. Thebeesthat were dosed with neonicotinoids were two to three times more likely not to return.

In the bumblebee study, British researchers dosedbeeswith the pesticide and moved their hives out into the field. After six weeks, they found the pesticide-treated hives were 10 percent lighter than those that weren't treated. And more important, the hives that had pesticides lost about 85 percent of their queens.

See original here:
Are pesticides responsible for bee deaths?

Although some diets may be easier for you to stick to or be more satiating, the bottom line is that you need to eat less to reduce body weight.

Africa Studio/Shutterstock

One problem in studying the effects of dietary composition is that it is not possible to vary the proportion of one component without changing the others. At the extremes of weight-loss diets, the Atkins and South Beach diets are low carbohydrate but high fat, while the Ornish diet is low fat, high carbohydrate [1]. To compare the effects of such diets outside metabolic wards, researchers must deal with study subjects whose dietary and other behaviors are not easily controlled.

Investigators do everything they can to encourage compliance with study protocols. But they confront a major challenge: Telling free-living people what you want them to do does not necessarily mean that they will follow your instructions or tell you the truth about what they are eating. And you have no easy way of getting around this problem. Because dietary intake methods all depend on accurately disclosing what subjects consume -- something impossible for most people to do -- the lack of an easy way to measure true calorie consumption in weight control studies must be considered "the fundamental flaw of obesity research [2]."

But that's not the only problem. When conducting clinical trials that compare one diet to another, researchers also face challenges in enrolling enough study subjects to satisfy statistical requirements, getting study subjects to stick to the prescribed diets, and retaining participants in the study throughout its length. Furthermore, clinical trials of diet and weight loss are expensive to conduct, and few are able to last long enough to observe whether initial weight losses were regained. These considerations make it especially difficult for investigators to evaluate the results of dietary studies objectively and for others to interpret the significance of the findings. Keep these caveats in mind as we take a look at some of the studies attempting to find out whether varying the proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrate makes any difference to weight loss in real life.

LOW-FAT (AND, THEREFORE, HIGH-CARBOHYDRATE) DIETS

Atwater Values indicate that fat has more than twice the energy value of either protein or carbohydrate. It makes sense to think that cutting down on fat would help with weight maintenance or loss. In the United States the various editions of the Dietary Guidelines have long promoted lower-fat diets: "Avoid too much fat" (1980, 1985), "Choose a diet low in fat" (1990, 1995), "Keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories" (2005), and "Reduce intake of solid fats" (2010). The more recent editions have focused on limiting saturated fat and cholesterol intake rather than total fat per se in recognition of the potential role of these components in heart disease risk. But the newer guidelines also recognize that from the standpoint of body weight, calories from fat are no different from calories from any other source.

This is a shift from the earlier recommendations that reshaped the marketplace. In the early 1990s, advice to reduce fat intake was all that food companies needed to hear to start making low-fat versions of many common foods -- low-fat cheese, mayonnaise, and peanut butter, for example -- along with oxymoronic products such as fat-free half-and-half and fat-free (but equally caloric) cookies. Such products are not necessarily healthier than the products they replace, and rarely taste as good.

But the relationship of dietary fat to obesity is still of much interest. For one thing, it takes hardly any energy to store excess fatty acids as body fat, whereas it takes a bit more energy to make fatty acids from excess dietary carbohydrate. For another, proponents of low-fat diets cite experimental observations demonstrating a connection between fat intake and overweight:

Some experts, however, view such evidence as not at all specific to fat, as it could just as easily relate to high-calorie diets from any source. Low-fat diets are necessarily high in carbohydrate -- the calories have to come from something. The range of protein in diets is typically 10 percent (low) to 20 percent (high) of calories; it can't be more, because foods are low in protein -- we don't need much. The real issue in real diets is carbohydrate v. fat. Few studies of such difference control for calories. Overall, studies of dietary patterns typically find no association between either the amount or the type of fat in the diet and subsequent weight gain over periods of several years [4].

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Why Calories Count: Do Some Diets Work Better Than Others?

App Empire - Make Money, Have a Life, and Let Technology Work For You by Chad Mureta shows readers how to create, develop, test and market apps that will sell in the marketplace. It's worth noting that the app industry grew even during the most recent recession.

The technology is moving at a ludicrous speed. Apple, Google and RIM are the biggest players. Top app trends include location-based services, social networks, mobile commerce, mobile e-mail and video. Apps literally live on smartphones.

The author explains that apps are designed for entertainment or productivity. Examples of productivity apps including those tracking diets, creating grocery lists, currency conversions, turning an iPhone into a flashlight and many other applications limited only by your imagination.

Apps are so popular because consumers can get what they want instantly and at a low cost. More than 21 billion apps have been downloaded for Apple and Android devices alone. That's just the beginning of the learning curve.

Top grossing apps include DragonVale, Poker by Zynga, Tap Pet Hotel, Smurf's Village, Tijno Zoo Friends and many others outlined in the book. The traits of successful apps include fun/entertainment , intuitiveness, engaging users, value, cross-cultural dynamics and graphics. Apps are created based upon insight as to what people want and will download. Paid apps cost a dollar or more for each download.

The author explains that the successful apps designer will understand why people want an app and then find one to satisfy that need. Implementation staff can be outsourced from providers; such as, oDesk, Freelancer or Guru/Elance. An Apple iOS platform may be used to launch the app. The Apple's Developer Portal shows the number of downloads, revenue and AdBanner for ads. An ambitious entrepreneur can pay for traffic to grow the network of apps.

App Empire - Make Money, Have a Life, and Let Technology Work For You is a wonderful book that explains how to make lots of money formulating, building and promoting popular apps from the basic idea through to implementation in the marketplace of smartphone users and other interested parties.

View the original article on blogcritics.org

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Book Review: App Empire - Make Money, Have a Life, and Let Technology Work For You by Chad Mureta

There's a world of diets out there, and one particular strain of eating smart and healthy based on a two-decade study in China has caught a lot of attention during the past 10 years.

Lee Fulkerson's 2011 documentary "Forks Over Knives" has popularized nutritional research and writings, which favor a plant-based diet over one of animal-based and processed foods to avoid or even reverse diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, one of the world's premiere nutritionists, and one of the men whose work was focused on in Fulkerson's documentary, will talk about "The Health Care Crisis and Its Missing Link" at 7 p.m. Thursday at Akin Auditorium in Midwestern State University's Hardin Building.

The lecture is part of the 11th annual Speakers and Issues Series, and admission is free. Claudia Montoya, MSU Spanish professor and director of Speakers and Issues, saw the documentary in Dallas in 2011 and it made a very strong impression on her.

MSU screened Fulkerson's documentary Thursday in the Clark Student Center to a very good crowd, Montoya said.

"It shows his (Campbell's) life and the life of another doctor, a heart surgeon, (Caldwell Esselstyn) and how they were doing different studies in their own fields about how your diet affects you. They began to share their research and realized how much nutrition has to do with heart disease."

It is very important to be aware of things like this, Montoya said.

"Dr. Campbell proposes to have a plant-based diet, and that is an excellent idea. But, to follow the program the way he suggests it takes a lot of discipline."

There also is more to the plant-based diet that Campbell suggests than just going to the store and buying vegetables and eating them, she said. "He is very concerned about the production of those vegetables, and he is very much in favor of organic farms."

The idea is to avoid chemical pesticides and fertilizers. "Different studies have shown that those types of chemicals have a very bad impact on your health, long-term," she said.

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Nutritionist to present food theory at MSU

"How on earth can you help me?" overweight clients would ask me when I first opened my practice, sure that I had never had a weight problem. There I was, at a perfect, ideal body weight, looking like a naturally-thin person. They didn't know that I had spent 25 years hopelessly out of control with my weight, morbidly obese, over 300 pounds, a chronic miserable failure at diets and exercise attempts.

Most of my thousands of attempts to diet didn't last a day. I had no willpower. One year, I paid the whole year's membership at a gym, thinking it would make me go. I went only once, hated it and never went back. I was so ashamed. And it wasn't fair. It seemed like a lot of my friends ate just as badly as I did. They didn't go to gyms. But I got fat. They didn't.

Now I'm known as the "Weight Loss Guru" in Sarasota, Fla., ever since a TV news anchor dubbed me that. People don't wonder if I can help them now. They know I solved the problem and they know I have helped many others to solve it. Now, instead of skepticism and fear, they come with hope.

In 1984, as a behavior therapist and addictions counselor, I finally figured it out and lost 140 pounds in 18 months. There I've stayed, at my ideal body weight, over 25 years, something I didn't think possible most of my life. Now I'm helping others with this obesity problem, and I believe I have the real answers to our obesity epidemic.

If you can identify with some of the things I've said about being overweight, and you've been thinking, "No matter what I do, I can't lose weight," please stop. I guarantee that if you do what I teach my clients, you'll lose weight. Not one client, and I've worked with thousands, has not lost weight following my protocols. There is no mystery to how to lose weight. It's thermodynamics and food science. We know what needs to be done -- physically, anyway. The problem is that we have such a hard time getting ourselves to do what's required. We try and we fail. It seems impossible. We lose faith in ourselves. So we look for some way around reality, like a pill, or a magic diet food that makes the calories just disappear. You will not succeed with pills, magical diets, shots, or magic fairy dust on your food. But this problem can be solved, even if you're a hopeless case like I was. The solution is in behavioral medicine and behavioral therapy, a kind of magic where we can reprogram ourselves to think and live in a way that makes us thin and keeps us that way. Is it easy? No. But it is doable.

You've heard of "The Secret"? Well, it's not a secret. The methods to change ourselves, to change our reality, are known to behavioral medicine. Things like visualization and affirmation are known as cognitive techniques in psychotherapy. They are not hocus-pocus. They work, and they can be learned. And when you learn and practice them, your life can change. Your habits can change. Your body can change. You would be amazed at how they can change.

I was 7 years old when I was put on my first diet. That was the beginning of the process that really started my obesity. I know now, because of my knowledge and training in psychology and behaviorism, how we have literally programmed ourselves to be obese. I became the fattest kid in school, a miserable way to live. I tried and failed to lose weight so many times that I came to hate life, hate being fat and hate what I had become. I was so mad at myself, my flaws and my weakness. I spent 25 years with that curse. But what can be programmed can be reprogrammed, even when it seems too late. When you know how to do the programming, just like with a computer, you can change the programs. When you don't know how, you don't stand a chance, even when you want it badly. Just wanting new programs or deciding to have them is not enough. You need to know how to do it.

I was so lucky to choose counseling and psychology as my field of interest. I learned how behavior and habits, even feelings, can be shaped, even when the subject, be it a child or a pet or even our own self, doesn't seem to want to cooperate. It was a godsend. By the time I was in my 30s I had assembled enough pieces of the puzzle and practiced with them enough to actually solve the problem. I finally found the solution and lost 140 pounds in 18 months, and it hasn't been too hard doing what needs to be done to maintain that success. I'm sure I would have died long ago if I hadn't learned about behavior medicine, behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, and self-hypnosis, among other things. (My clients don't know the names of all the things I teach, so don't let the jargon throw you. They just learn about some "tricks and ideas" and use them.)

Continued here:
William Anderson, MA, LMHC: How the Fattest Kid in School Became the Weight Loss Guru

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