Month: December 2013

Strength is having hope where hope was once lost and holding onto faith even through the darkest of times. It's about finding the strength to move forward and leave your past behind, but never forgetting how you got to where you are in this moment in time.

My father's words, falling as they did onto my young psyche, never really left me. Even today, when confronted by a situation that demands I stand up for myself, they rise up to haunt me.

(Reuters) – An advisory panel of medical experts convened by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday said that Bristol-Myers Squibb Co had provided adequate evidence of the benefits of an experimental drug to treat rare and potentially fatal disorders involving loss of body fat. The panel voted 11-1 that the benefits of the drug metreleptin outweigh the risks for the treatment of children and adults suffering from a condition known as generalized lipodystrophy. Only a few thousand people worldwide are believed to have the disorders, in which fat builds up in the blood and organs such as liver and muscle, and can lead to diabetes, pancreatitis and fatty liver disease. However, by a 10-2 vote, the panel felt the risks of the medicine were too high to recommend it for metabolic disorders associated with partial lipodystrophy, such as diabetes and high triglycerides inadequately controlled by a current therapy.

Do you secretly ache for something more? Do you celebrate the miracle that is your life or are you constantly running, frustrated by the never-ending to-do list at home and at work? When life is not going our way, it can be hard to look on the bright side. And what about the people who tell you "It's all good," when your life is in a state of overwhelm, collapse, or just plain sucks. What's good about it? The key is to realize that you are creating everything in your life, that it is all perfect, even though you might

A new study has concluded that being obese — particularly if you pack extra pounds around your waist — could be linked to hearing loss. Findings appeared in the American Journal of Medicine. Lead author was Dr. Sharon Curhan of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Scientists followed more than 68,000 women who took part in the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study and who submitted answers to questions about health and daily habits every two years between 1989 and 2009, MSN reports.

If your CPAP has left you feeling a little "Vader-ish" around bedtime, I encourage you to look at the big picture. Don't allow the momentary itch of vanity to inspire a rash of unhealthy choices.

Though for us moving toward the Winter Solstice light is now diminishing, yoga philosophy suggests there is a light within that never wanes.

By Ori Lewis JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The speaker of Israel’s parliament ordered a blood-collection crew to leave the legislature’s premises on Wednesday after it turned down an offer of a blood donation from an Ethiopian-born lawmaker. Knesset member Pnina Tamano-Shata, 32, wanted to donate blood to a routine visit by an ambulance service but was told by a member of the crew that set criteria disqualified her because she emigrated to Israel from Ethiopia at age three. Israeli Health Ministry criteria bar people born in most African countries since 1977 from donating blood due to a fear that there is an increased risk they may carry the HIV virus. Tamano-Shata said ministry guidelines determine that Ethiopian-born Jews who emigrated to Israel when they were over two years old are ineligible to be blood donors.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing a potential threat to public health, the Food and Drug Administration is taking steps toward phasing out the use of some antibiotics in animals processed for meat.

Music can soothe the soul and speed along creativity, but it won’t, according to researchers from Harvard, boost intelligence. “More than 80 percent of American adults think that music improves children’s grades or intelligence,” said Samuel Mehr, a Harvard Graduate School of Education doctoral student working in the lab of psychology professor Elizabeth Spelke, in a statement. The myth that music improves intelligence can be tied to a study published in 1993 in the journal Nature, which describes the ”Mozart effect” as the ability for individuals who play instruments to perform better at spatial tasks. When the Harvard investigators reviewed the available research connecting music and intelligence, they found that only five studies used randomized trials, the gold standard of scientific research in which participants were randomly assigned to either learn music or not, and only one reported a clear correlation to intelligence.