Health and fitness calendar for the week beginning Sunday, Feb. 15
• Published February 15, 2009
7 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Debbi’s Dance Etc., 6715 Martin Way E., Olympia. Teens welcome. Registration required. 360-456-6350 or
.
7 p.m. Tuesdays, Studio One Dance and Acro Centre, 3660 Pacific Ave. S.E., Suite B, Olympia. 360-412-8225.
A.M. Booty Camp:
5:30 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 9 a.m. Saturdays, The Strong Center, 1820 Read the rest of this entry »

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Human bird-flu infections may rise in
Asia as people handle more poultry for next week’s Lunar New Year
celebrations, according to a United Nations veterinarian who
tracks the virus in birds.
Health authorities in China, South Korea and Vietnam have
stepped up surveillance of H5N1 avian influenza among poultry
ahead of the festival, which starts Jan. 26. Production of
chickens and ducks swells as much as three times in the Read the rest of this entry »

ST. LOUIS — With 2008 drawing close, people with asthma and other respiratory ailments only have a few days before the last of the inhalers that use ozone-depleting chemical disappear from pharmacy shelves and are replaced with new “green” devices.
Because the new devices are more expensive, the switch has raised the possibility of last-minute hoarding. It also has triggered concerns that the added expense of the new inhalers — which Read the rest of this entry »

Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez rolled out the red carpet this week for some Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department folks hoping to improve their jail system, as seen in this photo taken earlier this morning.
But officials from another large jail system also visited Dallas County this week to get some ideas on how to improve a challenged jail. The medical services team from Cook County, Illinois, also toured our jail facilities.
Chicago has Read the rest of this entry »

Who should take the title?
On the one hand, there’s the FDA.
containing mercury swept the Internet: In Environmental Health, researchers revealed mercury was detectable in nine out of 20 samples of commercial HFCS; separately, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy discovered nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods tested contained mercury.
Coke adds life. And HFCS — about 17 teaspoons per 20 ounce bottle.
Some HFCS is made with Read the rest of this entry »

Our weekly roundup of the latest news in the world of health.
This week we learn that some women with small breast tumors may benefit from Herceptin therapy and that a combination of radiation and drugs could cut the death rate from prostate cancer. We also get further confirmation that post-menopausal hormone replacement increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer, and learn about a new warning for epilepsy drugs.
Stay well.
Some women with small Read the rest of this entry »

was named the Week 17 Diet Pepsi Rookie of the Week.
Now that the regular season is over, five players will be nominated for the Diet Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Year. Fans can vote for the winner on NFL.com/rookies and via Sprint wireless service throughout the month of January. The winner will be announced at a press conference at Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay.
This is Pepsi’s seventh year as the official soft drink sponsor of the NFL and the fourth Read the rest of this entry »

One tech pioneer welcomed a new chief executive this week, while another lost its leader–at least temporarily.
After months of insisting that Steve Jobs’ health was a private matter with no impact on the company, Apple’s chief executive announced that he will
. His absence will stretch until the end of June.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, will run the company during Jobs’ absence, according to an
that was released to the media.
Read the rest of this entry »

Leptin is an appetite-suppressing hormone that was discovered in 1995 and set the obesity-treatment field on fire as a potential drug to help people lose weight. Leptin signals the brain to stop eating, and researchers had high hopes that giving obese people leptin would help them lose weight. That promise fizzled out over the years as studies show that obese people’s brains have a resistance to the hormone. New research in mice, however, suggests Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe it’s providence or God’s way of saying thank you, and maybe it’s the relaxed ambience at houses of prayer, but mosques, churches, synagogues and shrines apparently keep the angel of death away.
At least those are the findings of a study published recently by researchers at Yeshiva University and its medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
In one of the most comprehensive studies ever of the connection between religious Read the rest of this entry »