Every month I list the fun and informative blurbs that appeared in Boomer Bites.  Here they all are, one more time:

April Bites
 

Oxi-clean the veins
A previous study found 40 times the antioxidant in pinot noir over other red wines.  Now a study in the journal Nature reports that red wine produced in southwest France and on the Italian island of Sardinia may have the most procyanidins, antioxidants that keep blood vessels healthy.  Brand names of these most bioactive wines will often include the words “di Sardegna” or “Madiran.”  In addition, French and Italian wines generally contain fewer sulfites and preservatives than those from California or Australia.
 
The best way to get calcium
…is from low-fat dairy food and fortified orange juice.  If you supplement to get your 1,200 mg/day, take small doses throughout the day – the body won’t absorb more than 500 mg at a time (and nine out of ten women need more.)  Caffeine flushes calcium and high fiber cereal rushes it out of the body, so it may be best to take your multi at lunch and your additional calcium at bedtime.  Both varieties are best with Vitamin D and magnesium, but calcium citrate may cause less constipation than calcium carbonate in some people.  Coral calcium – not worth it.
 
Save precious memories.
If your digital photos, videos, and music are on CD-R and CD-RW discs, they may not be long for this world.  Two to five years, to be exact.  Archive on the hard drive or on magnetic tape.
 
Let me see if I like that – again, and again!
You’ve heard that dark chocolate is good for you – an apple has only 20% of the flavonoids in a dark chocolate bar.  But where’s the line between bitter and better for you?  Cacao concentrations in the 80’s are best, but may be too bitter for some who like the 72% in Godiva Demitasse.  CocoaVia products provide 100 mg of natural flavones with less fat and add change-of-heart ingredients like almonds, soy crisps and blueberries.  Stalwarts can hide the box in their sock drawer, but the rest of us need a once-a-day dispenser!
 
Never let a car salesman see you naked. . .
Without your invoice price, sticker price, and ‘fair market value’ research from edmunds.com or nada.com.  Know what you want before you walk in, check prices online and come in during the day to talk to the fleet manager – he’s got more wiggle room than the salesperson.
 

The funny bite
There are a number of mechanical devices that increase sexual desire in women.  Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 500SL!

May Bites
 

Buzz up before you work out!

Having a cup of coffee or caffeinated energy drink before your workout can help you to work out harder and feel 25-50% less pain and soreness afterward.  Less inflammation may be the reason.  And you may lose more fat, since the body will take fuel from fat first when caffeine is present.  In addition, the B-vitamins in energy drinks fill the B-and-folic drop that occurs in all of us after 40!
 
What to do about the guy with “egola virus”…
Some of the most difficult people in the workplace (and in life) are those with big egos, and their attitude sows uncertainty in any setting.  You find yourself walking on eggshells, and that leads to scrambled results.  Consider this advice from Paul Dixon, a fishing guide who specializes in alpha-sharks who want to supersize their sport fishing.  “If a person has a big ego,” Dixon says, “I’ll say something like, ‘You have a great cast, but you’re a little uneven coming forward.’  Some people want you to criticize them very fully. Others don’t want to hear any criticisms. I’ve learned that you lose them if you pester them. So I save my advice for the big stuff, the stuff that I know will really help them.” Good advice from a man who deals with the egos at the top of the food chain.  (quote from FastCompany.com, Peter Kaminsky, An Ocean Runs Through It)
 
Top Faux Tanners
If your skin doesn’t look like a well-used baseball glove already, it will soon if you don’t stop letting the sun damage your skin!  Apply a golf-ball sized blob of sunscreen (Anthelios SX is the most cutting edge) from face to feet every day, since even short, unprotected periods of exposure can play a role in skin cancer.  And tanning beds are even worse – cancer coffins!
For a fake tan, Consumer Reports recently rated L’Oreal Sublime Glow Daily Moisturizer #1 (I like it in medium) and I would buy the Dove Energy Glow just because I love their Real Beauty advertising!   Sally Hansen’s Airbrush Legs gives a surprisingly nice instant cover if you can’t wait at all, and salon products Fake Bake and Savage Bronze are great if you have a few hours for them to develop.
Billions of dollars were spent on cellulite treatments last year, but here’s the thing – none of them really work!  Dermatologists agree that nothing permanently erases those dimples.  A self tanner is probably the best disguise for cellulite and for that blue-line map of New Jersey highways on your legs.
 

How yucky is my mesh shower sponge?

If you throw it in the wash machine with the towels once a week, you can use it indefinitely.  Makeup applicators for liquids like foundation should also be washed once a week in diluted shampoo, vinegar and water, or Japonesque cleaner.  Other brushes can go a month before cleaning.
 

What does Gardasil guard against, and why is it given to 11-yr-old girls?
Up to 75% of sexually active Americans have HPV, and approximately 5.5 million people are newly infected with this cervix-threatening virus each year.  The new Gardasil shots guard against the most common kinds of cancer-causing HPV.  So why give it to young girls?  Apparently, the virus can be spread “by skin-to-skin contact or rubbing” – in other words, by making out, touching, and fooling around.  That’s why authorities want to immunize before activity begins in any form.  And that’s a tough detail to talk about on the evening news, but may figure in your immunization decision.
 

The funny bite

“One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct.  Not more that five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a “massive internal fart.” Dr. Susan Steinberg, Manitoba, Canada