If they ever discover a miracle cure that uses dental plaque, I’ll be a millionaire!  The dental assistant who cleans my teeth often grouses about it, and one day she asked “Do you take a lot of calcium supplements?”  Hmm, calcium and plaque, plaque and heart disease, calcium supplements and heart disease.  Do we have to choose between heart disease and stronger bones?  For some women, excess calcium may actually raise blood calcium levels, increasing calcification, increasing the risk of a heart attack.  In a recent New Zealand study, the women who took 1,000 mg of calcium citrate had 3% more heart attacks than the placebo group.  Calcium from food is better (think dairy and broccoli), but you must weigh the risk – do you have strong risk factors for fragile bones or heart disease?  One more thing to discuss with your doctor.

Hah!  Gotcha!  We’re all looking for that magic bullet that will change the number on the scale, but at this point in our weight-watching lives, we know the truth.  We have to gut it out with small, consistent, conscious daily changes to reach that goal weight and stay there.  Go for walks, keep a food diary, hold the mayo, two slices of whole grain bread total daily, forget the pizza, split the restaurant meal or order a non-creamy soup and an appetizer – you know the drill.  
New research shows a couple of things that are common sense, but you may have missed them: 1) a boring diet improves weight loss 2) increase water, decrease diet soda 3) 80% of weight loss is eating right, 20% exercise (you can lose weight without exercising).
Several studies show that eating the same two calorie-controlled breakfast/lunch menus most days makes it easier  (more…)

A recent ecstatic study lauded cholesterol drug Crestor, claiming that the drug reduced the amount of plaque in arteries  and “prevents deaths, heart attacks, strokes, episodes of chest pain, and other serious events.”  The drug  worked so well in a trial, the study was halted because it was “unethical to withhold the drug from the placebo group.”  Ok, a good plaque flush is something to get excited about, especially now that Vytorin and Zetia bit the dust.   But I’m confused – at one point, Crestor seemed on the verge of being pulled off the market because (more…)

In my book Is it HOT, I wrote about PT 141, now known as Bremelanotide.  This nasal spray is in Phase III testing and has had good results in desire and arousal for women and men, and has an additional “boner benefit”  in men – in other words, everything we need to create instant Mr. and Mrs. Happy in the bedroom.  Downsides in some testers are nausea, flushing, and an increase in blood pressure and menstrual bleeding, so they’ll have to work that out and we’ll have to continue to be healthy if we want to enjoy this stuff when it hits pharmacies.  Also in the running for the Mr. & Mrs. Happy Crown is (more…)

Since 1998, flour, bread, cereal, pasta, rice and other grain products have been fortified with folic acid to end folate deficiency in child-bearing women, a deficiency that results in spina bifida.   But folic acid may carry  a double-edged sword, since both healthy cells AND cancer cells use folate to make new cells.  Too much of a good thing may be bad, and a slight increase in colorectal cancer may be attributable to fortification.  We don’t want those hidden rogue cells feasting, do we, particularly those breast, colon, and prostate cancer bad guys?  The key may be  (more…)