01. 9.2010
Reebok recently started selling a walking shoe, called Easytone, that is supposed to tone your leg and butt muscles while you walk.
And the buzz machine swung into action. The Easytone shoe has made a huge splash--TV appearances, newspaper and magazine articles, buzz, buzz, buzz.
If the shoe fits, does it really firm up those muscles? Does the Easytone shoe work?
Dan Ariely is James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University is skeptical. He points out that the scientific evidence is thin. Reports of Easytone effectiveness may, he speculates, may be due to the placebo effect. (Placebos are inert pills or any item that can't possibly be of direct medical benefit, but still makes people get better.)
The placebo effect is enormously important in medicine. When a new drug is tested on people and turns out to be effective, a notable number of people in the control group, who received a sham pill rather than the real thing, always get better too.
As it turns out, the placebo effect contributes heavily to the positive effects of exercise too. When people are told (falsely) that a particular activity is good exercise, many of them believe it so strongly that they lose weight and body fat and their blood pressure even goes down. Which has me wondering how I can convince myself that reading in bed, sleeping late, and taking long hot showers will make me thinner.
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12.10.2009
Here comes a "revolution" in hair coloring, according to scientists. That would be scientists at L’Oréal, who say they have found a way to replace stinky ammonia with a new, odorless, substitute.
You are probably dying to know that ammonia has been a part of hair coloring since L’Oréal's founder invented it a century ago this year. The new dye is called INOA for Innovation No Ammonia, which seems sensible. L’Oréal claims that, in addition to being free of ammonia smell, INOA feels more like a thick skin cream than regular hair coloring products.
INOA is already used in salons in Europe. It will be available at salons in the US and Canada early next year and eventually in home hair dye, the company says.
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11.30.2009
Some people pine to look like their favorite celebrities while others just want to dress like them. Now, you can actually smell like your favorite celebrity. Perfume company My DNA Fragrance is taking scents to decidedly creepy level. Using DNA from your favorite celebrities, they are creating custom fragrances using your favorite celebrity's hair samples.
Selling under the "Antiquity" line, the list of famous hair donors include Marilyn Munroe, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Kathrine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Albert Einstein. Thanks to a promotional sale. each cologne or perfume costs $59.99 with a percentage of the proceeds going to the celebrity's estate as well as the charities they supported. If the celebrity did not have a charity, My DNA Fragrance will donate to one on their behalf.
If smelling like someone else just isn't your thing, you can send in your own genetic code via a cotton swab and have your own scent made into a perfume or cologne. Or you can gift a bottle of
"Eau de You" to someone special in your life. It's a 50/50 shot of generating an "awww" or and "ewwww" repsonse.
Via Born Rich
Posted by sherri
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Tags: Albert Einstein cologne Elvis Presley Joan Crawford Katherine Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Michael Jackson My DNA Fragrance perfume
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11.24.2009
H1N1 (swine) flu activity has gone down a bit in the US, which is good news for Thanksgiving travelers this week. Some are even predicting that the disease may have peaked in the US. But even if that's true (which nobody knows), a great many people still are going to get sick. Meantime, there's lots of flu sufferers, and some deaths, everywhere else.
Here's a terrific free site for keeping up with the flu everywhere: HealthMap, the global disease alert map. This is the link to the English version. But from this link you can also get the flu map in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic.
You can also download HealthMap's iPhone app that will bring your mobile a map and news of disease outbreaks near you, including swine flu. The app is interactive, so you can also report local outbreaks that are not yet in the HealthMap database.
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11. 4.2009
Though wireless technology has made our daily lives so much simpler, isn't it about time that it spread out of the confines of our homes and into life-critical environments such as hospitals? Apparently, it has. As a result of which, we might get to experience (hopefully not) devices such as the Sensium Digital Plaster - a wireless monitoring patch that can be stuck to a patient's body like a Band-Aid strip, to monitor his/her vital signs.
The disposable wireless patch is powered by "thin" batteries and can give information on a person's heart rate, temperature and perspiration for a period of several days. It can also interface with smartphones and PDAs, and wirelessly transmit clinical data to your doctor. The device is currently under clinical trial and is expected to complete the first round of trials by end of this year. For those who have experienced the discomfort of being hooked to a bulky, imposing machine that takes away the few remaining moments of peace with its unwanted blips and peaks on the screen, you know what a blessing this alternative can be.
Via The Red Ferret.
Posted by kanchana
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Tags: digital patch medical wireless
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09.18.2009
Four vaccines against the new infuenza, the one we used to call swine flu but now is known as H1N1, will be ready for distribution next month in the US.
This according to the government, which also issues another piece of good news: it appears that a single vaccination will keep this more-serious-than-usual flu at bay. For a while it was thought that immunity to H1N1 would require at least two shots, but the experts now say not. These findings apply to adults, though. It's still not clear whether children may need more than one dose.
Health authorities have worried that the coming Northern Hemisphere flu season will be worse than usual. A pattern with new flu viruses like this one is that they tend to be particularly severe the winter after they first surface. Hence the hurry to make a vaccine available quickly.
And of course we'll still have with us the regular old seasonal flu, which kills several thousand in the US every year. There's a vaccine against that one too, as usual.
Dealing with the flu this year will be particularly tricky because H1N1 and seasonal flu tend to attack different populations. The young are particularly vulnerable to H1N1, while seasonal flu mostly preys on the elderly and infirm.
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08.28.2009
Quickly now, which causes more deaths in the US every year: avoidable medical errors or auto accidents?
I guessed auto accidents too, probably because car carnage is in the headlines every day. But a new study reports that it's medical errors. They're responsible for more than 200,000 deaths annually, the study says. And these are all preventable deaths.
More widespread technology for linking medical records, which is supposed to be part of that health insurance reform legislation currently being "debated" at top volume all over the country, might help prevent errors. But it might not. One expert says there are a growing number of reports of medical mistakes due to computer errors.
Read all about it at Scientific American's 60-second Science Blog.
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08.28.2009
Dieters have long been advised to eat more fiber. Now there's a bit of evidence that increasing your fiber consumption can indeed help you lose weight.
The Eating Well blog is reporting on a study that has refined that advice into a formula: Add 8 grams of fiber for every 1000 calories you consume. In the study, women who did that lost an average of 4 1/2 lbs in less than 2 years.
I know, I know, it ain't all that much. But adding fiber is pretty painless and often pleasant--and fiber, as we know, is also very healthful for, ahem, other reasons.
Eating Well appends a short list of fiber-rich foods. I see that a cup of raspberries has 8 grams of fiber. Yum yum.
So if I just turn that hot fudge sundae into a hot-fudge-and-raspberry sundae, I should come out even, right? And yet somehow I don't think it would work that way.....
Posted by Tam
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08.27.2009
You've probably heard this before, but now it's extremely official: Tanning beds cause cancer.
Tanning beds cause all kinds of cancer, from basal cell (the not-serious kind that your dermatologist can freeze off) to melanoma, the potentially deadly kind that can move fast. Also, yikes, eye cancer.
WHO says? A bunch of experts put together by the World Health Organization, that's WHO. You can't get more authoritative than that. Journal Watch Dermatology has a brief explanatory article that's free.
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08.21.2009
Recently I wrote about how two Web policing agencies, LegitScript and KnujOn, reported rogue pharmacies--online drug stores that fill prescriptions illegally--were the predominant drugstore ads on the Microsoft search engine Bing.
Now LegitScript and KnujOn are back, reporting the same discouraging tale for Yahoo! search.
More than 80% of the Yahoo! Internet pharmacy ads they reviewed operate contrary to US federal and state laws, they say. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, an industry group, jumped in immediately with praise for the report.
I'll be fascinated to learn the Google score. Meantime, maybe we all better fill our prescriptions, as in olden days, at the corner drugstore. Assuming you live where there is a corner drugstore. Or even a corner.
Posted by Tam
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