Women's Wellness Blog

We used to think, fat is fat is fat. Fat on your arms is arm fat, fat on your thighs is thigh fat and never the twain shall meet. That’s not the case. It turns out that fat migrates like Ponce De Leon looking for the Fountain of Youth. Body fat is in a perpetual cycle of build up and breakdown, so that fat cell living on your hiney this month may be reconstituted in your love handles next month.

So now that you know your fat is as mobile as migrants in a caravan, here comes a study that targets the bad news about belly fat. We’ve known for a number of years that excess body fat raises your risks for a number of diseases such as cardiovascular problems, cancers, diabetes and many more, but now we can say that fat in particular areas actually increases certain risks.

A study out of Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York reports that belly fat alone is a risk factor for breast cancer. And get this, it raises your risk even if your BMI is normal. In other words, even if you are in a healthy overall weight, if you’ve got a pooch you might pout because your risk of breast cancer increases. This is something pretty important because it differentiates between overweight and over-fat. We’ve all seen the skinny-minnie who eats everything sugar and stays a size 0. Her BMI is great but if you look closer (inside) you would find her insides lined with fat and making up over 45% of her weight. Not a good internal look for Ms.Minnie. If most of that fat is around her midsection then her risk of breast cancer is greater than the lady who is 20 pounds overweight but has it spread out.

One of the authors of this recent study, Dr.Andrew Dannenburg, stated, “It’s estimated that each year there are 250,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States alone,” he added. “Previously it was uncertain why a woman who did not have a genetic predisposition would develop breast cancer. We can now say that, in some, unrecognized excess belly fat is the explanation.”

The speculation is that the excess belly fat accentuates the inflammatory changes associated with fat which in turn creates the set up for cell damage. This damage can lead to mutations spurring on cancerous developments.

While you can’t spot reduce belly fat, you can reduce the “visceral” fat by reducing total body fat. The bad news is that genetically most of us will gain fat quickest in the midsection, especially as we age, but the good news is that we tend to lose it the quickest there also.

Exercise and a low carb diet are the two best tools for losing the belly fat. The crazy “carb blocking” pills, “keto shakes” , and cellophane wrap all are mostly hype, and show little if any scientific evidence of doing anything but making you lighter in the wallet.

Feeling run down? Too pooped to pucker? Has your get up and go got up and went? Well, you wouldn’t be alone. According to the Center For Disease Control, almost 1% of women and 10% of men feel significantly tired or fatigued on a regular basis. That’s right up there with no sex drive and hating anything Kardashian. As you may imagine, there are multiple dresses worn by the fatigue fairy, but a few keep popping up more regularly, so here are some of the most common causes, and some solutions.

The number one cause may be obvious, but it’s number one with a bullet, and that is poor quality sleep. Notice I didn’t say lack of sleep hours. You can be in the sack for 10 hours a night, but if you have poor sleep hygiene (tossing and turning, sleep apnea, restless legs) you still will wake up exhausted. If you feel you are putting in the hours but not getting any more energy, you need to be evaluated for a sleep disorder. Some estimate that 1 in 3 adults may experience a sleep abnormality at some time or another. Now if you just get 3 hours a night from binge-watching Netflix, you are your own worst enemy. Remember, set a routine and stick to it, avoid naps, dump the caffeine after lunch, and no before bed cocktails.

Food is medicine, and medicine is food. That’s a cute way of saying how you fuel your body can help or hurt your energy level. Eating a healthful and balanced diet can make the world of difference to how you feel, look, act, and read Sanskrit. For my money I subscribe to the mantra: eat balanced, low saturated fat, low sugar, high fiber, and overall less of everything. Follow that approach and your energy level will improve, your skin will glow, your hair won’t fall out, and you will be amazingly regular. Two other diet musts are drinking water like you’re hydrating for a 5k race and always eat breakfast, even if it is a protein bar. Studies show that people who eat a healthy breakfast have an easier time maintaining a healthy weight and watch more Good Morning America. I’m not sure the latter will give you energy, but it will make you glad you have cable.

We have around 650 muscles in the body, and they are all designed to make us move. Don’t disappoint those little contracting powerhouses, get off the Couch of Doom and get moving. Study after study reinforces the idea that movement spawns energy and with more energy, you can move more. You may say, ”I don’t have enough energy to move!” Guess what? If you force your little behind out for a walk, even if your energy meter is below zero, you will find that when you get back your energy for the rest of the day you will dance in the delightful zone. A walk a day keeps the heart attack away. The Energizer Bunny is not sitting around watching Golden Girls reruns, it’s moving, and so should you!

Some folks get really stressed about being fatigued all the time. Surprise, stress makes the fatigue worse! Excessive, prolonged stress can cause physical and emotional exhaustion and lead to illness and multiple Xanax prescriptions. Now if I had the solution to stress I would be walking down the aisle of the Nobel Prize awards ceremony, so let it be said that there are a few things you can do. Identify the source of stress, journal, set boundaries, get counseling, forgive, say no, communicate, and be transparent with loved ones.

Finally, there are a number of medical conditions that have fatigue as a significant symptom. Here are just a few: anemia, under-active thyroid, diabetes, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, heart disease, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, talk to your doc. Ignoring or complaining will only make you more tired.

Nothing gets me more animated than a good nutritional myth. Well, maybe a new Bruce Willis movie, but that’s another topic all together. Unfortunately there are plenty anachronisms, misinterpretations, and just plain stupid stuff to go around when it comes to food and health. The hard part is limiting them to just five, sort of like how hard it is to limit the reasons why I hate loud mouth talk show hosts.

1) Being skinny means your healthy. My mom used to always tell me that it’s not what a girl looked like on the outside, but what is on the inside that counts. Try telling that to a hormonal hurricane of a 16 year old male with a river of testosterone coursing through his pubescent veins. She was right of course, on many levels. A person can be skinny appearing externally and be all squishy fat on the inside. News flash…this is not healthy! Skinny folks who don’t exercise and starve themselves tend to have a high percent body fat, often more than their hefty peers, and it is this percentage that increases their risks for heart disease, stroke and premature death. An active, fit overweight person with a lower percent body fat is at lower risk for all of these things.

2) All sugar is bad for you. As many of you know, I generally think sugar is right up there with Hitler memorabilia and small pox, but some sugar is actually very good for you. The caveat here is that you have to be physically active and use this sugar for fuel. Carbs and sugar are great and immediate sources of energy for muscles and absolutely essential for the active individual (remember carb loading?). The problem arises when we eat a pound of Sugar Pops and lay down on the couch and binge watch Game Of Thrones. Perspective and context folks…perspective and context.

3) Diets wouldn’t be so popular if they didn’t work. That’s like saying death is a good thing because everybody does it. There is no one size fits all when it comes to nutrition. Simply because a diet may work in the short term…and most do, doesn’t mean they are healthy, sustainable, and easy to adopt (most aren’t). The reason the diet industry is a multibillion dollar industry is that most folks who diet do it repetitively. A diet works for a brief time, then you go back to abusing yourself, then you try another diet. Many times the most weight you lose is from the dollars leaving your wallet.

4) All high fat foods are bad. Try telling that to a salmon. Cold water fish, for example, are very high in fat content but they are considered some of the healthiest choices to eat on the planet. They contain fat, but it is predominantly polyunsaturated fat which actually heart healthy. They literally ooze omega 3 fatty acids which are super efficient antioxidants that promote health in a number of ways. After all, our brain is around 70% fat, so the next time someone calls you a fathead, say thank you.

5) Natural substances like honey are safer than table sugar. A rose by any other name is still a rose, and honey is just…sugar. Honey contains predominantly glucose and fructose and table sugar (sucrose) contains glucose…and surprise! fructose. When either is ingested, enzymes break both into their components and from then on they are essentially the same. Always remember “natural” doesn’t necessarily mean safe or better. Strychnine and arsenic are natural and I’m not putting those in my coffee.

To some, the title of this article seems obvious. Of course men should assume their rightful duties and help with everyday household chores. Not so fast dust pan breath! The reality is that household chores are not evenly split, especially among the over 65 age group. Given this horrendous travesty of domicile justice, what does this possibly have to do with health? Besides the obvious potential trauma from a disgruntled spouse, it turns out that an imbalance in domestic duties can reflect in poorer health consequences, especially for senior citizens.

Those crazy Brits at the University of Oxford did a study where they analyzed the activities of 35,000 men and women in seven countries, all over 65, and attempted to correlate those activities with various health outcomes. More specifically, the team looked at how much time the adults spent on 41 different activities each day, including cooking, cleaning, shuffleboard, mountain climbing, and other household chores, and how these affected overall health, which was self-reported. What was interesting about this study is that they focused on domestic chores (okay, I made up the mountain climbing). The scientists looked at how time spent on household activities varies between older men and women — something they say has never before been investigated.

I suspect they had to use this cohort of people because in today’s enlightened society, everyone knows that millennials share home chores equally and marital bliss is far advanced over their aged parents and grandparents. You see, the over 65 crowd is obviously stuck in the Neanderthal age of women being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and men smoking cigars and killing brontosauruses for fun and profit. Is my sarcasm biting enough? Anyway, what they found was that in this cohort indeed there was a discrepancy in the amount of hours spent on domestic duties between men and women.

The study revealed that older men engaged in 3.1 hours of household activities per day, while older women spent almost 4.7 hours daily on housework — almost 2 hours more every day. So what?, you may speculate. It turns out that less housework was associated with poor health status among both genders.

They surmise that the more housework that one did, the better your health outcomes, as long as it didn’t interfere with sleep. If your bride was up past midnight doing laundry, all health benefits went out the window. So the take home message is that old folks need to split up the chores, get adequate rest, and stop watching so much darn Murder She Wrote.

I am a cutting edge kind of guy. Hey, I was one of the first to recognize that email was going to be big, and that was way back in 2016. One of the purposes of this blog is to keep you abreast of new and interesting ideas in the field of health and wellness, so I regularly scour the InterWeb seeking the newest and most innovative information. Unfortunately, I don't have that for you today.

Instead, I want to make you aware of a trend that I find personally offensive; placenta abuse. I am not talking about the Area 51 wackos who make their afterbirth into smoothies, no, I am talking about a breed of entrepreneurs who are so vile and corrupt in what they do that they defy categorization. These are the sheep placenta stealers. Somewhat akin to the grave robbers of the 18th century, these madmen, and madwoman I suspect, take sheep afterbirth and create skin creams and the such. Not only do they use this mass of chorionic jelly in their products, but they are also openly proud about it. They announce their vileness right there on their labels calling their witches brew MZ Skin Restorative Placenta and Stem Cell Night Serum. Imagine that marketing committee's debate: “Should we use placenta in the label or just call it Uncle Fud's Wrinkle Magic?”

These unapologetic sheep exploiters should not only be arrested for terminal bad taste, but I am amazed that the animal rights folks haven't tried to throw red paint all over their placenta vats. What if the sheep wanted their afterbirth? What if they wanted to encase it in plastic and display it on the mantle in the stable? I just think PETA is really missing the boat on this one.

Then these face cream criminals have the audacity to include stem cells in their concoction. Stem cells...What! The darling of the anti-technology goobers, the use of stem cells in anything "natural" is tantamount to putting genetically modified corn in your homemade still. And they don't say where the stem cells come from. Are they earthworm stem cells? Maybe stem cells from the Argentinian Wombat?

Somehow someone thought it was a good idea to take sheep placentas and mush them up with stem cells from some unknown animal and rub it all over your face. Honestly, it sounds like a bad drug dream to me.

The article where I read about this makeup monstrosity went on to quote a prominent skin care doctor who said, "Ovine placenta in skincare hasn’t officially been studied." First, I didn't know you called sheep ovines, and secondly, who knew that this was not an area of Nobel Prize-worthy study!

All this rant and angst to say that you have to be a critical consumer and not fall for some cockamamie scheme whether it is to smooth your skin or prolong your life.

Okay, I think we can all agree that period cramps are about as fun as the shingles in July, so I will dispense with all the statistics about how common they are blah, blah, blah. And, of course, being a male type person, I have never myself experienced the joy of femalehood; however, I have walked through this demon infested experience with countless women over the past thirty years, so I think I have earned the right to try to help alleviate this burden. In fact, next to trashing a Kardashian, nothing gives me more pleasure than finding a way to get relief for a patient. There are a number of therapeutic options, but I want to focus this post on three “natural” remedies that have been proven to help. I put natural in quotations because I really don’t like to use that term, mainly because no one can agree on what it means. In this instance, I simply mean non pharmaceutical methods. Come on, this is a 500 word post, cut me some slack.

As far as supplements go, the par excellence is omega 3 fatty acids. These anti-inflammatory wonders have been tested in everything from arthritis to menstrual cramps and have proven their pain relieving chops. The key is taking adequate amounts and of adequate quality. Let’s face it, there is a lot of garbage being sold as omega 3 fatty acid supplements including fish oils and borage seed oils, but many either contain little if any of the active ingredient or have so many other impurities it renders them useless. My pick for quality and purity is the brand Omega XL. I have some personal experience with this product and can vouch for its effectiveness. For menstrual cramps I suggest a daily dose, but then pump it up about a week before the period.

Magnesium is kind of like the guy in your office that everyone knows, but no one knows exactly what he does. This mineral is a wonderful muscle relaxer and has been used for years for muscle cramps and GI issues. The uterus is a big muscle, so it only follows that when that bad girl cramps down, which she does on a regular basis during your period, that relieving that would have a beneficial effect…and it does. Be careful however because too much of a good thing might make Sally a sad girl. Excess magnesium can cause diarrhea and may put a damper on a hot date. I recommend 300-400 mg daily about 2-3 days before and during your cycle for relief. Keep in mind this is just a suggestion and your medical history may dictate otherwise. Oh, and if you poop every hour on that dose, I recommend decreasing it.

I know it’s not an herb or mineral but exercise has shown to reduce menstrual cramps in many studies. I realize that exercising on your period is about as fun as a Pamela Anderson film festival, but it really does help. And it doesn’t have to be training for a marathon, a simple brisk walk for 30-45 minutes can keep your baby bag blissful. You’ve all probably heard of the runner’s high, that endorphin rush you get when you exercise like a maniac. Well the same chemicals responsible for this are released at a lower volume with even moderate exercise, and these little buggers have the painkilling ability of morphine! I am not suggesting you spin on an exercise bike for anesthesia during a root canal, but it can definitely help the girl flu.

I like a good fad just like the next guy, but occasionally things get pushed a bit far. For example, when I was in college streaking was at its heyday. For those uninitiated (or younger than 30) streaking was basically running naked in public, preferably where there was a lot of people. I have to say here that I was not a participant as in college I was short, a bit dumpy, and very white so there was not a big demand for streaking gnomes, but I did enjoy watching Betty Sturdavent streak one lazy afternoon in the commons area of our dorm. She was gifted in very many ways, but one of those was not speed, so we got a good look at all her other gifts.

A more recent fad is planking, where one lays flat either on the ground or on other stationary objects and inevitably has multiple pictures taken to display on their social media format of choice. Fortunately for all of us the planking usually occurs fully clothed, as most of those who carry this out have no business being naked.

I am especially fond of health fads like swallowing goldfish and eating one’s placenta. While most of these are harmless, I have a hard time recommending them to a general audience. Between you and me, if you eat your placenta you should have an immediate psychiatric evaluation as you have no business being a parent, but I digress. One of my current favorites is colonics. This is a fun afternoon where you pay someone to give you an enema. How can that not be a blast (literally!). Besides the fact that it does nothing for your health, it just strikes me as odd that someone would voluntarily pay for what is normally a prep for a colonoscopy.

I recently ran across an Internet story that is not exactly a fad, but once I looked into it actually seemed to have some legitimacy. Let me preface this by reminding folks of my interest in weight management. I am always on the lookout for any tips and tools for weight control, so when I saw an article about carbohydrate intake I was immediately interested. In fact this article claimed that a simple test could determine whether eating carbs could put inches on your love handles. According to geneticist Sharon Moalem, author of The DNA Restart, you can discern how well your body digests carbs and illuminate your personal carb tolerance with something called "the cracker test."

The cracker test involves, surprise, eating a cracker and is based on the enzymes produced in the mouth. One theory of carbohydrate intolerance is based on the level of enzymes that break down the carbs to glucose. The quicker you notice a change in taste or a sweetness, the more amylase enzyme you have and the lees likely you are to put on the pounds with carbs. If the taste doesn’t change you probably need to void as many carbs as you can if you are trying to lose weight.

While this is a crude at best assay, there is some scientific validity (unlike the colonics!). We have always known there is variability in persons tolerance of carbohydrates, and this may help identify those folks early on.

We are all going to die. How’s that for a positive start to things! But, in spite of some wacko millionaire freezing himself for a couple of hundred years, most sane people will die. That doesn’t mean we have to die today or tomorrow. Again, most sane people would like to live well as long as possible. We all know that cancer is one of the leading causes of death and destruction on the planet. I suspect if I told you I had a pill that, taken daily, would reduce your chance of dying from cancer by half, most of you would sell your ugly sister to the gypsies to get the money to buy it. Needless to say I don’t have such a pill (I would be lounging on the beach of my private island if I did), but I can tell you four things that you can do that will accomplish the same outcome.

Don’t smoke… anything. Do I really need to harp on this? I can’t believe there are still folks who don’t know that smoking increases your risk of everything from lung cancer to terminal halitosis. Cigarette manufacturers ought to have to go to work every day dressed as the Grim Reaper because their product is as poisonous as a viper’s venom. Do whatever you need to do to stop, hypnosis, medicines, counseling, wiring your mouth shut. Just do it…now…no excuses.

Don’t drink at all, or at least in moderation, alcohol that is. For you mincers of words, let me define moderation. That’s 1 drink of the grape a day for women and 2 for men. I realize that for many moderation means just short of passing out, but these are the same people who run naked onto ballfields. Moderate intake has been associated with a slight decrease in cancer deaths, probably due to the antioxidants (resveratrol and proanthocyanidins) that populate the Merlots and Cabernets, but realistically you can get the same impact from eating grapes. Live like the old Greek philosophers, nothing in excess, everything in moderation.

Keep your BMI in a healthy range. First BMI doesn’t stand for Butt Massive Index but Body Mass Index. It is a simple measurement that divides your weight by your height and is loosely correlated to how much fat you carry on your bones. A high BMI (>25) is associated with a number of medical problems such as cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure , and trouble finding XXXL shorts. A better tool which is more predictive is your % body fat, but that takes some effort and measurements which aren’t available to everyone, but everyone can measure their height and weight (and if you can’t, being overweight is the least of your problems).

Exercise a little everyday. Maybe a better way to put this is to increase your daily activity. It doesn’t have to be a formal sweat session with your Attila the Hun personal trainer. It may be just taking the stairs or parking a bit farther away from your destination. Even these simple changes have been connected to lower cancer deaths. This is one category where more is better (unlike the wine) so lace up the tennies and get moving.

You literally can reduce your chance of dying from cancer by 50% by doing all these things. The biggest question is …why aren’t you?

Most of you have heard the old joke, “What do you call a bus load of lawyers going over a cliff?…A good start!” Or how about the old maxim, those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, go to law school. I realize some in this PC world may take offense, but rest assured I am not an attorneyphobe, but a couple of recent newspaper articles reignited my reticence in dealing with the legal eagles. Let me say for the record that I have many good friends who are lawyers and they are all upstanding guys and gals, so this diatribe is not targeting the vast majority of ethical, hard working attorneys. This rant specifically is against the blood sucking worthless pieces of epidermis that are illustrated by the following examples.

Recently the mega company Johnson & Johnson was hit with a $417 million dollar verdict alleging that their baby powder was responsible for a woman’s ovarian cancer. This is in spite of groups like the National Cancer Institute issuing statements like “The weight of the scientific evidence does not support an association between perineal talc exposure and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.” And that is just one statement, Google this stuff and there are literally hundreds of well done research papers that concur, there is no connection between baby powder use and ovarian cancer. None…that means NOT ANY. So you may ask, how did a jury find for the plaintiff? It’s not about truth, it’s about the show. One of the major plaintiff’s expert witness was Dr.Daniel Cramer, a researcher who has been looking at this question for 30 years, and who has made a substantial living over the years testifying in these cases. Of note, in all his own peer reviewed scientific papers published on this topic, he himself has never written that talc caused ovarian cancer. But he puts on a good show for the lawyers and the jury.

What has come from these studies is a lucrative cottage industry of weasel lawyers who see a pay day from filing and subsequently settling suits. They know that bad publicity and expenses often outweigh the costs of making these fraudulent claims go away. These lawyers are no better than the scamsters who prey on the elderly. One successful class action suit can set them up for a lifetime, and they have no problem throwing ethics out with the sham science.

The second article that got my panties in a wad was from the Wall Street Journal this past weekend. It involved a class action suit against Subway because some idiot thought their sandwiches were too short. They hired an ambulance chaser to file a suit because the “footlong” ad campaign was misleading because some of the sandwiches actually only measured 11 inches. I’m not making this up. I am amazed that the mouth breathers even knew that there was 12 inches in a foot. Some brain challenged judge ordered a judgement of $525,000 to be paid to the plaintiffs because their feelings were hurt by not getting their extra inch. Thank goodness an appeal resulted in the award being thrown out, but unfortunately not all for the right reasons. They didn’t reverse the decision because it was absurd and foolish, but because the lawyers rigged it so that they would get all the settlement money! One judge actually said, “A class settlement that results in fees for the attorneys but no meaningful relief for the class is no better than a racket.” At least he called a spade a spade.

Granted there are some class actions that are justified. Suing Justin Bieber for murdering Pop music is a no brainer, but many of these scams are simply the fodder for unscrupulous lawyers and greedy plaintiffs. I believe we need legal reform just as vitally as we need insurance, medical, and tax reform.

Okay, so no one has really said that E cigarettes will make your mammaries melt, but just think what a deterrent that would be for your high school daughter if she thought that. I mean smoking may still be cool for them, but it will be a lot less cool if they are walking around like a prepubescent boy.

The reality is that E cigs are loaded with problems and not the panacea that some thought they were. I can hear the advocates howling in my ear, “But E cigs will reduce the number of both kids and adults smoking real tobacco, and that’s a good thing.” Once they get down from their hypocritical high horse, they will see studies pouring in that show the presupposition was not true. Numerous studies are appearing that actually say the opposite, that E Cigs are responsible for increased cancer stick use in some populations, especially younger kids. One commentator went as far to say that E cigs were like a gateway drug to Marlboros.

Here’s a big red flag, big tobacco has a huge financial interest in E cigs. Is it good business sense to invest in something that is supposed to hurt your other product line? Of course not, and the executives at the cigarette companies knew this dirty little secret before the general public. David Railton, writing in Medical News Today states, “Samir Soneji — an associate professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at Dartmouth College in Lebanon, NH — says that although the tobacco industry markets e-cigarettes as smoking cessation tools, relatively few e-cigarette users are able to quit smoking successfully. Rather, e-cigarette use may actually lead to people taking up smoking.”

E-cigarettes could lead to more than 1.5 million years of life lost because their use could substantially increase the number of adolescents and young adults who eventually become cigarette smokers."

Oops! We didn’t think the general public would figure this one out.

Even if you discount the idea that starting with E cigs, under the auspices that it is “safer”, doesn’t lead to more smoking, the little electronic smoke makers have some intrinsic problems on their own. A recent study reported by Medical News Today found that teenagers who had used e-cigarettes had three times the amount of toxic compounds in their bodies than teenagers who had never vaped. Granted, these toxins may not cause cancer or make junior grow three eyes, but who wants additional toxins. We get enough of those things from just breathing city air or baby sitting your chain smoking senile uncle.

Apparently the little heating coils in the e cigs that make the smoke can also spew forth toxic metals and damage DNA. I don’t know about you, but my DNA is about as damaged as it can tolerate and doesn’t appreciate filling my lungs with residue from miniature radiators.

This is a no brainer…just don’t do it. Don’t inhale any toxins into your lungs from tobacco, a heating coil, or Elmer’s Glue.

I think I may have gotten two questions over the past 10 years about the female condom, and both had to do with whether it was real or a hoax. I’ve had more people ask about Bigfoot than the female condom, so initially I was hesitant to devote a blog post to it, but I feel that women are very smart cookies and the more information they have the better decisions they make. Therefore, as a public service akin to Nancy Reagan's war on drugs, I want to enlighten you about this interesting and largely effective mode of birth control.

I’m all about empowering women with choices for birth control, and the female condom is an example of a lessor known method. From experience in my medical practice I can say that this method is one of the least used, and statistics shore this up. There are a number of reasons for this, some of it extends from ridiculously ineffective marketing to the expense, but regardless of the reasons, few women are using it. Data indicates that this method of birth control is about 80% effective (about on par with the male condom), but already you can see a problem as most hormonal methods (pill, depo, etc) are quoted as being 98% effective. That’s a big difference, and needless to say there are a lot of 20% babies out there. However, 80% is better than nothing, as we all know that having sex once in the back of a pickup after prom will guarantee a pregnancy.

Let me back up a moment and briefly explain what the female condom is. It is a non-latex sheath (mainly rubber) that is closed at one end (the end that fits inside the vajaja) and open at the other (otherwise sex would be a challenge). The opening has a ring that fits around the labia, thus providing a safe passage for Mr.WeeWee. This essentially provides a protective covering isolating both genitals from any direct contact, kind of like the Bubble Boy from Seinfeld. This isolation chamber also gives the female condom its second benefit, that of preventing sexually transmitted diseases. Once again it gives the woman some say so in her own protection by not having to rely on her partner.

I mentioned cost can be a deterrent to use. Surveys indicate that the price for a single condom can range from $8 to $11. They are also recommended for single use, so you can see how this might add up. They don’t require a prescription so many who use the female condom order them from the Internet at a discount. A word of caution, know your supplier. Just because they are super cheap, I wouldn’t recommend ordering from the Republic of Ghana. I just can’t vouch for their quality.

One advantage over the male condom is that the female condom can be placed up to 8 hours before sex. This can raise a number of interesting questions, most of which I don’t want to get into, but just know that even if you place it long before the event, it should be removed in a timely fashion afterwards. In spite of some discussion boards, the condoms should not be washed and reused. I would say it would be a mood killer to open your girlfriend’s dishwasher to see a number of washed condoms splayed across the upper level shelf.

If used properly, these devices are reasonable effective at both pregnancy and STD prevention.

For additional information go to : https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/004002.htm.

There’s nothing I like writing about more than staying…regular. That may be a reflection of my age (and my intellect) but suffice it to say, If your bowels are happy, every thing is happy.

With that somewhat ignoble introduction I want to present to you ten things you can consume that will keep the TP flowing off the shelves.

You really need to know one word when it comes to regularity, fiber. I don’t mean you have to feast on cardboard (although that probably would do the trick), but almost any high fiber food will jump start the process. For example, leafy green vegetables, celery, beans, broccoli and almonds. Hey, why not start your day with a broccoli-almond smoothie. Yum-Yum.

Prunes are the quintessential poop food. Your great grandmother probably force fed prunes to your grandfather, who in turn pumped prunes into your mother. That explains a lot doesn’t it! The reality is that the little dried plums give you both fiber and bowel stimulants in each delicious mouthful.

Continuing in the fruit vein, oranges can help “move” you. Again, they meet the fiber benchmark but also, like many fruits, contain a substance called naringenin, which sounds like a the name of a small Indian baby, but actually works as a laxative.

Here’s one that may surprise you, water. All the fiber in the known universe will not help if you’re not drinking enough H2O. Oh, and it will make you weewee also. Just remember to drink one 8 oz glass with every prune and you will be home free.

I use flaxseeds to help with some menopausal symptoms in my patients, but they are also little powerhouses of fiber. Think of them as multipurpose; kind of like the chief multi-tasker of the grain world.

Rice gets a bad rap for it’s glycemic index value (Google it) but why do you think there are so many jokes about Chinese takeout and diarrhea. It’s not the soy sauce, my friend. Brown rice especially is good for the gut and keeps things flowing.

Popcorn, it turns out, is not just for movie buffs, but for toilet buffs also. Ever wonder what Orville Redenbacher is doing when he is not making bad TV commercials, he’s in the toilet.

When Popeye wasn’t saving Olive Oil, he was visiting the ship’s head because all that spinach keep him on a tight schedule. Fiber rich and full of magnesium (i.e. Milk of Magnesia) this super food keeps you super regular.

Yogurt is not associated with fiber, but it does contain many natural bacteria that make your gut smile. A natural probiotic, this stuff has a number of health benefits but avoid the sugar laden fruit flavored types.

And finally, my favorite, coffee. Okay all you anal retentive types, I know this may not technically be a food, so get over it and go have another latte. Coffee stimulates muscle contractions in the colon, which then helps you go to the bathroom. (Coffee has many other health benefits, too: it improves circulation, your memory, makes your workouts more effective, and is full of antioxidants…it’s a miracle drug!

Happy pooping!

In medical school, the weirdest most esoteric diseases and ailments were always referred to as “interesting cases”. We soon discovered that this was code for “You best kiss your behind goodbye if you have any of these because you’re a goner.” I vowed then and there that if I could go through life and never be an “interesting case” I would be a happy camper.

That being said, I have come across some rather fascinating medical issues that most of you will think I made up, but I assure they are real. And yes, you don’t want any of them. Trichophagia, or Rapunzel syndrome, is where a person (mostly women) compulsively eat their hair. We all remember the weird girl in middle school who constantly chewed on her pigtail. This is not her. Someone with trichophagia actually pulls the hair out and makes the equivalent of a BLT and chows down. If they do it a lot, and who wouldn’t, they can actually get a bezoar. This is better known as a hairball, most commonly found in the family cat. A horrible result of a bezoar can be an infection, intestinal blockage, and even death. Needless to say, this is primarily a psychiatric diagnosis and requires aggressive treatment.

Hirschsprung’s disease, or toxic megacolon, is a largely a childhood disease where the colon’s ability to empty is severely limited. As you might imagine this results in a blockage even the Barbary Pirates couldn’t breach. This is more common in males (finally, something nasty more common in males!) and can manifest with a swollen belly, vomiting, including vomiting a green or brown substance(am I painting enough of a picture here?) constipation, gas, or diarrhea. Basically, anything horrible related to the bowels is generated by this problem.

Witness a report out of China that tells of a man who had part of his colon resected which contained 30 pounds of poop. That’s more poop than a cadre of revelers at a Miralax convention. While not a disease, there are numerous examples of medical wrongdoing that just hurts to think about. While operating on the wrong leg or taking out a left kidney when the right kidney was the problem sounds horrible, it’s not as horrible as what happened to a man in Pennsylvania recently. He went into surgery to have his left testicle removed and the surgeon instead removed the right testicle. Oops!

All’s well that ends well as the injured party received a hefty settlement and tickets to La Cage aux Folles. Hematohidrosis is a rare disease steeped in history. Those familiar with the Bible know the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was in such anguish that, according to the Gospel of Luke, he “being in anguish he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Since this, many who experienced “sweating blood” were labeled as stigmata, with religious as well as medical interest.

A recent article lists almost 300 cases documented in the literature. As for me, I just prefer to sweat bullets! As an aside, not only do I never want to be an interesting case, I never want a disease named after me. Imagine how Dr. Alzheimer feels. Think of the horror when Dr. Bardet–Biedl’s grandkids see picture of the poor children with the syndrome named after him (webbed toes, obesity, tiny scrotum, multiple digits).

Sometimes being anonymous has its place.

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Ron Eaker

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