July 31st, 2008
I remember the day that my soon-to-be husband got his first pager. He was so excited to be considered important enough to be given a company pager because, to him, it meant that he was now the new go-to guy – the guy who could be trusted to fix any problem that came up, day or night. He could hardly contain himself!
I, on the other hand, wanted to throw the pager in toilet after its third day on my sweetie’s hip. He had received no less than 25 pages during the few hours we had spent together during these three days. This left me wondering where the line had been crossed between work and home. It also made me think about how I was going to get my fiancé to become more engaged in his life outside of work when he was so unfairly lured by the demands of the people who support his self esteem and who also pay his bills.
What we needed was a work-life balance plan. I had heard of these before, but had never put one together myself. After going through the process, here’s what I have learned:
1. Figure out your priorities.
In order to achieve a work-life balance you first need to figure out what really makes you happy. Is it your family? Your friends? Your career? Something else? Take a moment to write down, in order of importance, what really matters to you most. This will help you establish what it is you really want to spend your time on. If something is not on the list or is rated a low priority, you need to give serious consideration to eliminating this item from your life altogether. By sticking to mid-to-high priority items, you can start building a life that you can be proud of and are excited to actively participate in, not one that you are just going through the motions with.
2. Focus on a few activities.
Let’s face it. Most of us are extremely over-programmed. Every minute of our lives is taken up with various activities that, at some point, we thought we wanted to participate in. The reality is that some or even most of these activities are just drains on our time. If you are serious about achieving a happy work-life balance, then you need to figure out which activities you just can’t live without and focus solely on them. You’ll be amazed at how much time, stress, and energy you’ll save by whittling your activity commitment down to just one or two really rewarding ones.
3. Learn how to say no.
One of the things that gets us into the most trouble with our work-life balance is our inability to say no. As human beings we have empathy for one another and we really do not want to let anyone down. In the meantime, we are letting ourselves down because every time we accept a new responsibility, we are taking time away from our personal priorities. Saying no is not easy and it can takes lots of practice in order to find a way that makes both you and the person you are saying no to feel comfortable with the outcome. But in doing so, you are freeing yourself and your time to focus on things that matter most to you.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Life can be overwhelming, even when we are organized and have our priorities in line. The fact is that everyone needs help sometimes. By not asking for help we are creating more stress in our lives that can be damaging to our overall health. Stress alone can bring on other health issues. As an example, pre-diabetes can be caused by Insulin Resistance-related obesity which, in turn, may be brought on by stress. Various forms of stress release the steroid cortisol and this process may result in weight gain. And we all know that added weight can bring on additional complications like high cholesterol and heart disease.
So what types of things can you do to relieve some of this stress and avoid potential health risks? Ask a neighbor to watch your kids while you go to dinner with your spouse. Or have a neighborhood kid mow your lawn so that you can spend some quality doing something else that you love. The extra effort is worth it as you keep your life and your relationships on track and keep stress down to a minimum.
5. Always have something to look forward to.
We all are a little happier when we have a vacation, fun activity or big family gathering coming up on the calendar. Everybody’s work calendar is booked with various activities so why not your home calendar as well? Planning special events will enhance your life by allowing you to keep those personal relationships with friends and family strong. So turn off your cell phone and make the most of these special occasions. You might find that you have more of a skip in your step at work because of it!
July 28th, 2008
“Posh Spice” Victoria Beckham is reported to be suffering from a major source of female infertility called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) while attempting to become pregnant again.
The latest issue of Now magazine claims the English pop singer and her soccer superstar husband David Beckham have been trying for a fourth child for the last three months. The magazine reports that they are now consulting specialists in both Los Angeles and London.
During a routine checkup at London’s exclusive Portman Hospital two weeks ago, the 34-year-old Spice Girl was warned by doctors that her fertility rate is lower than at the time of her first baby. The Beckhams have three sons – Brooklyn, nine, Romeo, five, and Cruz, three.
A Now magazine source said: “Victoria is suffering from PCOS and irregular periods, both of which can affect her chances of having a baby. She’s trying not to get too nervous as she knows this won’t help, but it’s becoming more and more of a concern.” PCOS is a heartbreaking but manageable disease caused by an imbalance of hormones. It can severely disrupt a woman’s menstrual cycle and is thought to affect 10-15% of females of child-bearing age worldwide. A classic symptom of the condition is non-existent ovulation, without which pregnancy is impossible.
In February, Victoria admitted: “I’m really feeling that pressure. Every time I go out, someone says to me: ‘Are you pregnant?”’Now magazine says the Beckhams’ baby dilemma is complicated by the possible retirement next year when he turns 60 of her trusted obstetrician, Dr. Malcolm Gillard, who delivered all her boys.
Fifty per cent of women with PCOS suffer from excess weight or obesity. But it can also strike adolescents and females of normal healthy weight and even lean women. Post-menopausal women are also vulnerable to PCOS. Other symptoms of the disease include skin conditions like acne and brown patches, excess facial and body hair, fatigue and mood swings, male pattern baldness in women and reduced sex drive.
A balanced, nutritious diet combined with nutraceuticals and regular exercise to achieve weight loss has, however, been shown to greatly improve the management of PCOS symptoms and, in many cases, even make them disappear.
To learn more about PCOS and how to reverse the symptoms, visit www.pcos.insulitelabs.com
July 28th, 2008
Press release: July 28, 2008
Contact: Megan Manlove
mmanlove@hmc.psu.edu
717-531-8604
Penn State
Elevated levels of insulin could be an early sign that girls whose mothers suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome — or PCOS — may also be susceptible to the disease, according to gynecologists who have found evidence of insulin resistance in young children.
The findings could help determine whether daughters of women suffering from PCOS are at a higher risk of developing the disease, compared to girls whose mothers do not have the disease.
Polycystic ovary syndrome is a common hormonal disorder that affects women of reproductive age, and sometimes causes inability to become pregnant. Symptoms include hairiness due to excessive amounts of male hormones, irregular periods, and insulin resistance.
“We found insulin resistance in children who had entered puberty, and whose mothers had PCOS,” said Richard Legro, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Penn State College of Medicine and lead author. “We did not find it in the youngest children, which suggests that the disease is triggered by puberty.”
Legro and his colleagues were interested in finding out whether metabolic and reproductive abnormalities associated with the inheritable disease, are more likely to show up in children whose mothers have PCOS, and how parents could find out whether their child was at risk.
The researchers designed a study to compare 38 children — boys and girls aged 4 to 14 — whose mothers had PCOS with 32 children in a control group. They specifically looked for the early onset of androgen — male hormones — production, and production of excess insulin.
“We collected samples of saliva and urine to analyze levels of insulin and sex steroids respectively,” explained Legro. “But we also looked for gonadotropins, hormones that stimulate sex steroids and provide the earliest sign of puberty.”
Results from the test indicate that older girls, but not boys, of PCOS mothers had significantly higher concentrations of salivary insulin. Compared to the control group, the girls also had lower levels of urinary hormones.
According to Legro, the key finding of the study is that insulin levels appear to be elevated in daughters of PCOS mothers, which becomes more pronounced as they pass through puberty. Since the androgen levels were comparatively normal throughout puberty, and insulin resistance was only found in girls who had undergone puberty, Legro argues that insulin is the primary problem, while male hormones are a secondary problem.
“Insulin is the real culprit in terms of stimulating the ovary, more so than gonadotropins, said Legro, whose findings appeared in a recent issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and was the subject of an editorial in the same issue.
“You could argue children of PCOS mothers build up excessive insulin during puberty, which in turn contributes to reproductive abnormality,” explained Legro.
However, Legro cautions that it may be too early to conclude that excessive insulin is the sole factor that makes daughters of PCOS mothers susceptible to the disease. He is also not fully sure whether hyperandrogenism — excess of male hormones — precedes or follows excessive levels of insulin.
Researchers say future longitudinal studies will focus only on girls and try to pin down whether an abnormal level of insulin is the sole factor that causes reproductive abnormalities.
“That is the tantalizing question,” the Penn State medical researcher said. “The ultimate goal would be to find the earliest sign that makes a child more susceptible to develop PCOS. Right now the earliest sign would be an elevation in insulin levels.”
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Legro’s work is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Other researchers on the paper are Sarah C. Kent, family medicine physician; Allen R. Kunselman, senior research assistant; Laurence M. Demers, M.D., distinguished professor emeritus of medicine and pathology; Carol L. Gnatuk, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Peter A. Lee, professor of pediatrics; and William C. Dodson, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, all at Penn State College of Medicine. Penn State College of Medicine is at http://www.pennstatehershey.org
The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology is at http://www.hmc.psu.edu/womens/
July 28th, 2008
By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter
MSN Health & Fitness
Could affect fertility, especially in overweight and obese men, researchers report
WEDNESDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) — Eating half a serving of soy food a day lowers sperm concentrations and may play a role in male infertility, particularly in obese men, Harvard University researchers report.
The reason for this relationship between soy and sperm count isn’t clear. However, researchers speculate that soy increases estrogen activity, which may have a negative affect on sperm production and also interfere with other hormonal signals.
“There have been a lot of interest in estrogen and isoflavones in particular and a potential relationship to fertility and other reproductive disorders,” said lead researcher Dr. Jorge Chavarro, a research fellow in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Research in animals has shown that isoflavones and estrogen can have a potentially negative affect on reproduction, including decreased fertility, Chavarro said. However, there is very little evidence of how these findings apply to humans, he said.
The new research, he added, lends support to how results of animal studies apply to humans. But Chavarro considers the findings preliminary and inconclusive. “It’s way too early to say stop eating soy foods,” he said. “It’s not time to worry about whether you’re eating too much soy. There’s not enough information to conclusively say that. ”
His report was published in the July 24 online edition of the journal Human Reproduction.
For the study, Chavarro and colleagues collected data on 99 men who attended a fertility clinic for evaluation. The men were asked about how much of 15 soy-based foods they ate in the past three months.
The foods men were asked about included tofu, tempeh, tofu or soy sausages, bacon, burgers, soy milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and other soy products like roasted nuts and energy bars.
Because different foods have different levels of isoflavones, half a serving of soy is equal to about one cup of soy milk or one serving of tofu or soy burgers every other day, Chavarro noted.
Chavarro’s team found that men who ate the most soy had 41 million fewer sperm per milliliter of semen compared with men who did not eat soy foods. Normal sperm counts range between 80 million and 120 million per milliliter, according to a press release from the journal, a monthly publication of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology.
In addition, the researchers found that the link between soy and sperm concentration was stronger among overweight and obese men. Overweight and obese men produce more estrogen than thinner men, and soy may increase those estrogen levels even further, they speculated.
Moreover, the link between soy and sperm concentration was strongest in men with higher sperm concentrations. Men who have normal or high sperm counts may be more susceptible to soy foods than men with low sperm counts, Chavarro said.
Infertility expert Dr. Hossein Sadeghi-Nejad, an associate professor of urology at UMDNJ New Jersey Medical School and Hackensack University Medical Center, agreed that soy may be one factor affecting fertility, especially in overweight and obese men.
“When patients are overweight, the fat tissue converts male hormones to more female hormones,” Sadeghi-Nejad said. “So, it is possible that the combination of this estrogenic source [soy] and the extra internal estrogen that is caused by the conversion of androgen to estrogen through the fat has a more deleterious effect in that group of patients.”
In addition, Sadeghi-Nejad noted that although sperm counts decreased most among men who have the highest counts, that should not affect fertility, since sperm counts were still in the normal range.
“But this is a good reminder that if you have an overweight patient, with abnormal semen parameters, and a very high soy intake, it may be wise for them to decrease this factor,” Sadeghi-Nejad said.
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/sexual-health/mens-sexual-health/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100211543>1=31028
