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Health Magazine Needs New York-Area Women for Jeans Makeover

By Mara Betsch | April 3, 2009

UPDATE: Thanks for your overwhelming response! We’ve filled the spots. Stay tuned for more requests from Health editors in the coming months. And please check out our Natural Beauty and Fashion page at Health.com.

The Health magazine beauty and fashion team is looking for six or seven women from the New York City–area who would like to appear in the September issue modeling some new fall jeans.

We’re looking for women of all shapes and sizes, who have recently lost weight—anywhere from 5 pounds to 50 pounds—and would like to talk about their success.

Not only will you get a free pair of jeans, but we’ll throw in a free makeover (professional makeup, hair cut, and color at a top New York City salon) along with a print of your fabulous-looking self from the June photo shoot.

Candidates should submit a brief bio on why it’s hard to find jeans that fit, what body type they have, day and evening phone numbers and email address, and a current, full-body JPG photo. Submissions without photos will not be considered. Candidates must be in the New York–metropolitan area (Conn., N.J., N.Y., etc.).

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Why Facebook Is Good for Your Health

By Theresa Tamkins | January 6, 2009
facebook-good-health

My mom’s on Facebook. In fact, she was on Facebook before I was and now she’s on the social networking site pretty much every day.

Go ahead and laugh—everyone else does. You see, my mom is a white-haired, apple-pie-making lady in her mid-70s whom several dozen people call “Aunt Bea.”

But will all due respect to Opie, she’s no Mayberry matron. She’s tech savvy, and she’s pretty much got a black belt in social networking—she’s utterly relentless at forming and maintaining of social contacts. You think you’re six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon? No, you’re probably six degrees of separation from my mother. She can locate a third cousin or long lost pal in nearly every city in America. Hence, the leap to online socializing, at an age when some of her peers probably couldn’t find the computer’s on button.

But what seems like a quirky personality trait may in fact be good for her health. Research has shown that strong social networks are a key reason some people survive into their 80s and beyond, while others don’t. Read More

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Web Making You Sick? Help for “Cyberchondriacs”

By Kate Rope | December 10, 2008
cure-cyberchondria

123rf

Ever googled a minor symptom only to come away convinced you had a serious disease?

You’re not alone. In a Microsoft Research study released this month, a quarter of respondents said they use the Internet as they would a medical expert, and more than 90% of those surveyed said medical Web searches had, at least once, led them to review content related to a serious illness.

Problem is, an experienced medical expert does a patient history first, then uses judgment and estimates the likelihood that a symptom—say, joint stiffness—is caused by exercise or injury versus, say, tetanus.  Read More

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Thou Shalt Get Busy? Religious Leaders Ask Congregants to Have More Sex

By Sally Chew | December 9, 2008
daily-sex-health

Istockphoto/Health

When Fellowship Church Rev. Ed Young last month called for members of his evangelical mega-church to have seven days of sex, he said it was to foster intimacy and faithfulness. But I wondered what else the quirky young pastor might turn up—on purpose or not—with his new headline-grabbing campaign.

Having frequent sex is believed to help ward off prostate cancer, heart problems, depression, and even outward signs of aging. So even if just a core group of Fellowship’s 20,000 members manage to double their rates of “congregational copulation”—as Young suggested—they might reap some physical benefits too. Read More

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CDC Scientists ID New Killer Germ, but What Should They Call It?

By Theresa Tamkins | December 8, 2008
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Getty Images

I just returned from the sprawling campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. This huge federal agency is on the front line of fighting just about every kind of health threat, from biological weapons to dengue fever to obesity—both in the United States and abroad. (They have 14,000 employees in countries around the world).

But more importantly (for glamour-seeking sci-fi fans), the CDC has played a starring role in just about every apocalyptic movie or book ever made, from Stephen King’s The Stand to Richard Preston’s Hot Zone. Will Smith researched his role in I Am Legend by chatting with CDC scientists. (Yes, he is as nice as he seems, CDC insiders say.)

So is working at the CDC as exciting as the movies make it out to be? Well, yes. On the day I was there for a tour, I met Pierre Rollin, MD, of the Special Pathogens Branch, who had just come from a meeting to discuss a name for a new killer virus. Read More

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Routine HIV Testing Could Be Coming to Your Doctor’s Office

By Sally Chew | November 30, 2008
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Getty Images

It’s difficult to keep a virus from spreading when you don’t know who has it. One of the main reasons HIV continues to be a problem, even in a developed country like the United States, is that 1 in every 4 HIV–positive Americans goes about life without having any idea he’s infected.

And these 250,000 or so undiagnosed people unknowingly cause another 20,000 new infections a year, according to the American College of Physicians (ACP).

That’s why the ACP issued a report on World AIDS Day, calling on U.S. doctors to test every single one of their patients over the age of 13. “Now there is enough evidence showing that routine HIV screening should be adopted,” says ACP member Amir Qaseem, MD, PhD. He says Americans should get used to checking their HIV status along with their cholesterol. Read More

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What Are You Doing on World AIDS Day?

By Sally Chew | November 27, 2008
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Istockphoto/Health

Monday is the 20th annual World AIDS Day, created in 1988 by the World Health Organization and U.N. General Assembly to recall those killed by the disease and to improve research, awareness, and treatment around the world. Thirty-three million people live with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

To find out how you can participate, check out POZ’s list of events across the country and around the globe.

And meanwhile, allow me to bust some favorite HIV myths. Read More

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Surgery Abroad? New Insurance Policy May Protect You

By Theresa Tamkins | November 25, 2008
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Istockphoto

Heading to Brazil for a face-lift or India for a hip replacement? You’re not alone. About 750,000 medical tourists embarked from the United States in 2007 because they needed (or wanted) pricey surgery, infertility treatments, or dental work, which can cost 90% less in other countries.

And that number is expected to rapidly climb to well over a million annually in the next few years.

Now a company is taking advantage of that growing trend and offering, for the first time anywhere, an insurance policy that covers unexpected costs associated with medical tourism. Read More

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Happier Holiday Travel: 8 Ways to Minimize Jet Lag in Kids

By Kate Rope | November 23, 2008
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Recently, I took my 1-year-old daughter to San Francisco to visit old friends. It was her first time crossing multiple time zones, and I worried that the change would have us all up at 4 a.m. reading Baby’s Day 14 times in a row. So I asked my online parents’ group how to prepare.

The tips were many and varied, but I followed a few of them to great success. When I returned, I called up Christopher Tolcher, MD, a pediatrician in Los Angeles, to get his take.

Marrying medical expert advice with mom expert experience, here are my eight tips for happy, sleep-filled travels with your young child. Read More

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10 Ways to Save Money on Health Costs During the Recession

By Scott Mowbray | November 23, 2008
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Istockphoto

Whatever the prospects for health-care reform, the sick economy is going to put lots of pressure on Americans. Unemployment will be up, the number of uninsured will rise, companies will surely cut health benefits to employees, and all this stress will be, well, unhealthy.

Although there is some evidence that recessions can actually improve certain health trends (e.g., people may indulge in unhealthy behaviors less often when they have less money), it is surely true that health-related money anxiety will rise.

But there are ways to prevent and lessen health-money woes. Here are 10 to start with, along with links to more detailed explanations of how to make these changes. Read More

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