Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Profile Interview: MMA Warlike
Cameron Conaway: It is certainly a rarity when a new sport rises from out of its underground roots and shoots its growth into the mainstream. Perhaps no sport (at least within the last twenty years) has grown and evolved as much as...April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
'A beautiful show of strength': Weight loss and the fat activist self
This article explores the disciplinary and productive effects of late 20th-century/early 21st-century discourse around the obesity epidemic. For my purposes, both the Fat Activist and Weight Loss Surgery patient may be seen as outcomes of this discursive proliferation. Based on a content analysis of two online accounts of weight loss by prominent fat activists, I examine the ways in which such public declarations can be seen as contemporary examples of Foucault’s notion of the confession. Through debates in the ‘fatosophere’, such activists and their peers simultaneously take up and reject both biomedical and fat activists tenets in ways that are highly ambivalent. In the process, fat activism unsettles and resituates its borders and boundaries and the issue of weight loss becomes a discursive technique of knowledge/power for the understanding of and relating to the fat activist self.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Better Business Bureau Warns of Mortgage Scam Lawsuit Mailings
If you receive an official-looking letter from an out-of-state law firm asking you to fork over a hefty upfront fee to join a "mass joinder" lawsuit to force your mortgage lender to reduce your monthly payments, chances are good, you've been targeted by a new nationwide mortgage scam.
The Better Business Bureau and others are warning homeowners to beware of these solicitations, which Michelle Corey, BBB CEO and president, says represent the latest twist on a scheme -- the advance fee mortgage scam -- to con homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments out of upfront payments of $5,000 or more.
"Complaints from homeowners who paid thousands of dollars for mortgage assistance are a familiar story at the BBB," Corey said in a statement. "Few, if any, of these people got help. Many ended up worse off than before the mortgage modification companies entered their lives."
The Better Business Bureau and others are warning homeowners to beware of these solicitations, which Michelle Corey, BBB CEO and president, says represent the latest twist on a scheme -- the advance fee mortgage scam -- to con homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments out of upfront payments of $5,000 or more.
"Complaints from homeowners who paid thousands of dollars for mortgage assistance are a familiar story at the BBB," Corey said in a statement. "Few, if any, of these people got help. Many ended up worse off than before the mortgage modification companies entered their lives."
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Treatment for Sex Addiction on the Rise
People seeking treatment for sex addiction is skyrocketing, despite the fact it may not even be a real disorder.
According to a report on OnlineJournal.com, exact numbers are not clear, but therapists say they are seeing an increase in patients.
For example, when Alexandra Katehakis began as a sex addiction therapist in 1997, she had only a handful of colleagues. "There were five people in this field and we all knew each other," she said.
Now Katehakis runs the Center for Healthy Sex, complete with a team of counselors, treatment programs and therapy groups -- "a full-blown organization", she called it.
The Los Angeles Times reported recently that celebrity sex scandals are credited with the rise in people seeking treatment and in more facilities opening.
"My practice wouldn't exist without them," Katehakis says.
But is sex addiction even real? Dr. Martin Kafka, a Boston-area psychiatrist, said the scientific community is split over whether people can become addicted to sex in the same way they can be to alcohol or drugs.
There is simply no data to back up the assertion, he said. However, Kafka said that doesn't mean there won't be in the future.
"That's not to say that in the next decade that there won't be an empirical scientific backing for withdrawal and tolerance, but it's just not there now," Kafka said.
According to a report on OnlineJournal.com, exact numbers are not clear, but therapists say they are seeing an increase in patients.
For example, when Alexandra Katehakis began as a sex addiction therapist in 1997, she had only a handful of colleagues. "There were five people in this field and we all knew each other," she said.
Now Katehakis runs the Center for Healthy Sex, complete with a team of counselors, treatment programs and therapy groups -- "a full-blown organization", she called it.
The Los Angeles Times reported recently that celebrity sex scandals are credited with the rise in people seeking treatment and in more facilities opening.
"My practice wouldn't exist without them," Katehakis says.
But is sex addiction even real? Dr. Martin Kafka, a Boston-area psychiatrist, said the scientific community is split over whether people can become addicted to sex in the same way they can be to alcohol or drugs.
There is simply no data to back up the assertion, he said. However, Kafka said that doesn't mean there won't be in the future.
"That's not to say that in the next decade that there won't be an empirical scientific backing for withdrawal and tolerance, but it's just not there now," Kafka said.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Changes in total body bone mineral density following a common bone health plan with two versions of a unique bone health supplement: a comparative effectiveness research study
Background:
The US Surgeon General's Report on Bone Health suggests America's bone-health is in jeopardy; it issued a "call to action" to develop bone-health plans that: (1) improve nutrition, (2) increase health literacy and, (3) increase physical activity. This study is a response to this call to action.
Methods:
After signing an informed consent, 158 adults agreed to follow an open-label bone-health plan for six months after taking a DXA test of bone density, a 43-chemistry blood test panel and a quality of life inventory (AlgaeCal 1). Two weeks after the last subject completed, a second group of 58 was enrolled and followed the identical plan, but with a different bone-health supplement (AlgaeCal 2).
Results:
There were no significant differences between the two groups in baseline bone mineral density (BMD) or in variables related to BMD (age, sex, weight, percent body fat, fat mass, or fat-free mass). In both groups, no significant differences in BMD or related variables were found between volunteers and non-volunteers or between those who completed per protocol and those who were lost to attrition.Both groups experienced a significant positive mean annualized percent change (MAPC) in BMD compared to expectation [AlgaeCal 1: 1.15%, p=0.001; AlgaeCal 2: 2.79%, p=0.001]. Both groups experienced a positive MAPC compared to baseline, but only AlgaeCal 2 experienced a significant change [AlgaeCal 1: 0.48%, p=0.14; AlgaeCal 2: 2.18%, p<0.001]. The MAPC in AlgaeCal 2 was significantly greater than that in AlgaeCal 1 (p=0.005). The MAPC contrast between compliant and partially compliant subjects was significant for both plans (p=0.001 and p=0.003 respectively).
The US Surgeon General's Report on Bone Health suggests America's bone-health is in jeopardy; it issued a "call to action" to develop bone-health plans that: (1) improve nutrition, (2) increase health literacy and, (3) increase physical activity. This study is a response to this call to action.
Methods:
After signing an informed consent, 158 adults agreed to follow an open-label bone-health plan for six months after taking a DXA test of bone density, a 43-chemistry blood test panel and a quality of life inventory (AlgaeCal 1). Two weeks after the last subject completed, a second group of 58 was enrolled and followed the identical plan, but with a different bone-health supplement (AlgaeCal 2).
Results:
There were no significant differences between the two groups in baseline bone mineral density (BMD) or in variables related to BMD (age, sex, weight, percent body fat, fat mass, or fat-free mass). In both groups, no significant differences in BMD or related variables were found between volunteers and non-volunteers or between those who completed per protocol and those who were lost to attrition.Both groups experienced a significant positive mean annualized percent change (MAPC) in BMD compared to expectation [AlgaeCal 1: 1.15%, p=0.001; AlgaeCal 2: 2.79%, p=0.001]. Both groups experienced a positive MAPC compared to baseline, but only AlgaeCal 2 experienced a significant change [AlgaeCal 1: 0.48%, p=0.14; AlgaeCal 2: 2.18%, p<0.001]. The MAPC in AlgaeCal 2 was significantly greater than that in AlgaeCal 1 (p=0.005). The MAPC contrast between compliant and partially compliant subjects was significant for both plans (p=0.001 and p=0.003 respectively).
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