"Dumb & Dumber" star Jeff Daniels talks about his career, his health philosophy, and the importance of family.
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"Dumb & Dumber" star Jeff Daniels talks about his career, his health philosophy, and the importance of family.
'Law & Order: SVU' actor works to help abuse victims –- on the screen and off.
Funnyman Ken Jeong opens up to WebMD Magazine about who he is at home.
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Lunch at the Marriott hotel in Mesa, Arizona, was a southwestern buffet of overcooked chicken and soggy enchiladas. I’d recently met a friendly man with a shaved head and a pale oblong face named Paul Tabachneck, so we sat down together at a table to eat. Tabachneck ate carefully, eyes trained on his plate or a spot on the beige walls. But his conversation was lively—he talked about busking as a guitarist in the New York subway while trying to achieve a dream of being a professional musician. After about ten minutes, I scraped my knife against my plate while cutting my chicken. Tabachneck whipped his head around to look at me, his eyes suddenly cold.
“Did you have to do that?” he snapped. “And did you know that your jaw pops when you eat?”
We’re all annoyed by annoying sounds: fingernails on chalkboards, car alarms, Fran Drescher’s nasal tones. But for some people, particular sounds send them into an unbearable frenzy. There’s the Atlanta journalist who wanted to reach across the table to strangle his loudly chewing father; the Arizona computer scientist who hated the sound of knives so much that his girlfriend developed a phobia too; the Oregon housewife who moved her family members out of her home so she wouldn’t have to listen to them. Psychologists call them misophones—people with an acute reaction to specific, usually low-volume sounds. But because the condition is poorly understood, they struggle to convince others that their problem isn’t a form of neuroticism. In this hotel, where one of the first scientific conferences on misophonia was being held, the afflicted finally met others of their kind and shared their tales of aural agony. You just had to be very, very careful with your cutlery.
When Tabachneck was 14, he and his father were watching a movie at home in Pittsburgh. His dad started pushing his ice cream into a puddle, clinking his spoon against the bowl.
Up to that point, Tabachneck’s relationship with sound was normal. He loved music and enjoyed hearing people laugh; he found sirens somewhat grating. But this clinking was different—it provoked a combination of anxiety and nearly physical agitation. It was the beginning of a lifetime of noise-related misery.
Tabachneck went to college to study computer science but dropped out because the clicking in the computer labs made him so tense. He took a job in customer service and found he had a knack for it. But some colleagues made him crazy. One man spat chewing tobacco, another talked with his mouth full, and a third brought in an old keyboard because he liked the sound of the keys.
Tabachneck’s personal relationships also suffered. He loved one girlfriend enough to consider marrying her but had to eat in a separate room to avoid hearing her chew. A later romance ended because the woman smacked her gum. He’s now dating someone who occasionally cracks her joints. “Most people can’t be in a relationship with a misophone,” he says, “because they don’t want to feel guilty for eating cereal in a porcelain bowl.”
After hearing problems were ruled out—Tabachneck’s only abnormality was perfect pitch—his issues were thought to be psychological. Over the years, doctors gave him different diagnoses and medications. Nothing made sense until an audiologist told Tabachneck in 2010 that he seemed as if he had a textbook case of an emerging disorder called misophonia.
In 1997, Oregon audiologist Marsha Johnson met a girl who couldn’t bear the noise her father made when he chewed his nails. Other cases trickled in, and she talked to fellow audiologists who had also observed the condition. Johnson has become an advocate for the disorder, creating an online forum and helping to organize the Arizona conference.
She and other experts view misophonia as an “old brain” problem, probably located in the part of the cortex that processes emotion. “When people hear these sounds, they react with intense emotion,” she says. “It isn’t a higher cognitive function where you’re going, ‘I don’t like white chocolate lattes.’ This is like a yellow-jacket sting—you slap, jump, run, and scream.”
I sucked on a peppermint. Tabachneck yelled at me, “What are you doing? Didn’t we talk about this?”
It’s impossible to know how many sufferers there are. Of the 4,000 misophones who post on the forum, half a dozen were at the Marriott. Among them, Tabachneck was a sort of star. His song “Misophone” had circulated, and Scott, an engineer, approached him at a break. They talked triggers.
“Burping has always bothered me,” Tabachneck told him. “And my girlfriend does this thing where she cracks her neck, and you snap back like that.” He imitated the maneuver.
“There’s a woman here who does that,” said Scott. “There’s also where you hear something that sounds like somebody cracking knuckles, and all of a sudden, you’re hypervigilant.”
“You’re looking to find who cracked their knuckles,” said Tabachneck, nodding. “Always looking. It never ends.”
Misophonia is not included in the DSM-5, the so-called bible of psychiatric diagnoses—it’s too recently observed, for one thing. But whether misophonia is a mental disorder or not doesn’t really matter for people like Tabachneck, who experience life-altering discomfort daily. At the conference, he performed “Misophone.” A crowd gathered to talk to him afterward. As I took notes behind him, I absentmindedly sucked on a peppermint, the sound barely registering above the chitchat. Tabachneck wheeled around, his face shifting from warmth to disgust: “What are you doing? Didn’t we talk about this?” he yelled at me.
Johnson says misophones will try anything for relief: “You could say, ‘I’ll hit you on the head with a guitar, and it will cure you,’ and you’d have a hundred people lined up to pay you $5,000 to hit them on the head.” She’s testing a new approach—it uses sound- generating equipment to weaken an individual’s connection between certain sounds and the autonomous nervous system—paired with cognitive therapy.
Desperate misophones often try to drown out irritating sounds with an ocean of ambient noise. Johnson mentioned sufferers who work as Zumba instructors or in bowling alleys; others use iPods, fans, fountains, YouTube channels, and headsets that play white noise, lower-frequency pink noise, and the lowest-frequency brown noise.
Following the conference, Tabachneck conducted his own experiment: He went to see a film in a theater. At a previous outing, one couple was eating popcorn so loudly, it seemed like a deliberate provocation.
This time, taking advice from one of his new misophonic buddies, Tabachneck requested a headset for the hearing impaired and found a seat in the back of the theater. With the headset’s padding, the popcorn-chomping sounds were dampened, disappearing as the film filled his ears. He relaxed. “Toward the end,” he says, “I actually removed the headphones to hear the audience’s reaction to the last few scenes. And it was totally worth it.”
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Although fetal tissue research has made headlines in recent months, the controversy about it is nothing new. WebMD has the details
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For some, it might work better than current standard treatment, researcher says
Hormone replacement therapy may be safe for women with ovarian cancer, according to a new study. WebMD has the details.
A sprain occurs when one or more of the ligaments has been stretched, twisted, or torn. It is the most common ankle injury. In a minor sprain, some of the fibers within the ligament are stretched. In more serious sprains, the ligament may be torn. Minor sprains can be treated at home. Serious sprains need medical attention and may even require surgery. The pain can be excruciating. If in doubt, take the injured person to the hospital for an X-ray.
Use RICE to remember treatment steps.
R = Rest. I = Ice. C = Compression. E = Elevation.
What to Look For
First Aid for a Sprained Ankle
1. Rest the leg. The patient should stop the activity that caused the injury. Help her to sit down and rest the ankle. Support it in a raised position.
2. Cool with ice. Cool the ankle to reduce pain and swelling. Ideally wrap a bag of ice or frozen peas in a cloth and place it on the ankle. Do not put ice straight onto the skin, as it will cause a cold burn. Leave the ice in place for about 20 minutes.
3. Apply pressure. Leave the compress in place if it is small or wrap a layer of soft padding, such as a roll of cotton wool, around the ankle. Apply pressure with a compression support or compression bandage to help limit swelling. This should extend from the toes to the knee.
4. Elevate the ankle. Raise and support the ankle so that it is higher than the hip to prevent swelling. Advise the patient to rest the ankle. If you suspect serious injury, take the patient to the hospital.
5. Check circulation. Make sure that the bandage is not too tight. Press on a toenail until it turns white, then let go. The color should return quickly. If it does not return, the bandage is too tight; remove it and reapply. Recheck every 10 minutes.
6. Reapply the cold compress over the bandage every two to three hours. Remove the bandage at night and do not sleep with an ice pack on the injury.
Get more information about handling health emergencies and natural disasters in the new book Reader’s Digest Quintessential Guide to Handling Emergencies. You’ll get must-know tips and tactics for preparing your home, stocking the right supplies, preventing and handling accidents, coping with medical situations, and keeping your family safe. Learn more and buy the book here.
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Click here to learn more about the Stop & Drop Diet.
1. You eat when you’re not hungry
A lot of us are slaves to the clock. When I was growing up, my mother had dinner on the table promptly at six o’clock. Even if I wasn’t especially hungry then, you can be sure I ate—and I cleaned my plate, because that’s what we did in our house. Who knows how many extra calories I ate that way? I’m not saying that your meals should be unplanned. In fact, it’s best to make sure you eat regularly to keep from getting so ravenous that you lose control and can’t stop eating. But if you’re in the habit of eating when the clock says to, instead of when you’re actually hungry—which researchers at the University of Minnesota found is one of the main reasons people eat when they do—you tend to lose touch with what “hungry” feels like and eat more than you really need.
Keep your schedule flexible if possible and listen to your tummy. On weekends, for example, I find that two main meals is all I need or want. I’ll linger over coffee (or go for a run), then find it’s 11, sometimes 12 o’clock before I’m hungry enough to want to eat. Or I’ll have a healthy breakfast, then get caught up in my day and have what I call an “afternoon dinner” at 3 or 4.
2. You eat when you’re distracted
Do you see crumbs or smudges on your computer keyboard, the touch screen of your phone, or your TV’s remote control? That’s a telltale sign that you’re doing other things while you’re eating. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for multitasking, and I definitely have days when I eat in front of the computer. Here’s the problem. Ask me how it tasted and I might not be able to tell you, because I was preoccupied by my work.
Researchers in Ireland interviewed a group of 66 adults on what made portion control difficult. One of the main factors, they reported, were elements of the eating environment—socializing with friends and family, watching television, or working on a computer or phone—that diverted their attention away from what they were eating.
A review of two dozen studies showed that being distracted at one meal may even cause people to eat more later in the day
Focus on what you’re eating, and I bet you’ll enjoy your food much more—and you’ll also enjoy knowing that you haven’t stuffed yourself with empty extra calories.
3. You dine out for every meal
Occasional indulgences are not the problem. What is: We are eating out more and more often—over a 40-year period from 1970 to 2010, we nearly doubled the percentage of calories we get from food away from home. And we are all too often unaware of how many calories are in the dishes we eat. A study of fast-food eaters in Philadelphia and Baltimore found that they underestimated their meal by up to 400 calories!
Restaurant meals tend to be higher in calories, saturated fat, and sodium than homemade meals, and lower in calcium, fiber, and other weight-friendly nutrients. I’m not saying you should never eat out—far from it—but one of the kindest things we could do for our waists and our overall health would be to eat out less often. If you’re in the habit of always grabbing a bagel on the way in to work, stock up instead on Nature’s Own Plain Thin- Sliced Bagels. If you like a deli hoagie for lunch, bring your own turkey sub. You get the idea. And when you do eat out, look for entrées that are grilled or baked, not fried or smothered in sauce, and for side dishes that pile on the veggies (again, you’re looking for steamed, sautéed, or otherwise simply prepared vegetables).
4. You’re a slave to “healthy brands”
If you’re trying to drop pounds and be healthy, your best bet is to choose foods from the restaurants and brands that emphasize fresh, whole ingredients and prepackaged portions, like Chipotle, Jamba Juice, KIND, Lean Cuisine, and Weight Watchers. Right? That’s what I thought before I started working on the Stop & Drop Diet. But picking healthy foods is not as simple as finding a “healthy” brand and sticking to it.
In a February 2015 New York Times article, a group of reporters gathered 3000 meal orders from Chipotle—which proudly proclaims on its website, “We’re all about simple, fresh food without artificial flavors or fillers”—and calculated the calories, saturated fat, and sodium in them. The typical order, a burrito, weighed in at more than 1000 calories! This isn’t to say that you can’t find a healthy meal at Chipotle. The same article highlights several Chipotle meals that clock in at around 545 calories, including crispy steak tacos, a veggie bowl, and a carnitas burrito, and it’s possible to get even lower by changing the fillings and toppings you choose.
KIND, another brand that touts itself as “healthy and tasty,” was recently taken to task by the FDA, which found that several of its products did not meet the requirements to use the claims “good source of fiber,” “no trans fats,” “low sodium”, “+ antioxidants,” and “+ protein,” among others. In its defense, KIND noted on its blog, “Nuts, key ingredients in many of our snacks and one of the things that make fans love our bars, contain nutritious fats that exceed the amount allowed under the FDA’s standard.” Having delved into the research on healthy fats for my first book, Flat Belly Diet!, I agree with KIND on this one. That said, many KIND bars are higher in calories or fat than, for instance, a Quaker or Nature Valley or Kashi bar. And some Quaker, Nature Valley, and Kashi bars may be higher in calories and/or sugars and/or sodium than some KIND bars.
Bottom line: Every restaurant and every brand has some dishes and products that are healthier than others. In order to get the full story about any given food, you need to look beyond the brand and beyond the health claims spouted in advertisements and printed on the front of the box.
5. You starve yourself
While it’s true that in order to lose weight, you need to eat less, that does not mean you need to starve yourself! In fact, starving yourself often has the opposite effect. To your body, your extra fat is a necessary hedge against the day that there’s no food to be had. We humans evolved during a time when there were no grocery stores or restaurants or even farms. How did our ancestors survive when there was a drought that killed off the leaves and berries they foraged? Or when they failed in the hunt? They lived off the fat they had built up during more plentiful times. Which is why, when you suddenly slash the amount of food you’re eating, your body reacts by hanging on to every bit of fat it can.
The same thing happens when you skip meals. Skip breakfast and you’re likely to overdo it at lunch since you’re so hungry. Skip lunch and you may be too ravenous by dinner to make smart food choices. A study of eight years of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) showed that people who skip breakfast tend to be heavier and have a larger waist than those who eat a healthy breakfast.
6. You have a list of “forbidden” foods
The Atkins Diet. The South Beach Diet. The Paleo Diet. The Dukan Diet. So many popular diets today recommend cutting out or drastically cutting down on carbohydrates that there must be something to the low-carb thing, right? Well, it’s true that, on average, Americans eat more carbs than we really need, especially refined carbohydrates like those in white bread, pasta, cakes, and cookies. Among our top sources of calories, in fact, are cakes and cookies, breads, pizza, pasta, and sugary drinks. So if you cut back on these foods, you will automatically slash your calorie consumption and lose weight. And, because excess consumption of refined carbs has been associated with diabetes, heart disease, and a host of other chronic diseases, you’ll be healthier if you eat fewer of them.
But of course, when you suddenly stop eating an entire food group, you are automatically cutting calories and your body reacts accordingly.
It thinks you’re starving and responds by slowing your metabolism and hanging on to every calorie it can.
Plus, your body misses the nutrients it’s not getting. For example, dairy products are a top source of calcium, vitamin D, and potassium. Eliminate them and you’ll have to work hard to make up those nutrients. There’s a psychological aspect to it, too. Tell me I can’t have something or restrict the amount I can eat, and suddenly it’s the only thing I want. Next thing you know, you’re craving those forbidden foods like nobody’s business, and you feel like you’d mow down your own mother to get to a piece of bread.
The same is true for low-fat diets, low-salt diets, and pretty much any other diet that forbids specific foods. Which is not to say that these types of diets can’t be healthy. But most people find that they’re hard to sustain over time because they often require a lot of cooking or buying specialty food items. And a diet certainly won’t work if you don’t follow it.
7. You rely on dieting alone
While you can lose weight even if the only movement you make all day is walking from your bed to your desk chair, it’s much easier and faster to drop pounds if you combine diet and exercise. If you are burning an extra 200 to 300 calories per day, that’s 200 to 300 calories less you have to carve out from your diet to get the same calorie deficit. Plus, exercise generates natural endorphins, so you feel better and have more energy even if you are a little hungry. All of which makes it easier to stick with the diet.
And once you’ve lost the weight, exercise has also proven to be key to keeping it off. According to the National Weight Control Registry, established in 1994 to identify and investigate the characteristics of people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off for more than a year, 94 percent increased their physical activity in order to lose weight, with the most frequently reported form of exercise being walking. To keep it off, 90 percent report that they exercise an average of an hour a day.
8. You feel bad about your weight
If you get depressed every time you step on a scale, or only see your fat butt when you look in the mirror, or refuse to have a photo taken because you’re ashamed of what you look like, then you need to stop. No matter what you weigh, if you don’t love your body, you will never truly win the weight loss battle. If you feel guilty about your eating habits and ashamed of your body, you will always feel deprived. While you may lose weight initially on the diet, you will soon slide back to your old food choices and gain it all back again.
The only way to finally, truly lose the weight and keep it off for good is to stop feeling bad about your weight and your body.
If you love and respect your body, it will not feel like a chore to research restaurant entrees before you go out to eat or to read nutrition labels in the grocery store or to cook for yourself and your family. Instead, it will be a privilege to take care of yourself by making smart, healthy food choices.
Focus on how much better you feel physically and mentally. One study showed that people who reported feeling alive and energetic were more motivated and more successful at maintaining their weight loss.
Reader’s Digest’s Editor in Chief Liz Vaccariello calls her latest book, Stop & Drop Diet, her easiest plan ever. The book and online course teach you how to stop eating unhealthy versions of the foods you love so you can drop up to five pounds in the first five days—and keep losing. You’ll get a mix-and-match 21-day meal plan designed for weight loss and balanced nutrition, plus hundreds of easy weight loss tips and tricks via videos, quizzes, slideshows, and other interactive tools. Learn more and buy the book and course here.
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Your birthday dictates your zodiac sign, but new research suggests that it may also affect various aspects of health later in life. Keep in mind: The impact of birth season is far from definitive; heredity and environment play a far bigger role.
Fall Birthdays
1. Better physical fitness: A study in the International Journal of Sports Medicine found that school-age boys born in November scored an average of ten percentile points higher on tests of cardiorespiratory fitness, handgrip strength, and lower-body power compared with those born in April. Fall babies’ mothers are pregnant in the summer, when vitamin D levels surge. Vitamin D affects fetal physical development.
2. Food allergies: People with autumn birthdays were 30 to 90 percent more likely to develop food allergies than those born in other seasons, according to Johns Hopkins University research. Fall babies are exposed to less skin-protecting vitamin D early in life, which could make them more likely to develop a sensitivity to food allergens through the skin.
Winter Birthdays
3. Left-handedness: Men born during this season are more likely to be lefties than those born during other times of the year, according to new Austrian and German research. High levels of testosterone in utero can make left-handedness more likely—and longer periods of daylight during the summer can trigger a testosterone surge at a crucial time during fetal development when handedness might be influenced.
4. Premature birth: Babies conceived in May (and typically born in February) are 10 percent more likely to arrive prematurely than those conceived during other seasons, a 2013 study found. Expectant mothers’ exposure to flu in the last trimester may be why. Pregnant women should get vaccinated for flu.
Spring Birthdays
5. Melanoma: Spring-born people have a 21 percent greater chance of developing melanoma than those born in the fall, reported a 2014 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology. Exposure to UV light during the first few months of life may affect the body’s susceptibility to developing melanoma as an adult. That said, lifelong habits— using sunscreen year-round, not tanning, wearing hats and sunglasses—go a long way toward protecting you against all forms of skin cancer.
6. Earlier menopause: In an Italian study of nearly 3,000 postmenopausal women, those born in spring were more likely to reach menopause just before age 49; those born in the fall were likelier to enter menopause about 15 months later. Fall women might be born with a greater number of eggs.
Summer Birthdays
7. Nearsightedness: Summer babies are more prone to need glasses for distance, found a study in the journal Ophthalmology. This may be because of the amount of light babies are exposed to right before and after they’re born. Research in animals has shown this can affect normal eye development.
8. Mood swings: People born during summer months are more likely to have “cyclothermic temperament,” or rapid fluctuation between sad and happy moods. Light and temperature exposure may affect brain chemicals that regulate mental health.
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Opdivo appears to outperform older med, Afinitor, in new clinical trial
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