Robyn Lawley: I don't do fad diets or fake food

Robyn Lawley is the face of Pantene, a swimware designer and cookbook author. Here, she tells us how she stays in shape.

"I am an Australian size 16, which is really rare in the fashion world," Robyn says.
"People don’t understand that models are so, so, so much smaller than I am. I’m trying to spread body love and body positivity because the message can get lost when people are focusing on things like weight loss stories; that’s not what I’m about."
Instead of focusing on extreme diet plans, Robyn concentrates on getting fit and healthy.
"I think exercise is a really great combat to depression, sadness and generally not feeling good about yourself," she says.
"Fitness is where you get your endorphins and how you’re going to make yourself feel empowered. I like kickboxing, swimming and SoulCycle, which is a crazy American trend of cycling in the dark to crazy music. I’m terrible at it. I enjoy yoga as well.
"I get into the trends like everyone else – kale juices, detoxes, I’ll try it. But I don’t like fad diets or fake food; for me, it has to be real. Vegetables are still my favourite food group and avocado is my favourite food."
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4 Exercises to Get You Swimsuit Ready Now

Skimped on workouts and now you’re not ready to unwrap that sarong? Don’t panic. “Forget the ‘I messed up!’ mentality,” says Tracy Anderson, Health’s contributing fitness editor. “That negative inner dialogue causes undue stress on the body, which can trigger hormonal changes that could affect your metabolic system.” And that could spell disaster when it comes to getting your body in top form. Instead, take a deep breath, then dive into this total-body sculpting series. Do it six times a week, pairing the exercises with 30 minutes of cardio, for a trimmer, firmer you.
Do all moves on one side first, then the other.

Tuck-and-Roll Kick

Sit faceup with feet flat on the floor. Tuck knees into chest and roll onto back (A). Roll back down, bringing left hip and hand to the floor. Place left knee on the floor, rotating hips to lift up as you extend right leg out to the side (B). Rotate hips back down to return to roll; repeat 30 times.
Pro tip: Make sure you are not rolling on your neck.

Sitting Lunge and Kick

Sit on left hip with knees bent and left hand on the floor. Cross right leg over left, placing right foot on the floor (A). Lifting up through hips, come to kneeling on left knee and extend right leg diagonally up (B). Return to “A” and repeat 30 times.
Pro tip: Place your hand on your hip to help maintain balance.

Single-Arm Bend and Kick

Kneel on left knee with left hand on the floor, right arm resting on hip and right leg lifted (knee bent) so that inner thigh is parallel to the floor (A). Pull right knee in toward shoulder and then extend leg back and up (B). Return to “A” and repeat 30 times.
Pro tip: Extend all the way through your toes.

Push-up and Side Sweep

Start in the bottom of a push-up. Push into the floor to rise to the up part of a push-up, then lower back down (A). Lift back up to plank as right leg sweeps up and out to side (B). Bring leg back in and lower it to the floor. Repeat 30 times.
Pro tip: Keep your hips down.

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‘Fracking’ Linked to Low Birth Weight Babies

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Living close to a high number of “fracked” natural gas wells may be linked to an increased risk of having a lower birth weight baby, according to a new study of Pennsylvania birth rates.
High-volume hydraulic fracturing — also known as “fracking” — allows access to large amounts of natural gas trapped in shale deposits. Natural gas wells using this method are increasingly common in the United States. For example, the number of these types of wells in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale rose from 44 in 2007 to more than 2,800 in 2010, the researchers pointed out.
In this study, University of Pittsburgh researchers analyzed the birth records of more than 15,400 babies born in Pennsylvania’s Washington, Westmoreland and Butler counties between 2007 and 2010.
Women who lived close to a high number of natural gas fracking sites were 34 percent more likely to have babies who were “small for gestational age” than mothers who did not live close to a large number of such wells, the study found.
Small for gestational age means a baby is smaller than normal based on the number of weeks the baby has been in the womb, according to the March of Dimes.
The findings held true even after the researchers accounted for numerous factors that could affect a newborn’s weight, including whether a mother smoked, her race, age, education, prenatal care and whether she’d had previous children, as well as the baby’s gender.
The study, published online June 3 in the journal PLOS One, does not prove that living close to a high concentration of natural gas fracking sites caused lower birth weights, but does show the need for further investigation, the researchers said.
“Our work is a first for our region and supports previous research linking unconventional gas development and adverse health outcomes,” study co-author Bruce Pitt, chair of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, said in a university news release.
“These findings cannot be ignored. There is a clear need for studies in larger populations with better estimates of exposure and more in-depth medical records,” he added.
Fracking produces waste fluids, along with air and noise pollution.
“Developing fetuses are particularly sensitive to the effects of environmental pollutants. We know that fine particulate air pollution, exposure to heavy metals and benzene, and maternal stress all are associated with lower birth weight,” Pitt said.
More information
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more about fracking.

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Scientists Explore Morality’s Home in the Brain

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Where does the human trait of morality reside in the brain? Researchers seeking to answer the question report that people with higher levels of moral reasoning have more gray matter in certain neurological areas.
The research, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, included 67 of the university’s MBA students who were given moral reasoning and personality tests. They also underwent MRI brain scans. The students were between the ages of 24 and 33, which meant that development of their brain structure was complete, according to the researchers.
Compared to participants with lower levels of moral reasoning, those with higher levels of moral reasoning had more gray matter in areas of the brain involved in complex social behavior, decision making and conflict processing, the researchers found.
What isn’t clear is whether higher levels of moral reasoning cause the development of more gray matter, or if people who have more gray matter are the ones more likely to have higher levels of moral reasoning.
The findings were published June 3 in the journal PLOS ONE.
“This research adds an investigation of individual differences in moral reasoning to the expanding landscape of moral neuroscience,” senior author Hengyi Rao, a Perelman research assistant professor of cognitive neuroimaging in neurology and psychiatry, said in a university news release.
But Rao stressed that further research is needed to determine whether brain differences “are the cause or the effect of higher levels of moral reasoning.”
More information
The Stanford Encyclopedia offers a definition of morality.

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Pesticides Linked to ADHD, Study Says

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — There’s evidence — but not proof — of a link between a commonly used household pesticide and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and young teens, according to a new study.
Specifically, researchers found an association between exposure to pyrethroid pesticides and ADHD, as well as ADHD symptoms such as hyperactivity and impulsivity.
The link between the pesticides and ADHD was stronger in boys than in girls, according to the findings published online in the journal Environmental Health.
However, researchers only found an association between pesticides and ADHD. The study did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
Pyrethroid pesticides — considered safer than organophosphate pesticides — are the most widely used pesticides for home and public health pest control, and their use in agriculture is increasing, according to the researchers.
“Given the growing use of pyrethroid pesticides and the perception that they may represent a safe alternative, our findings may be of considerable public health importance,” study corresponding author Dr. Tanya Froehlich, a developmental pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said in a hospital news release.
She and her colleagues analyzed data from nearly 700 children between the ages of 8 and 15. The children had taken part in the 2000-2001 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The researchers looked at levels of 3-PBA — a chemical indicator of exposure to pyrethroids — in the children’s urine.
Boys with detectable levels of 3-PBA in their urine were three times more likely to have ADHD than those without detectable 3-PBA. For every 10-fold increase in 3-PBA levels in boys, there was a 50 percent increased risk for hyperactivity and impulsivity — both symptoms of ADHD.
In girls, levels of 3-PBA were not associated with increased risk of ADHD or symptoms of the disorder.
“Our study assessed pyrethroid exposure using 3-PBA concentrations in a single urine sample,” Froehlich said. But because these chemicals don’t stay in the body for long, she suggested that future studies need to take multiple measurements over time. Such studies would need to be done before “we can say definitively whether our results have public health ramifications,” she said.
Previous studies have found that pyrethroid exposure increases hyperactivity, impulsivity and abnormalities in the dopamine system in male mice, according to the researchers. Dopamine is a brain chemical believed to play a role in many activities, including those that govern ADHD, the researchers said.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more about ADHD.

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Surgery Not Always Needed for Early Form of Breast Cancer: Study

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Surgery for a very early type of breast cancer does not significantly improve outcomes for patients, according to research that raises questions about the overuse of surgery for the condition.

Investigators examined data on more than 50,000 cases of what’s known as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a very early form of cancer of the milk ducts. According to a team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, DCIS is the most common type of noninvasive breast cancer.

The approximately 60,000 women diagnosed with DCIS each year in the United States represent 20 to 25 percent of all breast cancer cases, the researchers said. Surgery remains the standard of care for all grades of DCIS, but the investigators questioned that approach.

The study was led by Dr. Yasuaki Sagara, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. His team found that for women with low-grade DCIS, the 10-year survival rate was 98.8 percent for those who had surgery at the time of diagnosis or shortly after, and 98.6 percent for those who did not have surgery — no real difference.

However, for women with intermediate- or high-grade DCIS, the survival rate did differ significantly between those who had surgery and those who did not, according to the study published June 3 in the journal JAMA Surgery.

Study senior author Dr. Mehra Golshan is director of Breast Surgical Services at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. He believes that “we are overtreating breast cancer in the United States, and this study, along with others, suggests the need for treatment strategies tailored to a woman’s specific cancer, not just breast cancer in general.”

“This study alone does not allow us to definitively conclude that breast surgery should be avoided for women with low-grade DCIS,” Sagara added. However, “we believe that a prospective clinical trial — following patients over time from diagnosis through treatment and beyond — is warranted,” he said.

Two breast cancer experts differed in their reactions to the findings.

“I agree that low-grade ductal carcinoma in situ is being overtreated in the U.S.,” said Dr. Alison Estabrook, chief of breast surgery at Mount Sinai-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. “This is an excellent paper which gives us data to use in discussing surgery or just mammographic follow up with our patients who have low-grade DCIS.”

Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, was more cautious, however.

“When dealing with DCIS, it is hard to use survival as the [study] endpoint,” she said. “A more important endpoint, that was not observed in this study, is whether or not there was a decrease in the number of invasive cancers that were diagnosed if DCIS went untreated.

“Perhaps women that have untreated DCIS go on to developing an invasive cancer that requires more aggressive surgery, chemotherapy, with added risks,” Bernik explained. “To only look at the endpoint of survival, without looking at how a woman got there, is far from equivalent.”

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about breast cancer.

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Hormone Therapy Doesn’t Help Memory: Study

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Women taking menopausal hormone therapy to relieve symptoms such as hot flashes often hope it will also help their menopause-related memory and thinking problems, but a new study reports it won’t.

However, oral hormone therapy was linked to mood benefits, the research found.

“Hormone therapy is not a panacea, as it was once portrayed to be,” said study researcher Carey Gleason, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “On the other hand, it is not a poison.”

Previously, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Memory Study ”suggested that hormone therapy was associated with cognitive harm for women age 65 and older,” Gleason said. That study also found increased risk of heart attack, strokes and blood clots in postmenopausal women, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Today, experts generally recommend that hormone therapy be used for the shortest time possible at the start of menopause, at the lowest dose, just long enough to manage hot flashes and other symptoms, according to the NHLBI.

Gleason’s team wanted to look at hormone therapy’s effects on thinking and memory in younger women who recently started menopause.

The researchers randomly assigned almost 700 women who had recently started menopause to receive either estrogen pills and progesterone, transdermal (skin) estradiol patches and progesterone, or placebo pills and patches. They followed the women for up to four years, tracking their memory, thinking skills and moods. On average, the women were age 53 when they started the study. Their last menstrual period averaged slightly more than one year earlier.

Compared to women on the placebo, women on hormone therapy didn’t score much differently on tests of thinking and memory, the researchers found. But women on oral hormones did see improvements in depression and anxiety symptoms, according to the study. Women on hormone patches didn’t see the same benefit, the study noted.

These findings only apply to women who recently started menopause and have a low heart disease risk, the study authors wrote.

The study results don’t offer any information about the effects of hormone therapy taken for longer than four years, the researchers said. Additionally, most of the women in the study were white and well-educated, so the results may not apply to the U.S. population as a whole.

However, the study results do provide reassurance for the group studied, said Pauline Maki, professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“This study tells a woman who is on hormone therapy that there is no harm to her memory,” said Maki, who wasn’t involved in the study. However, “there is lingering doubt [overall] about the safety of hormone therapy for the brain from the Women’s Health Initiative.” The new study “can bring comfort to women because both showed that hormone therapy is neutral for cognition,” she said.

Teasing out the effects of hormone therapy gets complicated, she added, because hot flashes can also disrupt sleep and affect the brain and thinking skills.

Gleason said the take-away message from her research: “If a woman chooses to manage her menopausal symptoms with hormone therapy, she can be reassured that she is not harming her cognition. Moreover, she may also experience some mood benefits.”

The study, which was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was published June 2 in PLOS Medicine.

More information

To learn more about the WHI study, visit U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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3 in 10 Americans Have Drinking Problem at Some Point in Their Lives

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Nearly 30 percent of Americans have a problem with alcohol at some point in their lives, ranging from binge drinking to full-blown alcoholism, but less than 20 percent are ever treated, a new study found.

Alcohol use disorders are among the most common mental health problems worldwide and result in disability, illness and death, researchers from the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) said.

“The problem of alcohol abuse is bigger than people thought,” said NIAAA Director George Koob. “Alcohol disorders cost the United States $224 billion a year.

“Seventy percent of Americans drink and most don’t have a problem, but there is a significant group that do have a problem,” he added.

One of the biggest concerns, Koob said, is that less than 20 percent of those who have a drinking problem get help.

Koob thinks people avoid treatment for a variety of reasons. First, there is a stigma to admitting you have a drinking problem. Many people still believe that alcohol disorders are a matter of choice, he said.

People might think “it’s a matter of morality or that people with alcohol problems are just bad people,” he said.

“Alcoholics can be in denial about their problem,” Koop added. “That can go on for years until it’s too late.”

Also, Koob said that many people are not aware that effective treatments are available.

“Historically, it has been hard to find treatment,” he said. “But with the Affordable Care Act, hopefully, these things are going to change.” (The Affordable Care Act is the health insurance reform law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010.)

“Treatments range from Alcoholics Anonymous to behavioral therapy and medications,” Koob said. “These medications have been out there for a long time. Unfortunately, they (Naltrexone and Acamprosate) are not prescribed that much,” he said.

The report was published online June 3 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Researchers also found that:

• White and Native American men had the highest rates of lifetime drinking problems — 33 percent and 43 percent, respectively.
• Thirty-seven percent of people aged 18 to 29, and 34 percent of those between 30 and 44 years had lifetime alcohol disorders.
• People previously married or who were never married had high rates of lifetime alcohol problems — 27 percent and 35.5 percent, respectively.
• Alcohol abuse was associated with other problems, including major depressive and bipolar disorders, and antisocial and borderline personality disorders.

For the study, a research team led by Bridget Grant used data from a 2012-2013 national survey of more than 36,000 adults.

The researchers relied on a new way of compiling data on alcohol abuse based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), a manual used by psychiatrists. The changes included eliminating separate categories for alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. They were combined into a single “alcohol use disorder” diagnosis. This increased the number of people diagnosed with a drinking problem, Koob said.

Dr. James Garbutt, a professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, said the U.S. health care system hasn’t paid enough attention to drinking problems.

“The other thing is that individuals with drinking issues oftentimes don’t want to get help — they want to keep drinking,” he said.

Garbutt said that more education about the risks of drinking is needed, including the risks to health and the possibility of addiction. He also thinks that primary care doctors need to play a bigger role in helping people who have drinking problems to get help.

Koob also thinks primary care physicians have a role to play. Doctors should ask their patients how much they drink and be aware of the medications available to treat drinking problems, he said.

“We could alleviate a lot of human suffering and medical costs if we would address the problem of excessive alcohol use,” Koob suggested. “It’s not something that’s going away on its own, so we really need to be proactive,” he said.

More information

For more about alcohol abuse, visit the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

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How to Remove Your Gel Mani at Home (Without Wrecking Your Nails)

Photo: Getty Images

We love gel manicures for their durability and long-lasting shine. But what do you do when it’s finally time for them to come off and you can’t make it to the salon? No, scratching them off yourself—and wrecking your nails in the process—is not the answer! Picking at a gel manicure can be especially bad because there is often no base coat, so peeling off the polish can mean also peeling a layer of your nails. We went to Skyy Hadley, celebrity manicurist and owner of As U Wish Nail Spa, to get to details on safely removing gel at home.

RELATED: How Safe Is That Salon Procedure?

Buff

Before you can even remove the actual polish, first you have to break through the shiny gel seal on top. Using a nail file, very lightly buff the top of each nail just enough to remove the shine so you’re left with a powdery matte finish. Be careful not to go overboard; if you start to see your natural nail, you’ve gone too far.

Soak

Next, rip off a piece of cotton ball roughly the size of your nail and saturate it in a 100% acetone polish remover like Ulta Maximum Strength 100% Pure Acetone Nail Polish Remover ($3, ulta.com). Place the acetone-soaked cotton on a nail and wrap your fingertip in aluminum foil or masking tape to hold it in place. Be sure to wrap the cotton tightly enough to apply some pressure so that the nail will soak up the acetone (but not so much that it cuts off your circulation). Repeat this step for each finger. Leave your nails wrapped up for to 15 minutes to fully loosen the gel.

RELATED: 3 Steps to Beautiful Nails

Remove

Slip off the cotton pieces and use a wooden cuticle stick like Birchwood Manicure Sticks ($8, sallybeauty.com) to gently push the leftover gel polish off the nail. If the gel doesn’t move easily, don’t force it! Scraping or digging at your nails will just damage them. Instead, re-wrap the nail in acetone and cotton and wait an additional five to seven minutes before trying again.

Moisturize

After all the gel polish has been removed, wash your hands and apply a moisturizing cuticle oil like Deborah Lippmann Cuticle Oil ($20, sephora.com) to the entire nail and cuticle. Acetone sucks out moisture; this step will keep your nails healthy and strong between polishes.

RELATED: 10 Foods for Stronger Nails and Thicker Hair

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Test Endurance Athletes for Heart Woes While They Exercise: Study

WEDNESDAY, June 3, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Endurance athletes should be tested for potentially deadly heart rhythm problems when they are exercising rather than resting, and the tests should include the right ventricle as well as the left ventricle, a new study says.

Some athletes who participate in endurance events such as marathons and triathlons may have heart rhythm disorders (arrhythmias) that can cause sudden death.

A team of researchers from Australia and Belgium found that important signs of rhythm problems in the heart’s right ventricle can only be detected during exercise, according to the study published June 3 in the European Heart Journal.

Currently, most routine assessments of athletes with suspected heart rhythm problems are done when the patients are resting, and the focus is on the left ventricle, the investigators said.

“You do not test a racing car while it is sitting in the garage. Similarly, you can’t assess an athlete’s heart until you assess it under the stress of exercise,” study author Dr. Andre La Gerche, head of sports cardiology at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and visiting professor at University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium, said in a journal news release.

He and his colleagues tested the performance of the hearts of 17 endurance athletes with right ventricular arrhythmias, 10 athletes without heart problems, and seven nonathletes.

Heart function during rest was similar in all three groups, as was left ventricular function during exercise. However, right ventricular function during exercise was different among the athletes with arrhythmias compared to the other two groups.

“By measuring the blood pressure in the lungs and the body during exercise we have shown that the right side of the heart has to increase its work more than the left side of the heart. Hence, the right side of the heart is a potential ‘weak link’ in athletes,” La Gerche said.

“In the normal healthy athletes, the right side of the heart was able to manage the increased work requirements. In the athletes with arrhythmias, the right side of the heart was weak during exercise, it could not handle the increase in work and we could detect problems accurately that were not apparent at rest,” he explained.

“The dysfunction of the right ventricle during exercise suggests that there is damage to the heart muscle. This damage is causing both weakness and heart rhythm problems. Whilst the weakness is mild, the heart rhythm problems are potentially life threatening,” La Gerche concluded.

The findings show that “assessment of the right ventricle should form an integral component of risk assessment in athletes presenting with potentially lethal rhythm disturbances,” Dr. Sanjay Sharma, of St. George’s University of London and medical director of the London Marathon, and Abbas Zaidi, a research fellow at St. George’s, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

More information

The American Heart Association has more about arrhythmia.

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