barre

9 Sneakers You Can Get Away With Wearing Anywhere

The athleisure trend is still going strong, and that means leggings and slouchy sweatshirts are as at home at the gym as they are on a girls’ night out. And chic sportswear extends to shoes, with bright, bold sneakers making their way into the mainstream. That’s great news for your feet, as anyone who’s ever stepped into a pair of heels knows (see ya, pinched toes). And sneakers are a huge improvement for the rest of your body, too: sky-high heels can throw you off-balance, putting strain not just on your feet, but also your lumbar spine, hips, and knees.

We’re not saying you should toss your stilettos for sneaks all the time—athleisurewear may look a little out of place at, say, a formal wedding (though celebs like Kaley Cuoco and Rihanna did recently pair sneakers with gowns on the red carpet). But sporty streetwear may have a place at the bar, or even the office. Here are 9 of our top picks for spring ’16.

Vans Classic Slip-Ons ($60; zappos.com)

New York-based multimedia artist Baron Von Fancy lent his signature hand-lettered phrases to his collaboration with Vans. This pair is at once eye-catching and versatile enough to go with everything in your wardrobe.

Photo: zappos.com

Photo: zappos.com

Women’s New Balance for J. Crew ($75; jcrew.com)

J. Crew teamed up with New Balance to resurrect one of the iconic shoe brand’s classic styles, the 696.

Photo: jcrew.com

Photo: jcrew.com

adidas Stan Smith Original Sneakers ($85; six02.com)

These tennis shoes have been around since the ’70s, but this is the first time adidas has offered them this gorgeous rose-gold hue.

metallic stan smith

Photo: six02.com

Superga Cotu Sneaker ($65; nordstrom.com)

This simple lace-up was last year’s “it girl” sneaker of choice, and it continues to be hot in 2016. It comes in seven shades, and will be your new go-to for weekend errands and travel.

superga cotu sneaker

Photo: nordstrom.com

adidas x Limited Edt ZX Flux Sneakers ($130; barneys.com)

adidas collaborated with Limited Edt, a sneaker retailer that’s huge in Singapore, to design this funky metallic kick.

adidas-limitededt

Photo: barneys.com

The classic Chucks you’ve been wearing since junior high have been given a modern revamp with a reflective camouflage print.

converse chuck taylor

Photo: zappos.com

TOMS Paseo Sneakers ($60; zappos.com

Want sneakers you can sport at the office? These Oxford-inspired kicks can pass for professional while also keeping you comfy through your 9 to 5 and beyond.

toms paseo sneakers

Photo: zappos.com

Onitsuka Tiger by Asics Serrano ($75; zappos.com)

Asics jumps on the florals trend thats so hot this season with this feminine update to its classic sneak.

Photo: zappos.com

Photo: zappos.com

Christin Louboutin Gondolastrass Sneakers ($1,295; barneys.com)

Yes, these shoes cost nearly $1,300. No, we can’t afford them, either. But we are including them on this roundup to prove a point: If Christian Louboutin—the French footwear designer known for sky-high, red-soled stilettos—is getting in on the sneaker game, then they really are a fashion “do.”

Photo: barneys.com

Photo: barneys.com




from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/22iiTkd

Want to Keep an Aging Brain Sharp? Try the Stairs

TUESDAY, March 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Aging Americans looking to maintain a healthy brain may want to switch from elevators to stairs, new research suggests.

Fitness seemed key to sharper minds as people got older, a Canadian study found, as was more time spent reading and studying.

The findings show “that education and physical activity affect the difference between a physiological prediction of age and chronological age, and that people can actively do something to help their brains stay young,” said lead investigator Jason Steffener, a scientist at Concordia University in Montreal.

“This is encouraging because it demonstrates that a simple thing like climbing stairs has great potential as an intervention tool to promote brain health,” Steffener said in a university news release.

The researchers used MRI scans to assess the physical brain health of 331 healthy adults, aged 19 to 79. Those who could climb more flights of stairs and those with higher levels of education had “younger” brains, the researchers found.

Specifically, physical brain age was nearly one year lower for each year of education, the study found. For every flight of stairs climbed per day, physical brain age was slightly more than a half year younger, the researchers said.

However, the study only showed an association between these factors and brain health. It wasn’t designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

The study was published recently in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

Steffener pointed out that there are already many ‘Take the stairs’ campaigns in office environments and public transportation centers. He said this study suggests that these campaigns should also be expanded for older adults to help them work on keeping their brains young.

“In comparison to many other forms of physical activity, taking the stairs is something most older adults can and already do at least once a day, unlike vigorous forms of physical activity,” he said.

More information

The Alzheimer’s Association has more on brain health.





from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1pmumxn

President Obama and Misty Copeland Had the Best Convo About Body Image

Photo: TIME

Photo: TIME

TIME recently sat down with both President Obama and Misty Copeland for a really fascinating talk about race, body image, and success….and they caught it all on video. As African-Americans who have broken down major barriers in their respective careers, watching them tell their personal stories and exchange views on issues that affect everyone is so enlightening.

RELATED: Misty Copeland Gets Candid About Body Image Issues

“As the father of two daughters, one of the things I’m always looking for are strong women who are out there who are breaking barriers and doing great stuff,” says Obama. “And Misty’s a great example of that. Somebody who has entered a field that’s very competitive, where the assumptions are that she may not belong. And through sheer force of will and determination and incredible talent and hard work she was able to arrive at the pinnacle of her field.”

RELATED: Read the Full Transcript of TIME’s Conversation With President Obama and Misty Copeland

Copeland admits that most of the racism she has experienced in the ballet world has taken place behind her back, or in very subtle ways. But it has instilled in her a fire to succeed.

“I think that having a platform and having a voice to be seen by people beyond the classical ballet world has really been my power I feel,” she says. “It’s allowed me to say, it’s okay to have a healthy athletic body. We are fully capable of doing everything that the person who doesn’t have an extremely athletic body, that is more thin. We’re fully capable of doing exactly the same thing. And I think that being in this position and showing that I can execute and do all of these things that it’s possible to have any skin complexion, to have a healthy body image for the ballerina body.”

RELATED: Zendaya Hits Back at Julie Klausner for Body Shaming Her

When the President expresses surprise over the fact that Copeland has been described as having a more “athletic” figure than other ballerinas, especially given her tiny frame, Copeland explains why she thinks that description may be more about race than actual body type.

“I think it’s a lot of the language and how we use it,” she says. “And I think for a lot of people of color, that seems to be an easy way or a way out by saying you don’t fit in. It may be it’s your skin color. It may be the texture of your hair. Whatever it is.”

Head here for the full transcript of Obama and Copeland’s conversation.

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.




from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1SQGti3

The Best Way to Quit Smoking, According to Science

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

TIME-logo.jpg

Researchers have long sought for answers on the best way to help people quit smoking. Often, it comes down to two options: quitting cold turkey or gradually tapering a smoking habit. But which one works better?

“A lot of people think that the common sense way to give up smoking is to reduce the amount they smoke before quitting,” says Nicola Lindson-Hawley of the University of Oxford, who led a new study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

But the results suggested just the opposite: quitting cold turkey is best.

Lindson-Hawley and her colleagues looked at almost 700 people in England who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day but who were planning to quit. They all set a quit date for two weeks. Half of them were randomly assigned to smoke normally until their quit date, then to stop abruptly. The other half gradually reduced their smoking over the two weeks leading up to the appointed day. Both groups had behavioral counseling, nicotine patches and nicotine replacement therapy from products like gum, lozenges and mouth spray.

The way the researchers measured success was by looking at smoking abstinence for four weeks after the quit date, and then six months later.

Those who quit abruptly stuck to it the best—about 25% better than the gradual-cessation group. And 49% of the abrupt group were successful, while 39% of the gradual group were.

At the half-year mark, 22% of the cold-turkey group were still smoke-free, while 15% of the gradual group were.

Interestingly, more people said they preferred to quit gradually rather than abruptly. But a person’s preferences didn’t make much of a difference in their success. “Even if people wanted to quit gradually, they were more likely to quit if they used the abrupt method,” Lindson-Hawley says.

The research didn’t look at other potential forms of smoking cessation, including e-cigarettes, which have yet to be definitively proven as an effective smoking cessation tool. And even though quitting cold was better, Lindson-Hawley says, “the quit rates we found in the gradual group were still quite good.” In future research, she plans to explore the methods of gradual quitting to see if they can be made more effective. “If there are people who really feel they can’t quit abruptly, and they want to quit gradually—otherwise they won’t try to quit at all—we still need to support them to do that.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.




from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1U5dsku

This Is Why You’re Always Freezing, According to a Doctor

Photo: Aad Goudappel

Photo: Aad Goudappel

Q: I’m always cold, even when people around me aren’t. Why is that?

For starters, women generally tend to feel colder than men because we conserve more heat around our vital organs, leaving the hands and feet chronically chilled. If you have relatively low body fat, you may feel colder than other people because you’re less insulated. Or you may not be getting enough sleep; when you’re fatigued, your metabolism and circulation can slow down. Dehydration is another possible cause: Water helps your body retain heat and release it more slowly to maintain a comfortable temperature—so drink up.

RELATED: Best and Worst Foods for Sleep

Other potential reasons for frequent shivering include low levels of iron or vitamin B12, which play a role in your body’s ability to regulate temperature, or an underactive thyroid. Do you mostly freeze up in your hands and feet? It may be due to a circulation problem. Cardiovascular disease is one possible culprit, as is Raynaud’s disease, in which blood vessels in your extremities temporarily narrow when your body senses cold.

If your chilliness is making you uncomfortable every day, it’s worth a visit to your doctor. She can determine whether there’s a simple fix—such as putting on a bit more muscle or eating more iron-rich foods—or if it’s a sign of a health issue that needs treatment.

RELATED: 10 Reasons Why You Might Feel Cold All the Time

Health’s medical editor, Roshini Rajapaksa, MD, is assistant professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.




from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/252DNCU

‘Difficult’ Patients Tend to Get Worse Care, Studies Find

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — What happens to medical care when the patient is a jerk?

Dutch researchers asked the question in two new studies, and the answer should make grumps think the better of their bad behavior: “Disruptive” patients may get worse care from physicians.

The findings aren’t definitive because the researchers tested how physicians responded in fictional vignettes, instead of real-life encounters. Still, the results suggest that patients who make a scene distract physicians from doing their jobs.

“Patients who behave disruptively by displaying disrespect or aggressiveness may induce their doctors to make diagnostic mistakes,” said Dr. Silvia Mamede, who worked on both studies. She is an associate professor with the Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

An estimated 15 percent of patients treated in doctors’ offices are aggressive, disrespectful, overly demanding or distrustful, Mamede said.

“As might be expected, these behaviors provoke emotional reactions in doctors,” she said.

But do these patients actually get worse care? Physicians have long talked about this question, but researchers haven’t investigated that issue, according to Mamede.

The study authors could have monitored actual doctors’ visits to find an answer, but Mamede said that approach would have been “virtually impossible” because each case is so different.

Instead, the researchers created vignettes about “neutral” patients and disruptive patients who do things such as make frequent demands, ignore the doctor’s advice and act helpless. Then they asked physicians to diagnose the patients.

This approach is “feasible, ethical and reasonable,” said Dr. Donald Redelmeier, senior core scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto. Redelmeier co-wrote a commentary accompanying the study.

In one study of 63 family medicine physicians from Rotterdam, “doctors made 42 percent more mistakes in disruptive than in non-disruptive patients when the cases were complex, and 6 percent more mistakes when the cases were simple,” Mamede said. (The physicians did a better job when they had more time to think about their diagnoses; experts determined the correct diagnoses.)

The other study, which included 74 internal medicine residents, produced similar findings: In cases considered to be moderately complex, “doctors made 20 percent more mistakes in difficult compared to neutral patients,” she added.

The studies don’t provide information about how often the physicians got a diagnosis completely correct or missed it entirely. Instead, the researchers scored the diagnoses based on whether they were correct, partially correct or wrong.

What’s going on? Mamede said disruptive patients distract physicians by “capturing” their attention, preventing them from focusing more on actual medical conditions.

It’s not clear, she said, if poorer care will make disruptive patients even more frustrating to deal with over time, creating a vicious cycle of increasing disruption and more inaccurate diagnoses.

But Redelmeier said such a “negative feedback loop” is possible.

What can be done?

“Physicians should be trained to deal with these disruptive behaviors explicitly and effectively,” Mamede said. “An aggressive patient can be calmed. A patient who displays lack of trust in his doctor can be referred to another doctor,” she suggested.

As for patients, Redelmeier referred to the points he and a co-author make in the commentary. Patients, they explained, can try to channel their emotion into polite comments; for example, “Thank you for seeing me. I am frightened by what I am experiencing and that is why I am here looking for something that might help.”

Still, the editorialists added, “real people . . . cannot always control their temper when suffering or in pain.” More research is needed to figure out the best approaches, Redelmeier suggested.

The study was published online March 14 in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about talking to your doctor.





from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1pJtXWo

Don’t Take Short Cuts With Contact Lens Care, FDA Warns

TUESDAY, March 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — If you use contact lens solution with hydrogen peroxide and don’t follow the instructions carefully, you could be putting your eyes at risk, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns.

Hydrogen peroxide contact lens solutions do not contain preservatives. While this makes them a good choice for people who are allergic or sensitive to preservatives, these solutions still pose risks.

Before using a solution with hydrogen peroxide, read all instructions and warning labels, the FDA advises.

“You should never put hydrogen peroxide directly into your eyes or on your contact lenses,” Dr. Bernard Lepri, an optometrist in the FDA’s Contact Lens and Retinal Devices Branch, said in an agency news release.

Doing so can cause stinging, burning and damage to your cornea, the clear surface that covers the eye.

When using a solution with hydrogen peroxide, it’s crucial to follow the disinfecting process with the neutralizer included in the cleaning solution kit. The neutralizer turns the peroxide into water and oxygen so that it is safe to put the contact lenses in your eyes.

Since 2010, the FDA has received 73 reports about problems such as burning and stinging associated with solutions with hydrogen peroxide. In most cases, these problems occurred because users did not follow directions.

Only 12 of the 73 reports were received since 2012, when many solutions with hydrogen peroxide began carrying more visible warnings, the FDA added.

More information

The American Academy of Ophthalmology has more on contact lens care.





from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1pJtXWa

Location is Key to Help Hospital Hand Sanitizers Get Used

TUESDAY, March 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The location of hand sanitizer dispensers in hospitals significantly affects how likely visitors are to use them, a new study finds.

Researchers observed the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers by more than 6,600 visitors to Greenville Memorial Hospital in South Carolina. Use of the dispensers more than quintupled when they were placed in the middle of the lobby in front of the visitor entrance.

The three-week study also found that hand sanitizer use was nearly 50 percent higher among children and young adults than older adults, and nearly 40 percent higher among people in groups than those who were alone.

The findings appear in the March issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.

“Visitors represent an additional vector by which health care-associated diseases can be transmitted to patients, and thus visitor hand hygiene is an opportunity to further improve patient safety,” the Clemson University and Greenville Health System researchers wrote.

They said the study suggests several avenues for follow-up aimed at increasing use of hand sanitizer, including the influence of group dynamics and social pressure on use.

More information

The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology explains how to be a good health-care facility visitor.





from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1pJtYJW

Repeat C-Section May Have No Long-Term Health Risk for Baby

TUESDAY, March 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — There appears to be little increased risk to a child’s health if a woman has a planned cesarean delivery after a prior C-section, a new study out of Scotland finds.

Still, C-section does come with risks, experts noted, and the steady rise in the number of U.S. births via the procedure has been cause for concern from medical groups, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Early in 2014, the group issued guidelines urging a more conservative approach to elective C-section.

“With concerns about the rising rate of cesarean section, the topic of vaginal birth after cesarean has become a key issue in modern obstetrics,” said one obstetrician, Dr. Jennifer Wu, of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She was not involved in the new study.

So, in terms of long-term health, does mode of delivery matter for a child born to a woman who has already had a prior C-section?

To help answer that question, a team led by Mairead Black of the University of Aberdeen tracked data from second births for more than 40,000 women in Scotland.

All of the women had a first child delivered by C-section. Their second births were either a planned (elective) C-section, unplanned C-section or vaginal delivery.

Several health outcomes among these second-born children were examined: obesity at age 5; hospitalization for asthma; prescription for asthma medication at age 5; hospitalization for irritable bowel disease; type 1 diabetes; learning disability; cerebral palsy; cancer; and death.

Children born by repeat planned and unplanned C-section were slightly more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than those in the vaginal delivery group, but the difference was not clinically significant, the researchers said.

Compared with vaginal delivery, learning disability and death were more common after unplanned C-section, but not planned C-section, according to the study published March 15 in the journal PLoS Medicine.

“Women may be somewhat reassured by the apparent lack of risk to long-term offspring health following planned, repeat C-section specifically,” Black and colleagues wrote.

“This study may therefore support the process of planning birth after C-section in a way that reflects women’s values and preferences,” they concluded.

Wu said, “Patients and doctors should take all of this data into consideration when considering vaginal birth after C-section and the likelihood of successful [vaginal birth] should be a factor in the counseling.”

More information

There’s more on cesarean delivery at the American Academy of Pediatrics.





from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1pJtVOd

CDC Issues Tough New Guidelines on Use of Prescription Painkillers

By E.J. Mundell and Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporters

TUESDAY, March 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Hoping to stem an epidemic of drug abuse tied to prescription narcotic painkillers such as Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin, federal officials on Tuesday issued tough new prescribing guidelines to the nation’s doctors.

The new advisory, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stresses that doctors — especially primary care physicians — should try to avoid these addictive “opioid” painkillers whenever possible for patients with most forms of chronic pain.

For example, this would include patients suffering from joint or back pain, dental pain (tooth extraction, for example), or other chronic pain treated in an outpatient setting.

It would not include the use of narcotic painkillers for people dealing with cancer-related pain, or terminally ill patients in palliative care, the CDC said.

“More than 40 Americans die each and every day from prescription opioid overdoses,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said during a Tuesday news conference. “Increased prescribing of opioids — which has quadrupled since 1999 — is fueling an epidemic that is blurring the lines between prescription opioids and illicit opioids,” he added.

Recent reports have sounded alarm bells about the mounting death toll from narcotic painkiller abuse.

In December, the CDC announced that fatal drug overdoses had reached record highs in the United States — driven largely by the abuse of prescription painkillers and another opioid, heroin (many abusers use both).

According to the December report, more than 47,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdose in 2014, a 14 percent jump from the previous year.

Reacting to the crisis last October, President Barack Obama noted that the daily death toll from drug overdoses now exceeds that of car crashes. At the time, the White House announced a major initiative aimed at combatting the trend. The CDC advisory released Tuesday is a part of that effort.

Besides calling for physicians to try non-narcotic options first for pain relief, the CDC advisory also laid out other steps to curb the abuse of opioid painkillers.

Whenever these painkillers are prescribed, “the lowest possible effective dosage” should be used, the CDC said.

Also, patients who are on such drugs should be closely monitored to “reassess [patient] progress and discontinue medication if needed,” the agency said.

The CDC said it is aiming the new guidelines at primary care physicians, because those doctors currently write nearly half of all prescriptions for narcotic painkillers.

One expert applauded the new initiative.

“These guidelines raise awareness of the hazards of unscrupulous opioid prescribing, as well as highlight the value of non-opioid medications and non-pharmacologic therapies,” said Dr. Harshal Kirane, who directs addiction services at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City.

“The opioid abuse epidemic can impact any of us, so it requires all of us to bring about sustainable change,” he said.

Two studies published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association highlight the scope of the problem.

In one study, a team led by Dr. Hannah Wunsch, of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, tracked prescriptions given to American patients after “low-risk” surgeries.

The surgeries included a total of more than 155,000 procedures conducted in the United States for carpal tunnel, gallbladder removal, hernia repair and knee arthroscopy.

Within a week of discharge from the hospital, four out of five patients had filled a prescription for an opioid painkiller, and the vast majority of those prescriptions were for Percocet or Vicodin, the team found.

What’s more, dosages for these drugs tended to rise over time, Wunsch’s team reported, indicating “an increasing reliance on opioids for postoperative pain relief versus alternative therapies.”

A second study focused on another major source of narcotic painkiller prescriptions: Dentists.

That study was led by Dr. Brian Bateman, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and tracked more than 2.7 million patients who’d had a tooth extracted between 2000 and 2010.

According to the study, within a week of having a tooth pulled, 42 percent of patients filled a prescription for a narcotic painkiller. Many of the patients were young: 61 percent of 14- to 17-year-olds filled such prescriptions, the researchers noted.

Bateman’s team believes narcotic painkillers are being overprescribed after tooth extraction, “particularly as non-opioid [painkillers] may be more effective in this setting.”

One expert in dental care wasn’t surprised by the findings.

“A protocol for long-term opioid use is long overdue,” said Dr. Ashish Sahasra, an endodontist at Premier Endodontics in Garden City, N.Y. “Though these pain medications are very necessary, many doctors may tend to overprescribe them in their pain management regimen.”

More information

There’s more on the epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.





from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1pJtVxG