Sofia Vergara’s Beauty Tip for Brides/ Sofia Vergara’s Tip for Looking Your Best On Your Big Day

As Sofia Vergara prepares to say ‘I do’ to Joe Manganiello, she’s sharing her big tip for brides. Get out your planning binders! On the set of her new CoverGirl ad campaign shoot, Vergara shared with People her advice to looking your best on the big day:

“I have a very important makeup tip for the girls [who] are getting married soon. I think sometimes we overthink it because it’s a very special occasion and we want to have everything perfect. With makeup, sometimes people exaggerate a little bit or make it too different because they want to do more. Sometimes, it makes it look like it’s not you and when you see the pictures you’re like, ‘Oh, what happened to me?’ So I think it’s better to keep yourself looking fresh in the makeup that you’ve always liked and be you.”

Considering Vergara’s staple glam look, we were expecting a tutorial on getting the perfect red lip or contoured cheek bones. Instead, Vergara is spreading a message of self-acceptance to be yourself and embrace your natural beauty. Well that’s easy enough. Thanks, Sofia!

 

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

‘Watchful Waiting’ Becoming More Common for Prostate Cancer Patients

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — More U.S. physicians are sparing their low-risk prostate cancer patients from surgery, radiation and hormone therapy in favor of monitoring their patients over time — a strategy called watchful waiting, a new study shows.

The number of low-risk patients who didn’t undergo treatment jumped from as low as 7 percent from 1990-2009 to 40 percent from 2010-2013, the study revealed. These findings indicate that more patients are being monitored to see if their conditions get worse.

This is “excellent news” about the popularity of “active surveillance,” said study author Dr. Matthew Cooperberg, the Helen Diller Family Chair in Urology at the University of California, San Francisco.

“We expected to see a rise in surveillance rates, but were surprised by the steepness of the trajectory,” he said. “This really does represent a paradigm change, and it’s faster than the typical pace of medical evolution.”

The reason for the debate over who gets treated is that prostate cancer treatments, such as surgery or radiation, can lead to serious long-term side effects, such as incontinence and impotence. In addition, some prostate cancers are slow-growing and are less likely to cause problems, especially for older men, the American Cancer Society notes.

Last week, a study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggested that the wide majority of men with low-risk prostate cancer between 2010 and 2011 had treatment. But, that study defined low-risk in various ways that included between 11 percent and 40 percent of prostate cancer patients.

The new study examines the medical records of more than 10,000 men from 45 urology practices. And, it uses a single definition of low-risk. The current study also looks at information through 2013.

In addition to finding a higher rate of watchful waiting in all men, the study also found that those aged 75 and older were much less likely to get potentially unnecessary treatment. Among low-risk men aged 75 and older, the rate of watchful waiting shot up from 22 percent in 2000-2004 to 76 percent in 2010-2013, the study found.

As for patients at greater danger, “we’re seeing more aggressive management of higher- risk disease with surgery, radiation or both, which is also a trend toward better management,” Cooperberg said.

But, the findings aren’t necessarily all positive.

“Ultimately, the number of men who will die of prostate cancer because they chose active surveillance cannot be zero by definition,” Cooperberg acknowledged. “But it is a very low number, far lower by most estimations than the number of those harmed by avoidable surgery, radiation, etc.”

Dr. David Penson, the Hamilton and Howd Chair in Urologic Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., agreed with Cooperberg that the statistics are “very good news.”

“The net health benefit for men with prostate cancer is likely more positive because we are treating the men who need treatment while we are avoiding the risk of side effects in those who don’t,” he said.

Also, he said, the findings have implications for the debate about screening men for prostate cancer via “PSA” blood tests.

“One of the arguments against screening is that we are over-detecting and overtreating prostate cancer, and because we are overtreating men who don’t need treatment, we are doing more harm than good. By reducing the rates of overtreatment, we are likely increasing the benefit of screening,” he noted.

The study appears in the July 7 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information

For more about prostate cancer, try the American Cancer Society.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1J2wYmO

Stroke Tied to Long-Term Mental Decline

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Stroke victims often experience an immediate deterioration in their ability to think and reason. But a new study shows that a stroke also can have a more insidious, long-term effect on your mental processes.

People who suffer a stroke are more likely to experience an accelerated decline in their thinking and planning skills for at least six years following their medical emergency, according to a report published July 7 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For every year following a stroke, patients have a 23 percent greater risk of suffering additional mental loss, compared to how they would have fared if they never had a stroke, said lead author Dr. Deborah Levine, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and a staff physician with the Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System.

“We found that stroke survivors had a significantly faster rate of developing new cognitive [thinking] impairment following their stroke, compared to their pre-stroke rates,” Levine said.

Stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is disrupted, because of a clot or a hemorrhage. Each year in the United States, almost 800,000 people experience a stroke.

The study focused on nearly 24,000 participants in a larger U.S. National Institutes of Health-sponsored project that’s examining regional and racial differences in stroke deaths. The people were 45 or older and mentally healthy when they entered the study.

As part of the larger study, these people took part in an annual battery of brain-teasing tests that measured their ability to think, learn, remember and plan, Levine said. This allowed researchers to establish the extent to which their mental abilities were naturally eroding over time.

About 515 participants suffered a stroke during an average six-year follow-up period, the study reported.

The researchers found that after the stroke, these people suffered a significantly faster rate of long-term mental decline compared with their pre-stroke rate, Levine said.

The decline mainly centered around two domains primarily affected by stroke: global cognition and executive function, Levine said. Global cognition reflects a person’s overall ability to think and reason, while executive function reflects their ability to organize, prioritize, manage time and make decisions.

However, stroke did not seem to cause a long-term change in verbal memory, or the ability to learn new things, Levine said.

Dr. Aviva Lubin, associate stroke director at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said these findings make sense based on what she’s observed with her own patients.

“I see patients that come through stroke, and afterward I hear from family members that they’re not able to handle their household as well as they had before,” Lubin said.

Lubin found the results particularly striking given that the researchers left out patients who had suffered aphasia — an impairment in their language abilities — as a result of their stroke.

“They took out one of the big symptoms that make patients seem like they are experiencing a cognitive decline,” Lubin said. “I think it’s interesting that they still found a connection even after excluding those patients.”

There are several possible factors that could cause this long-term decline, Levine said. Stroke is known to exacerbate conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, but patients also might be suffering post-stroke symptoms or secondary strokes that cause ongoing injury to the brain.

Based on these findings, people in poor heart health should consider undergoing a screening of their mental abilities, said Dr. Philip Gorelick, medical director of the Hauenstein Neuroscience Center at Saint Mary’s Health Care in Grand Rapids, Mich.

That advance screening will help doctors track their progress and better assess the effects of any stroke they might experience in the future, said Gorelick, who wrote an editorial accompanying Levine’s study.

Stroke survivors who want to remain as sharp as possible should work with their doctor to reduce their risk of having another stroke, Levine said. That includes controlling their blood pressure and cholesterol, eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly and quitting smoking.

Lubin also recommends that stroke survivors do the types of things anyone can do to contribute to graceful aging of the mind. This includes playing memory games, solving brain-teasers and socializing on a regular basis.

More information

The National Stroke Association has more about preventing another stroke.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1HL8rG4

Tiny Brain Lesions Linked to Raised Risk of Stroke Death

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Tiny damaged areas in the brain may signal an increased risk of stroke or stroke-related death in people with no history of a prior brain attack, a new study indicates.

“These findings suggest that even very small lesions on brain imaging — even without symptoms — may represent early pathology and could identify persons at increased risk of stroke,” said lead researcher Dr. Gwen Windham, an associate professor of geriatrics at the University of Mississippi in Jackson.

People who had both small lesions and larger lesions had an even greater increased risk of stroke and stroke-related death, she added.

“The findings should be replicated in other populations, but suggest that these very small lesions are clinically relevant and more research is needed to help us understand what is causing them and how we can prevent them,” Windham said.

The report was published July 7 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

For the study, Windham’s team followed more than 1,800 adults aged 50 to 73 who took part in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. The participants had no prior strokes and were followed for an average of 14.5 years. The researchers used MRIs to identify lesions.

The study found the risk of having a stroke or dying from one was tripled among those with very small lesions, compared to those who didn’t have lesions, and it was seven to eight times higher among those who had both small and large lesions.

Dr. Ralph Sacco, chairman of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said, “This study adds to the growing evidence that silent changes in the brain may be determinant of subsequent stroke and death.”

Silent strokes are often seen on MRIs, especially in older people, but this study evaluated a younger population, he noted.

Silent stroke and other changes in the brain were more frequent among people with other risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes, Sacco said.

“We want the public to understand the connection between living a healthy lifestyle and maintaining brain health that can help prevent stroke, mental aging, as well as silent changes in the brain,” he said.

While the study found an association between tiny brain lesions and an increased risk of stroke and stroke-related death, it did not prove that there was a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

Learn more about stroke from the National Stroke Association.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1HL8r9k

How Long Do Patients With Clots in the Lung Need Blood Thinners?

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — People who suffer a blood clot in the lungs with no obvious cause can ward off a new clot with extended use of blood-thinning medications, a new study shows.

However, the length of time those blood thinners should be given is unclear, since their benefits wear off soon after use is discontinued, the French researchers found.

The clots are called pulmonary emboli, explained one U.S. expert, Dr. Richard Hayes.

“Pulmonary emboli are clots in the blood vessels to the lungs that arise from the veins of the leg or thigh,” said Hayes, a cardiologist at Lenox Health in New York City. One type of clot is deep vein thrombosis (DVT), often nicknamed “economy-class syndrome” because of cases occurring after long-haul flights.

In many cases, Hayes said, there’s a trigger — extended bedrest, obesity, recent surgery — for the clot, but in other cases the clots seem to arise without a specific cause.

“In these patients, there is a higher likelihood of recurrence,” said Hayes, who was not involved in the new study.

So, how long should these patients take a blood thinner to ward off a second clot?

To help find out, a team led by Dr. Francis Couturaud of the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, in Brest, France, tracked outcomes for 371 adults who had experienced an “unprovoked” blood clot in the lung. All of the patients received six months of treatment with a type of anti-clotting drug known as a vitamin K antagonist, which includes the standard blood thinner warfarin.

At the six-month point, patients then received either warfarin for another 18 months, or a “dummy” placebo pill.

The extended use of warfarin did seem to help patients: Further blood clots or major bleeding occurred in only 3 percent of those taking the drug, compared to 13.5 percent of those taking the placebo. That means that taking the warfarin reduced the risk by 78 percent, Couturaud’s team reported.

However, that benefit disappeared soon after treatment with warfarin ended, according to the study published in the July 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings suggest that this group of patients may require long-term treatment to prevent recurrence of pulmonary embolism, the researchers said.

“Whether these should include systematic treatment with vitamin K antagonists, new anticoagulants or aspirin, or be tailored according to patient risk factors, needs further investigation,” the French team concluded.

According to Hayes, the study suggests that patients may need blood thinners over the very long term.

“The take-home message: in those patients who have a blood clot in the lung with no obvious cause, there is an approximately 20 percent recurrence rate,” he said. However, “we don’t know how long the risk is elevated.”

In Hayes’ opinion, the French study “provides further support to lifetime anticoagulation with warfarin” or newer blood thinners.

Dr. Joseph Mathew is medical director of respiratory care at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He agreed with Hayes that the new study “leads one to believe that patients with an unprovoked [clot] need lifelong anticoagulation, and it calls for a detailed risk-benefit discussion between the physician and the patient.”

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about pulmonary embolism.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1HL8qSD

Chronic Ills May Add Up to a Shortened Life Span

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — While having one major health problem — such as diabetes, heart disease or stroke — can increase your risk for an early death, new research warns that the risk of dying prematurely goes up significantly if you have more than one of these conditions.

Investigators determined that someone with one of those conditions faces double the risk of early death compared to people who have no such “cardiometabolic” problems. But, those coping with two conditions at the same time were found to face quadruple the risk. And having all three bumps up premature death risk eightfold, the study found.

“Somewhat surprised” is how study lead author Dr. Emanuele Di Angelantonio, a university lecturer in medical screening with the department of public health and primary care at the University of Cambridge in England, described his team’s reaction to the findings.

Di Angelantonio explained that the three conditions actually share many risk factors in common, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and obesity. And given that “previous research has mainly focused on individuals with one cardiometabolic condition alone,” the magnitude associated with combined risk was not necessarily evident.

This is the first study that is able to precisely quantify how much worse it is to have more than one of these diseases, he pointed out.

Di Angelantonio and his colleagues reported their findings in the July 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study authors pointed out that about 10 million men and women have some combination of diabetes, heart disease and stroke history in the United States and Europe. Recent estimates, the study authors noted, suggest about 3 percent of the American public has such a multiple risk profile.

To explore how such a condition affects death rates, investigators reviewed information on almost 1.2 million men and women from a number of different countries.

The research team concluded that the years of life lost associated with having two or three of the target diseases ended up being even greater than the years lost in life expectancy among lifelong smokers and HIV patients.

Smokers and people with HIV have been found to lose about 10 to 11 years of life expectancy, the study authors said. By comparison, having two cardiometabolic risk conditions at age 60 was linked to a 12-year drop in life expectancy, while having three conditions was linked to a 15-year drop, the researchers said. And those numbers could go even higher among patients whose diseases first strike before the age of 40, they added.

These findings are mainly for use by clinicians and policymakers, noted Di Angelantonio. The study results “emphasize, for example, the importance of measures to prevent cardiovascular disease in people who already have diabetes, and, conversely, to avert diabetes in people who already have cardiovascular disease,” he said.

“At the same time, we must not lose sight of tackling these serious conditions [one-by-one] within the wider population,” Di Angelantonio added.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that “prior studies have demonstrated that the greater the number of co-morbid conditions present, the higher the risk of mortality.” And, in some cases, “that risk increase is more than just additive, but synergistic,” he added.

“Having multiple simultaneous diseases present can complicate accurate diagnosis, assessment and treatment in such ways as to increase mortality risk,” Fonarow said.

So, “maintaining one’s health and avoiding chronic conditions should be a lifelong goal. Being physically active, not smoking and maintaining healthy levels of body weight, blood pressure and cholesterol can help lower the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer,” Fonarow said.

More information

Learn more about lowering your heart disease risk from the American Heart Association.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1J2wVY3

Who’s Most Likely to Get Addicted to Their Narcotic Painkiller?

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A new study looks at which patients prescribed a short course of narcotic painkillers may be most prone to long-term abuse.

The study finds — perhaps not surprisingly — that people with prior histories of drug abuse, or current or former smokers, were much more likely to go beyond that short-term prescription.

The drugs in question are “opioid” painkillers such as oxycodone (Oxycontin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), codeine and methadone, among others.

The study was led by Dr. W. Michael Hooten, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. His team tracked outcomes for nearly 300 patients given a first-time, short-term prescription for one of this class of narcotic painkillers in 2009.

The investigators found that nearly one in every four of the patients continued to take the medication for extended periods of time.

Specifically, the study found that 21 percent of short-term opioid patients end up getting prescriptions that extend for as much as three to four months. Another 6 percent actually continued the medications for longer than four months.

People with a prior history of either smoking and/or drug abuse appear to be at greatest risk for turning a short-term pain treatment into a long-term drug abuse problem.

Why? Hooten’s team believes that addiction to nicotine or other substances may have the same effect on the brain as using the narcotic painkillers.

“Many people will suggest [painkiller abuse is] actually a national epidemic,” Hooten said in a Mayo news release. “More people now are experiencing fatal overdoses related to opioid use than compared to heroin and cocaine combined,” he added.

Patients must learn “to recognize the potential risks associated with these medications,” Hooten said. For some patients, “I encourage use of alternative methods to manage pain, including non-opioid analgesics or other non-medication approaches,” he said.

Avoiding narcotic painkillers “reduces or even eliminates the risk of these medications transitioning to another problem that was never intended,” Hooten said.

His team published their findings in the July issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

“The next step in this research is to drill down and find more detailed information about the potential role of dose and quantity of medication prescribed,” Hooten said. “It is possible that higher dose or greater quantities of the drug with each prescription are important predictors of longer-term use.”

More information

There’s more on abuse of opioid painkillers at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1JLPi9q

Wide Variations Seen in U.S. Stroke Care

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Americans’ odds of receiving a drug that can halt strokes in progress may vary widely depending on their ZIP codes, a new study finds.

Experts said the findings, reported in the July issue of the journal Stroke, help verify what everyone has suspected: There are disparities in emergency stroke care across the United States, specifically in the use of a clot-busting drug called tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA.

And the magnitude of the disparities was “striking,” said senior researcher Dr. James Burke, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

In 20 percent of hospital markets, not a single stroke patient received tPA over four years, Burke’s team found. In others, up to 14 percent of stroke patients received the drug.

The big question is: Why? “We really don’t know what’s driving this,” Burke said.

The hospital markets that most often gave tPA were scattered across the country, in urban and rural areas, the investigators found. And they included both regions with relatively high and relatively low rates of stroke.

Whatever the reasons, Burke said, there is clearly a need to close the regional gaps in tPA use.

“We have a treatment that works,” he said. “We need to figure out how to best get it to the patients who can benefit.”

Most strokes are caused by a blood clot in the arteries supplying the brain. If tPA is given in time, it can break up the clot and limit brain damage from the stroke. But that’s not as simple as it sounds.

First, tPA has to be given within three hours of the initial stroke symptoms. So people have to quickly recognize those symptoms, then get to the emergency room.

From there, doctors have to be sure the stroke is caused by a blood clot, which requires a CT scan. (Some strokes are caused by bleeding in the brain, and giving tPA could worsen the situation.)

Most U.S. hospitals have the technical capability to give tPA, Burke said. What varies, he added, is their experience and comfort with using the drug.

Neurologist Dr. Koto Ishida directs the NYU Langone Comprehensive Stroke Care Center in New York City. She agreed that experience and comfort level are key.

“This drug does have risks, and it’s definitely not right for all stroke patients,” said Ishida, who was not involved with the study.

Those risks include bleeding in the brain, which happens about 6 percent of the time, according to the American Academy of Neurology. Plus, certain people — such as those with uncontrolled high blood pressure — should not receive tPA.

Ishida also pointed to the relative complexity of emergency stroke care: It’s a “team effort,” she said, involving paramedics, ER doctors, nurses, a neurologist, radiologist and a pharmacist to mix the tPA.

At a smaller hospital, those specialists might not be readily available all the time, Burke suggested.

And in general, Ishida said, hospitals that see more stroke patients — particularly those certified as a “primary stroke center” — will have a more efficient process in place for getting patients the right treatment.

Still, in this study, living near a primary stroke center made only a minor difference in the likelihood of receiving tPA, Burke said.

Other research has shown that delayed hospital arrival is a major reason that stroke sufferers cannot receive tPA.

That’s why people need to know the signs of stroke, both Burke and Ishida said. Symptoms include sudden weakness or numbness in the face, an arm or a leg; slurred speech; blurry vision; dizziness or trouble with balance and coordination.

“It’s not like a heart attack, where pain will often drive people to call 911,” Ishida said. “With stroke, people often wait to see if the symptoms go away. But you can’t predict whether you’ll get better. Don’t wait to call 911.”

The current findings are based on more than 840,000 Medicare patients who suffered a stroke between 2007 and 2010. Each lived within one of 3,436 U.S. hospital markets.

In 20 percent of those hospital markets, no stroke patients received tPA. In the top-20 percent, tPA was given to 9 percent of patients, on average. Some markets — in states spanning from California to Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — were in the range of 10 to 14 percent.

According to Burke, it will be important to understand why some hospital regions have high rates of tPA use and, if possible, repeat their success elsewhere.

If all hospital markets could reach the 14-percent mark, that would mean an additional 93,000 patients getting tPA, the researchers estimated. And that, they suggested, could allow more than 8,000 people to survive their stroke disability-free.

According to Burke, a treatment rate of 10 percent to 15 percent is a “credible goal.”

“I think that until we reach 10 percent nationwide, we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” he said.

More information

The American Stroke Association has more on stroke warning signs.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1S5F96E

The Ultimate Pilates Ab Workout: 6 Must-Try Moves

Image: Courtesy of DailyBurn

If you’re sick of slogging through endless rounds of crunches at the gym, we don’t blame you. Ab workouts can be boring — but that’s where Pilates comes into play. Based on more than 600 exercises and variations, Pilates keeps ab work interesting while helping you sculpt a powerful core. And the benefits are more than just aesthetic. “I love every kind of physical fitness, but I will say Pilates is the only thing that gave me this kind of abdominal strength,” says DailyBurn Pilates instructor Andrea Speir.

RELATED: 7 Easy Pilates Moves for a Beginner Core Workout

Try It Now: DailyBurn Pilates Core Flow

This six-move core series makes for an intense workout, Speir says. Use a Pilates Magic Circle to add resistance to some of the exercises. Don’t own one? No problem. All you need is your mat. Perform these moves with no breaks in between — we dare you!

GIF: Courtesy of DailyBurn

Wind Down
How to: Sit in the center of your mat, knees bent, feet hip-distance apart (a). Bend your elbows and make a fist with each hand. Stack your fists on top of one another in front of your chest (b). Begin circling your fists around each other (c). Inhale and curl your tailbone under, scooping the abdominals in, and roll down towards the mat. Stop before touching the mat (d). Exhale as you round back up, winding arms in the opposite direction. Repeat four more times.

GIF: Courtesy of DailyBurn

Frog-Circle Combo
How to: Lie flat, holding your knees to your chest (a). Curl your head and neck off the floor, and stack your hands like a pillow behind your head (b). Heels together, toes apart, slide your legs out along the mat, hovering your feet just about the mat (c). Lift legs up to a high diagonal, about 45 degrees from the ground (d). Bend your knees in towards your ears, and then slide your legs out along the mat again, hovering feet a few inches off the ground. Repeat 16 times. Think about engaging the abdominals from the two inches below your navel, Speir says. That will help the lower abs really engage and control the movement.

GIF: Courtesy of DailyBurn

Footwork
How to: Lie directly in the center of the mat, and bring your knees into your chest (a). Curl your head and chest up. Gazing at your abdominals, stack hands palm over palm like a pillow and place them directly behind the head (b). With heels together and toes pointed, turn your knees out, keeping them shoulder-distance apart (c). Send legs out to a high diagonal, at least 45 degrees from the ground, and hold (d). Bend knees back towards your ears. Repeat 10 times.

GIF: Courtesy of DailyBurn

Tabletop Control
How to: Sitting on the mat, position the Pilates Magic Circle between your legs, just above the anklebone (a). Lie down on your back, knees drawn towards your chest. Stack your hands palm over palm, and place them behind your neck (b). Curl up, squeezing the Pilates Magic Circle between your legs (c). Lower your toes towards the mat (d). Without arching your back, scoop your abdominals in to lift your legs back up to your chest. Repeat 10 times.

GIF: Courtesy of DailyBurn

Crunch Series
How to: Lie on the mat, knees bent, feet together and planted on the floor. Stack your hands palm over palm, and place them behind your head (a). Drop your knees down to one side (b). Gazing at your navel, curl your body up slightly (the middle of your back should be on the ground at all times), keeping elbows wide, lifting from your core. Repeat 10 times, then switch sides.

GIF: Courtesy of DailyBurn

Side Bend
How to: Sit on your right hip, folding your right leg under your body and extending your left leg out to the side in a straight line (a). With your right hand placed on the ground next to your hip, bend the left knee slightly, pushing yourself up to balance on your right knee (b). Flex the foot of your left leg, pull your abs in and lift your right leg, placing it behind your left leg. (c). Place your left hand on your hip, then pulse your hip up two-inches and down two-inches, keeping you right arm straight. Repeat eight times. Switch sides.

For more Pilates workouts you can do anytime, anyplace, head to http://ift.tt/1BnYw90.

Life by DailyBurn is dedicated to helping you live a healthier, happier and more active lifestyle. Whether your goal is to lose weight, gain strength or de-stress, a better you is well within reach. Get more health and fitness tips at Life by DailyBurn.

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1dJMVW3

Everything You Need to Know About Heat Rash

Photo: Courtesy of MIMIchatter.com

When you think of summer, you probably picture relaxing with friends and family on the beach, looking like a bronze goddess, and fruity drinks. What you try to forget are the annoying downsides, like excessive sweating, sunburns, and heat rash. We’re all familiar (too familiar, probably) with sweating and sunburns, but what is heat rash, really?

I decided to find out once and for all. I enlisted the help of Rachel Nazarian, M.D. of Schweiger Dermatology Groupto get to the bottom it.

Classic heat rash (doctor talk: miliaria), “is a red, sometimes itchy or painful rash that can occur after skin has been exposed to a hot or humid environment.” Also included: small blisters. Yikes.

In other words, heat makes you sweat. We sweat to lower our body temperature. So when the sweat can’t escape, the skin gets angry. Cue heat rash forming.

Now, prepare for your mind to be blown in a semi-embarrassing way. Heat rash technically has nothing to do with UV rays from the sun. The only true cause of heat rash is, well, heat. That doesn’t mean you should skimp on the SPF, though.

Luckily, there are ways to avoid It. Obviously, spending long periods of time outside is no good, but if that is unavoidable (especially on a long holiday weekend), wear light, breathable clothing, avoid lathering up with thick creams and ointments, and try to keep skin as cool and dry as possible.

If you do begin to feel a rash developing, immediately head inside. Nazarian recommends removing any restrictive clothing items, washing the skin with cold water, and applying a topical hydrocortisone lotion to decrease the inflammation if you have it on hand.

Have a safe, fun, and heat rash-free holiday weekend!

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com

More from MIMI Chatter:

How to Camouflage Your Embarrassing Sunburn

You Can Still Get Sun Damage Even After You Go Inside

MIMI Chatter is an endless stream of beauty content. We bring together the must-knows and the how-tos from your favorite sites, beauty influencers, our editors, and YOU.

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1KK8Xqs