Health (12)
Lesbian and bisexual women risk HPV cervical cancer
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Many lesbian and bisexual women risk their lives unnecessarily. They are not often tested for HPV, the virus that can lead to cervical cancer. In fact, because of a misconception, many doctors tell lesbian and bisexual women that there is no need for HPV testing.
“Lesbian and bisexual women are at risk of contracting HPV, which is the cause of 99.7% of cervical cancers. Therefore all eligible women, regardless of their sexual orientation, should have regular cervical screening,” said Robert Music, director of Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust.
A survey by Stonewall.org said “lesbian and bisexual women were often excluded from routine testing for cervical cancer.”
Also, the survey found that these women were afraid or reluctant to be honest “about their sexual orientation with healthcare professionals as they feared stigma and discrimination.”
In addition, “Many women said they had been wrongly advised they did not need screening and some had even been refused screening as they only had female partners. Women respondents also said healthcare professionals had asked inappropriate questions or had wrongly assumed they were heterosexual.”
Because the HPV virus can infect women of every sexual orientation, polyDNA suggests that lesbian and bisexual women take Gene-Eden-VIR, a natural HPV remedy. This antiviral oral supplement helps the immune system clear the HPV virus.
Gene-Eden-VIR is designed to fight against the latent HPV virus. A recent post marketing clinical study showed that Gene-Eden-VIR is safe and effective. Up to 70% of those studied reported a decrease in HPV symptoms.
Each ingredient of Gene-Eden-VIR was chosen through a scientific approach. Scientists scanned thousands of scientific and medical papers published in various medical and scientific journals around the world to identify the safest, most effective natural ingredients that target the latent form of HPV.
Courtesy of PRWEB.COM NEWSWIRE
Feds spend $1.5m to study lesbian obesity
By
Jessica Chasmar
-
The Washington Times
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending $1.5 million to study the “high public-health significance” of why 75 percent of lesbian women are obese and gay men are not, CNS News reports.
“Obesity is one of the most critical public health issues affecting the U.S. today,” the description of the grant — administered by
NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) — reads. “Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the determinants, distribution, and consequences of obesity are receiving increasing attention.”
“[H]owever, one area that is only beginning to be recognized is the striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities,” it continues. “It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with it continues.
“In stark contrast, among men, heterosexual males have nearly double the risk of obesity compared to gay males.”
Brigham and Women’s Hospital first received a $778,622 grant for the study in 2011, followed by a $741,378 grant in 2012, totaling $1,520,000, CNS News reports.
The NICHS says the outcome of the project is uncertain pending federal spending cuts due to the sequestration.
“The
NIH is currently assessing the impact on funding due to sequestration,” said NICHD Press Officer Robert Bock. “It is not possible to say how this, or any other
NIH
grant, will be affected in the long term beyond the 90 percent funding levels
already in place.”
It’s time to clean things up a little around here ladies! I know it’s hard for some of us to keep things clean, but not to worry, I’m not talking about cleaning up your potty mouth or any fun “activities” for that matter …that’d make things WAY TOO BORING and we all know I try and never say that “B” word. I’m talking about taking a “clean” (aka natural) approach to our usual beauty routines. There are a lot of harsh chemicals in many of the products we use that will do more damage than good for us in the long run. I’ve scoped out (and tried) the following homemade concoctions that are not only simple and quick, but will leave your face and body looking fabulous. So, let’s get to work on our early Spring cleaning!
DIY Microdermabrasion
2 parts baking soda
1 part water
I always try and do this in the shower, but you can do it over the sink if that’s easier. Mix 2 large pinches of baking soda with a few splashes of water (enough so it forms a paste and not too liquidy) in your palm. Rub gently in a circular motion all over your face avoiding the eyes and eye area. Dry face and apply moisturizer. Look into mirror and marvel at your lovely complexion.
Natural Teeth Whitening
Here’s another great at-home concoction that uses baking soda. Who would have ever thought there’d be so many uses for it?!
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp hydrogen peroxide
1 pinch of toothpaste
½ tsp water
Mix thoroughly and brush your teeth with it for 2 minutes. Do this once a week until your desired whiteness is achieved and flash your pearly whites to anyone and everyone that looks your way.
Olive Oil Hair Mask
There are several at home hair mask recipes out there, but this one suits my “if it’s too difficult or time consuming I’m not doing it” bad attitude. You simply warm up about 2 oz (or more if you have tons o’ hair) of cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, but not too warm, you don’t want to burn yourself. Apply to dry hair for 30 mins, cover with a plastic shower cap (or you can be ghetto like me and just tie a Target bag to your head) and wash out with mild shampoo and conditioner. Style hair as usual and spend the entire day tossing your hair around as if you’re in a hair product commercial.
A couple of other cool “tricks” I’ve learned…
-
Run out of cuticle oil? No problem, rub olive oil into your cuticles for about 2 minutes then wash with gentle soap and water. Voila, say bye-bye to nasty dry cuticles.
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Stayed out too late and have large bags under your eyes? Slice that cucumber up that’s in your fridge and apply one cool slice to each eye. Lay down for 5-10 mins, get up and check out your bright, well rested eyes in the mirror.
BOUND said hello to Elena Rodriguez and good-bye to french fries after getting a little bit of a wakeup call when it came to what we thought was the right way to go about building and maintaining a healthy bod.
One look at Elena and you’d think she was just a pretty face with a great smile. However, she is the total package. She’s got brains, beauty, and brawn, which make her a true strength to be reckoned with.
There seems to be much debate on how much exercise has to do with weight loss. Some argue that exercise is only 30% of weight loss, while others argue that without exercise you can’t truly lose weight. Where do you stand on that topic?
Exercise is extremely important for health, mental health, athletic ability, and reducing obesity. Diet is 30%, but if you go home and stuff yourself with cheeseburgers and then workout hard in the gym, it’s not going to be of any benefit.
What made you first interested in nutrition and fitness?
It’s always been a part of my life, my parents were always really healthy. I remember my mom having a garden and we’d grow our own herbs and vegetables. So from a young age, I grew up eating really healthy and my dad always pushed us into sports, then I competed in physique contests and one thing led to another. I now have a degree in dietetics and now I train and do nutrition consulting. It just keeps evolving.
What is your best advice for people who think they don’t have time to work out? What is the true “number” when it comes to time, that one needs to workout, to make an impact on weight loss?
If it’s someone that never works out, it’s not realistic to tell them to work out 5 times a day. Start out small, baby steps, introduce 20-30 minutes of walking twice a week. Walk 20 minutes away from your house, then turn around and walk it back, this way you’ll be able to work yourself up and get used to that routine, you won’t even realize you've walked 40 minutes. You do have time. My training sessions run about 45 to 50 minutes, sometimes you sit in front of the TV for 45 minutes or in front of the computer, so think about what you do during the day that takes that amount of time and you’ll realize that maybe you do have 20 minutes a day to workout. It puts things into perspective, but set realistic goals.
Do you participate in competitions? If so which ones?
I used to, I was a bikini competitor for the National Physique Committee, but I stopped because I was going to school full-time. You have to be more than 100% dedicated to the dieting and the training and I just didn't have the time. Now, I’m just living a different lifestyle. I train and I eat healthy, but I don’t do it at the competitive level.
I noticed you hold nutrition seminars. Who are they targeted towards and what type of things can a person expect to learn in one of your seminars?
My seminars are for everyone, I make them easy to understand, I don’t use scientific words, so it’s at a level that everyone gets. I get as simple as "what's a carbohydrate?" and the difference between a good carb and a bad carb. Also, topics like..."How to read labels" and "What's a good fat or bad fat." I want it to be that anyone can attend the seminar. Sometimes I’ll go into the more scientific aspect of nutrition, for example, if someone is interested in supplements and vitamins I am able to provide them with information on different product they would benefit from.
What advice do you have for a person starting out at the gym, which is only looking for the quick fix?
There is no quick fix. It’s not the way it goes. Either you live the lifestyle or you don’t. Yo-yo dieting is not good for your system. You have to really look at what is causing you to want to do this. If it’s because of a health issue, you have to look at it for what it is, it’s your health.
Abs seem to be one of the toughest parts of the body for women to tone. What “miracle exercise” tones them the best, but not necessarily the fastest?
Abs are made in the kitchen. That’s the secret...adjust your diet. Eat clean, cut out the fats and simple sugars, and eat your vegetables and lean meats. Obviously do exercise, but if you’re not eating clean, you’re not going to get the abs you want.
What is the best type of training/exercises that a person not being able to afford a gym can do from home and/or outside?
There are a lot of exercises you can do like plyometric and calisthenics (body weight workouts) like: squats, crunches, push-ups, and pull-ups. You can use the space in your home, use chairs to do dips, buy a jump rope – there are a lot of inexpensive items you can buy online or at
discount stores to help with your at home workout.
We created BOUND to fight isolation in our community (hence our tagline
“Alone we are isolated, together we are Bound”), did you have a support group or
person you leaned on, when you came out? What advice would you give to someone
coming out?
I didn't necessarily have a particular person I leaned on, but I got to the
point in my life where I got sick of being the person everyone wanted me to be.
You’re expected to conform, be with a man, people would say “you don’t look like
a lesbian,” and I always felt like I was carrying a ton of bricks on my
shoulders. I got over all of it and thought, “Why am I hiding? I want to be
myself!” I decided to do what made me happy. If people don’t support me, then
they’re really not my friends and they don’t love me. I thought, “forget this, I've got to be happy…life’s too short”.
Elena Rodriguez - Trainer/Nutritionist
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ElenaTrainerNutritionist
Aqua Foundation for Women Announces Launch of LBT Women’s Health Directory
Written by Mari de ArmasThe Pride Center’s Tri-County LBT Women’s Health Initiative funded by Aqua Foundation for Women, has developed an online, searchable database directory. The Initiative provides necessary tools for LBT health consumers to access health care without fear and social stigma by accessing culturally competent providers.
The Initiative represents a true community collaboration. The program has been spearheaded by the Pride Center in collaboration with Women in Network (WIN), BLAST and Sun Serve to develop, organize and market the resource.
The online directory contains over 300 health care practitioners in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, including gynecologists, primary care physicians, and mental health professionals who work with LBT women patients. The Initiative established a vetting process to ensure that providers demonstrate standards of evident cultural competency. The user-friendly online directory also includes information on insurance accepted by providers, and free and low-cost health providers.
To visit the new directory or to submit your favorite LBT friendly doctor please visit www.LBThealth.org
and start your search.
For one month, the country turns pink, from the NFL to grocery stores. But, just because Breast Cancer Awareness Month is officially over doesn’t mean that we stop checking our breasts and taking care of ourselves.
Breast cancer is a serious health concern. After skin cancer, it's the most common type of cancer in American women. About 225,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year in the U.S. and 40,000 women will die from it.
Breast cancer screenings help detect breast cancer in its earliest, most treatable stage. More than nine out of 10 women who detect breast cancer early live at least five years — and many live much longer.
Locate your nearest planned parenthood and make your appointment for a breast
cancer screening or a mammogram (if you’re 40+) by clicking
here.
Much hoopla was made this week when professional boxer Orlando Cruz bravely came out of the closet. Although it’s a first for the male-side of the sport, there is one out-and-proud lesbian on the female boxing circuit that isn’t afraid of telling it like it is. Enter Melissa “HuracanShark” Hernandez - the newly crowned WBC Featherweight champion.
Not only is she a champ, but she is also the first ever female boxer to compete in four weight classes. Hailing from the Bronx, NY, where she picked-up boxing at a PAL gym, she started this journey with the intention to lose a few pounds and ended up falling in love with the sport.
Bound: Thank you so much for talking to us. I’d love to start off asking about the last fight, which you won decisively over Jelena Mrdjenovich, making you the new WBC Featherweight champion. How did you prepare for this fight?
MH: It’s said that fights are won at the gym, and I believe it to be true. For this fight in particular, I began preparing 6 weeks prior to the bout, riding my bike 15 miles a day, as well as sparring and doing bag work for 2 hours.
Bound: Do you spar with male or female boxers?
MH: I spar with men that weigh anywhere between 140 to 180 pounds for a 10 round period.
Bound: How did you get your nickname, "huracanshark?"
MH: When I first started, I was just known as “huracan” because I used to throw a lot of punches, resembling a hurricane. Around the same time I started to become more accurate with my punches, I moved to South Florida, and the nickname here means something totally different to college sport fans. So, I added shark to it, to describe how I attack my opponents.
Bound: What advice would you give a woman interested in boxing? Where should they start? Could you recommend a gym or trainer?
MH: Go to a real boxing gym, like Angelo Dundee’s on Miami Beach. Otherwise, it becomes really hard for women to be taken seriously by some male trainers. Bad trainers will try and get you to sleep with them, or tell you that you’re too pretty for boxing. The best bet is to find a place that makes you feel comfortable.
Bound: Why do you box?
MH: I do it for all the women, the young women, maybe that 16 year old girl that’s out there wanting to become a professional boxer. You know, they say women’s boxing puts on a much better show than men’s, and I believe that is true. Because we want it more and we have more to prove. We have to prove that we deserve to get paid the same as male boxers, and I think we will get there one day. But it’s so important that women support the sport. Go out and buy tickets and come see a fight for yourself.
Bound: This article will appear in our Coming Out issue. What would you say to closeted lesbians out there?
MH: Live for yourself. Celebrate who you are.
Learn more about Melissa by visiting the
WBAN site
and checking out the upcoming events.
And subscribe to her updates on
Facebook.
We first met Rachel Robinson on MTV’s Road Rules: Campus Crawl. Years later, Rachel has appeared on the Real World/Road Rules Challenges, including the most recent Battle of the Exes alongside Aneesa Ferreira. But, you don’t need reruns to catch her gorgeous presence and passion for fitness, because you can train with her at the Fontainebleau's gym on Miami Beach.
BM: How did you get started in fitness?
RR: I was always an athlete growing up. So, by nature, I know a lot about fitness, working out and different performance techniques because they were used on me as a kid. But, in my early twenties I wasn’t working out, and my self-esteem was at its lowest, and really my life wasn’t in order. It wasn’t until I moved back to Miami, when I was just about to turn 25, that I started working out 4 days a week with a trainer and I found my calling.
BM: Can you describe what it feels like to help your clients reach their fitness goals?
RR: It’s amazing. That’s what I love to do. That’s your job as a fitness professional, to motivate people and get them to stay in it. The cool thing about Twitter and other social networks is that I connect with people and keep them motivated as well.
BM:
Everyone wants to know, what is your personal diet like?
RR: I believe in eating everything, but in moderation. I include a lot of fish and veggies in my diet, but every now and then I’ll have sweet potato fries. I always eat small portions and when I go out to dinner with my girlfriend, we share our meals. I can’t have an entire entree by myself because I would be so stuffed at the end of the meal.
BM:
If you were single, what percent of body fat would a girl need to have?
RR: I’m not necessarily attracted to an athletic body type, because a woman could just be as sexy with a little meat on her. It’s all relative to how you feel and are happy with yourself.
getitdone:
Fontainebleau Gym
4441 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL
$20.00 per class
Wednesdays and Saturdays
Check out Rachel Robinson's web site for times and details.
Lesbian, bisexual women risk HPV cervical cancer
Feds spend $1.5 million to study lesbian obesity
South Florida's LBT Women's Health Directory
Rock You Like a Hurricane, Fast as a Shark
Rheumatoid Arthritis pain relief at home
Massage eases symptoms of depression
Read More
Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Relief At Home
Written by Enrique Fraga, LMT MA 64452Recently Relax, Unwind & Heal has met many clients whom suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis. In addition to massage, we also offer pain treatment in the form of hot and cold compresses to clients whom are afflicted with joint pain. If you have "R.A." or know someone who is suffering from pain associated with this illness we would like to offer simple home remedies to help sedate the pain between sessions.
To give you a brief background on what Rheumatoid Arthritis (commonly known “R.A.”) is, it is a chronic disease that causes pain, stiffness, swelling, and loss of function in the joints. This is caused by the immune system mistakenly eating away healthy tissue, which causes inflammation that leads to swelling in the joints making them less mobile. If not managed, over time, “R.A.” can cause major joint damage and could even result in irreparable damage, keeping you from doing day-to- day things. Physical and emotional stress are a big factor in this as well.
According to the Arthritis Foundation, more and more doctors are recommending massage to their arthritis patients to help relieve pain and stiffness caused by swelling. Massage also helps to calm down stress levels, which can aggravate symptoms. Working closely with clients whom suffer with "R.A, Relax Unwind & Heal highly recommends heat and/or cold treatments to reduce rheumatoid arthritis pain.
COLD COMPRESSES:
Cold compresses reduce joint swelling and inflammation. You can apply a cool compress or ice pack to the affected joint during an RA flare-up to help ease inflammation and pain. Keep in mind you don't want to overdo cold treatments. Apply the cold compress for 15 minutes at a time with at least a 30-minute break in between treatments.
1) Fill a bowl with ice, and pour water into it. Stir and let it sit for 5 minutes. (Add some mint to it if possible)
2) Grab a hand towel and let it soak inside the bowl. Let the towel sit for about 2 minutes.
3) Apply the towel the affected area with the above- mentioned time.
HEAT COMPRESSES:
Heat compresses relax your muscles and stimulate blood flow. To use heat therapy, you can try a moist heating pad or a warm, damp towel or microwavable hot packs. Never make it too hot that your skin burns.
1) In a microwaveable safe bowl, heat water for about a minute or so.
2) Let the water stand for about a minute or so.
3) Dunk the hand towel inside the bowl and using your pinky test out the water, if it stings don’t apply the towel. If it feels warm, gently apply the towel in the affected joint.
You can also use heat therapy by standing in the shower. Letting the warm water hit the painful area on your body may help ease pain. A hot tub is a good way to relax stiff muscles -- and it's enjoyable. (Avoid hot tubs or spas if you have high blood pressure, heart disease, or are pregnant.)
Massages in addition to the above treatments are also a great way to reduce pain. Gentle stretching and vibrations can loosen those stiff muscles. Remember, with “RA” your joints are less mobile, which makes your muscles work double time. Massage eases muscles tension and also increases circulation, which removes any debris or toxins that might be surrounding that area. It is not advised, to physically massage the affected joint but light strokes in the surrounding area can be a very pleasurable experience for a person in constant pain.
If you suffer from “RA” or know someone who does and would like further information on how to reduce the pain or to book your session, please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or text 786-459-2486.
