Real Health Summer 2013 by Smart + Strong

REALHEALTH YOUR GUIDE TO BLACK WELLNESS

Actress

Holly Robinson Peete Reveals A Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fears For Her Autistic Son

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Shopping Solutions To Fix Bad Eating Habits

Play Mind Games With Brain Teasers

Sext Message 4 Parents Talk 2 Your Kids

Cute Shoes Can Hurt Health

CONTENTS

Say What You Think

Doctors have been debating whether physical attraction to kids should be classified as a sexual orientation. What’s your opinion on the subject?

editor’s letter

buzz

Health Basics A—Z

Want to lose weight, exercise smart, eat right, find good health care, boost nutrition, sleep better or just get healthy? For tips, click on “Health Basics A–Z” on the realhealthmag.com home page.

Of Vital Importance

Blogger Rhonda Peters is supporting efforts to raise awareness about autism in the black community.

Real Health Advice

When women who are 40 and older choose to become mothers, doctors suggest they consider assisted reproductive techniques for the best pregnancy outcome.

Digital Real Health

Read Real Health magazine online exactly as it appears in print. Go to realhealthmag.com/ digital to view the current issue and the entire Smart + Strong digital library.

26 felt compelled to become an advocate for all autistic kids

Brain mapping possibilities

The HIV numbers game; engineers and researchers team up against the virus; targeted therapies take aim at hepatitis C; parents on HPV vaccines for boys; cute shoes can be cruel to your feet

fitness

sex

Try water workouts to get fit; how to avoid overtraining

When women are incarcerated, the effect it has on their physical and mental health is a real crime.

tropical flava

hair science

thoughts

Married couples, housework and sexplay; Ask Your Family Doctor

14 COVER STORY

called to action

prison politics, pt. 2

Why actress Holly Robinson Peete

Coconut oil was a health culprit for many years, until some nutritionists began looking at this saturated fat and how the body breaks down the nutty, fragrant oil.

There’s a lot of research that goes into creating the stuff we lavish on our hair. Plus: Stuff We Love

Gray matters: How head games can help boost cognitive abilities

Contributor Question of the Month

What do you think about President Obama’s $100 million initiative to map the brain in unprecedented detail?

The president’s investment in the BRAIN initiative is a bold plan for discovery, but it’s simply too early to form opinions about its potential success or failure. — Claire Herring Cofounder, DaisyBrains.com

reach out & click!

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this month on REALHEALTHMAG.COM

EDITOR’S LETTER

What’s On Your Mind?

hen I first heard about President Obama’s BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative, I was intrigued. The president described the $100 million research effort as a way “to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind.” One of the goals is to study the many incurable diseases—such as Alzheimer’s and autism—rooted in abnormal developments in the brain. The initiative hopes to develop new tools that will be able to map the human brain. These tools will accomplish this by detecting nerve cell interactions and tracing the path of human thoughts, behaviors and functions as they travel along the brain’s complex network of circuits. If this sounds ambitious, it is. The project stirred up controversy even before the president officially announced the initiative’s goals. The research would be costly, critics said. Is it worth the price tag? What about guidelines to measure success and failure, others asked. Indeed, none were in place, and plans weren’t as yet clearly laid out for “scientific milestones, goals, timetables and deliverables.” These were words from Francis Collins, MD, PhD, the director of the National Institutes of Health and the man whom President Obama put in charge of the initiative. In science, this initiative is what’s called “transformative” research. It is the

REAL HEALTH EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Kate Ferguson MANAGING EDITOR

Jennifer Morton COPY EDITOR

Trenton Straube INTERNS

Shanita Ealey, Casey Halter ART DIRECTOR

Mark Robinson ART PRODUCTION MANAGER

Michael Halliday PUBLISHED BY

Smart + Strong Publishers of POZ and POZ.com PRESIDENT AND COO

Ian Anderson

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER

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Jonathan Gaskell

DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

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CDM PUBLISHING LLC

Jeremy Grayzel, CEO ADVISORY EDITOR

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ADVISORY BOARD

Lee SaintMartin, MS, IIPA, CN, ND, naturopath; Goulda Downer, PhD, RD, CNS, and Nutrition Services, Inc.; Yuan Wan, licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine; Dr. Rachael Ross, MD, PhD, sexologist; Lovell Harris, MD, internist; Terrie Williams, mental health advocate; Xavier Artis, campaign creator, Stay Strong: Healing Starts With Us (HSWU)

Here’s to your health,

JOAN LOBIS BROWN

Issue No. 34. Copyright © 2013 CDM Publishing LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. If you are an individual or organization and would like to subscribe to Real Health, go to real healthmag.com or call 800.973.2376. Send feedback on this issue to info@ realhealthmag.com or Real Health, c/o Smart + Strong, 462 Seventh Ave., 19th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Smart + Strong® is a registered trademark of CDM Publishing, LLC.

kind of high-risk, high-stakes inquiry that has huge potential for a big payoff in the expansion of scientific knowledge, new ways of looking at illnesses and the potential to develop innovative technologies that might someday solve current health problems. My fascination with brain mapping focuses on the possibility of a cure for Alzheimer’s, a degenerative disease that progressively destroys memory and other important mental functions. I watched this common cause of dementia—a group of brain disorders that results in the loss of intellectual and social skills—relentlessly steal away the quality of my mother’s last few years of life. Her memory blurred and faded, dulling her mental functions until she seemed unaware of her surroundings. She’d become a shell of her former self and hardly spoke to my siblings and me. Even her speech had changed. Her previously vibrant voice was replaced by a hoarse, raspy monotone in which she delivered flat, one-word answers accompanied by a dull stare from eyes that sent no visuals to stimulate her brain. If brain mapping is a way to learn more about Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, then let’s get going on this research. I suspect many other people with loved ones affected by brain-related illnesses would agree with me. On page 14, actress Holly Robinson Peete recounts her struggles in accepting the diagnosis that her son, now a teenager, is autistic. In the process, she began speaking out for all families dealing with this issue. Until we understand such diseases better and can find cures for them, such support and advocacy can be a lifeline. At the very least, brain mapping offers a possibility of hope, perhaps where there was none before.

Kate Ferguson, Editor-in-Chief katef@realhealthmag.com

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SUMMER 2013 REAL HEALTH 5

BUZZ

Better Health Within Your Reach

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Can product placement at grocery stores help fix our bad eating habits? alk into practically any neighborhood supermarket and think about how the store is laid out. Have you ever wondered why the easiest items to find are the sodas, cakes, chips and other snack foods? The reason is simple. Despite expanding shoppers’ waistlines, these unhealthy junk foods push supermarket revenues sky high. A number of studies on food shopping habits have found that people grab what’s available—and the more of the product that there is, the more folks will reach for it. And this is even more the case when the product is at eye level. “So a store manager who wants to maximize profits knows instinctively to assign more shelf space to items for which he has a higher profit margin,” say doctors Tom Farley and Deborah A. Cohen in their book Prescription for a Healthy Nation: A New Approach to Improving Our Lives by Fixing Our Everyday World. Farley is currently the health commissioner of New York City, and Cohen is a natural scientist at the RAND Corporation where she studies how social and

physical structures in the environment influence health. When people buy food at a grocery store on impulse, they tend to eat it pretty quickly. This means if a store manager can increase snack food sales by “stacking a big end-aisle display, or moving it from the bottom shelf to eye level, as a group we consume much more of that product,” say Farley and Cohen. “If that product also happens to be bad for us—like Coke or potato chips—his reallocation of shelf space just made us unhealthier.” But is the food industry really to blame for your bad eating habits? Industry trade groups as well as consumers argue that people are responsible for what they eat. In fact, one trade group, while countering a plan in New York City to reverse diabetes, said that it’s not fair to expect the food industry to deprive people of what they want— and that no food by itself causes obesity. Junk Farley and Cohen food sells when don’t buy that argument. placed They say that shelf space up front. accessibility is a power-

ful influence. The two cite a marketing study that showed store managers could increase sales of lettuce and tomatoes, apples and oranges, as well as squash and eggplant just by doubling the amount of shelf space allotted to these fruits and veggies. It’s not just the location of items on store shelves that matters. The location of the stores themselves—how convenient they are to get to—can influence people’s health. For example, the authors point out that neighborhoods with more bars, liquor shops and grocery stores selling alcohol tend to have more car crashes, violence and sexually transmitted infections. The message, say Farley and Cohen, isn’t as simple as telling people what to eat or not to eat. Health behaviors are built upon people consuming or doing things that are either good for their health or not. Just minor changes “in the number of places that sell certain products, the way they are sold, the times they are sold, or the price at which they are sold,” say these authors, can make a major difference in how healthy we all are.

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S U M M E R 2 0 1 3 R E A L H E A LT H 9

BUZZ PARTNERSHIP POWER

Still a Numbers Game

What the latest HIV transmission stats really mean for some young folks The fact that fewer black women are contracting HIV, as noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is good news. But there’s still cause for alarm. HIV rates are increasing among young black men who have sex with men (MSM). “It is clear that our nation’s prevention efforts are not reaching those that most desperately need them,” says Kali Lindsey, director of legislative and public affairs for the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC). “We will never successfully realize an AIDS-free generation while our young people face such high rates of infection, especially young gay and bisexual men.” Lindsey feels the government must do more to ensure everyone, especially gay and transgender youth, has access to “culturally sensitive comprehensive sexual health services and education.” Other HIV health professionals echo these thoughts, especially those who believe that age-appropriate HIV prevention education should also be introduced in schools. According to a CDC report, 46 percent of high school

1,800,000 1 0 R E A L H E A LT H S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

students are sexually active and yet our nation’s secondary schools fail to adequately tackle the issues of birth control, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Educating kids in grades 6 through 8 about these topics is particularly important, the CDC says, because most students in these grades haven’t become sexually active. This information might help them avoid risky behaviors that could result in these problems. And it could also kill the misconceptions many kids still have about HIV. Michael Ruppal, the HIV executive director of positive? The AIDS Institute, Don’t hide your pain; notes that we have the get help tools and White House ASAP. leadership to stop the virus, but we also need congressional commitment to fund programs to help turn the tide on HIV. “We know it will take some time,” Ruppal says, “but with the proper policies and funding, we can envision an AIDS-free generation.”

HIV research is usually considered an area of expertise for biologists—but not for engineers and physical scientists who ordinarily study physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology. But at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), these professionals are working to develop a vaccine for the virus that’s currently infecting about 34 million people globally. In 2009, Massachusetts General Hospital teamed with MIT and Harvard University to launch the Ragon Institute. The research center routinely enlists engineers and physical scientists to explore different ways of thinking about the virus and its treatment. What’s more, it encourages scientists to develop new methods and technologies for delivering vaccines and reviewing how HIV interacts with the immune system. “It has encouraged people, like the engineers here, to start working in areas that they wouldn’t have worked in otherwise,” says Christopher Love, PhD, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the institute. Using technology he developed to research food allergens, Love is now in hot pursuit of an HIV vaccine. Speciﬁcally, Love searches for biomarkers, or traits, that show which disease-ﬁghting T cells are most adept at killing HIV-infected cells. Other scientists new to HIV are using computer models to zero in on better vaccine targets in cells, such as amino acids. Ain’t teamwork amazing?

NUMBER OF WORLDWIDE AIDS-RELATED DEATHS IN 2010. Source: AVERT, International HIV and AIDS Charity

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(NUMBERS) DREAMSTIME.COM/BR RAMANA REDDI; (SCIENTIST) DREAMSTIME.COM/HONGQI ZHANG

Unlikely scientists unite to take aim at the virus.

BUZZ

GIVE ’EM THE BOOT

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Cute but painful shoes can harm more than your feet. Each foot has 26 bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments, 19 muscles, nearly 200,000 nerve endings and countless blood vessels. Why then do so many people jam or strap their feet into killer shoes that wreak such havoc on this key body part? Sky-high heels, too-low flats, arch-less flip-flops and pointy or wrong-sized shoes can cause deformed toes, painful bumps and bunions, inflamed nerves or bones, torn or overstretched ligaments, even hairline fractures. Fashion victims are primarily the ladies. “Women who routinely wear high heels are putting themselves at risk of permanent physiological damage to their knees, hips, back and tendons,” says Phillip Vasyli, a podiatrist and the founder of Orthaheel, a maker of corrective footwear. David Van Klaveren, co-CEO of Barefooters, who also makes shoes engineered to relieve foot problems, takes the issue one step further: “The other thing about a high-heel shoe is that you’re putting a lot of weight in an unnatural way in the forefoot of the shoe. The feet aren’t designed for that.”

GENDER ISSUES

How do parents feel about HPV vaccinations for boys? Last summer health care experts questioned whether more boys and young men should be encouraged to get vaccinated for human papillomavirus (HPV). The three-dose vaccine is already recommended for girls; however, at about $130 per shot, it’s not exactly cheap. One study concluded that the associated costs outweighed the benefits for boys, but it also said that both genders needed more education about HPV. “The public perception is that this is a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer [in girls] rather than a vaccine that prevents a number of cancers including oropharyngeal [throat cancers], which are quite important in boys and young men,” says Paul A. Offit, MD, a doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This year, Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers conducted a small study on the issue. Scientists informed 120 parents and legal guardians of 11- to 17-year-old boys about HPV vaccination benefits. Researchers found that poor and minority parents favored HPV

THE ESTIMATED NUMBER OF MEN WHO DEVELOP HPV-CAUSED CANCERS EACH YEAR. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

vaccination of boys. (Young men in this population group are more likely to suffer from HPV-related penile, anal and oral cancers.) What’s more, ﬁndings showed that these parents were also more likely than their white counterparts to support school-entry rules that required kids be vaccinated for HPV. Rebecca Perkins, MD, an assistant ob-gyn professor at BUSM, and the study’s lead author, says these ﬁndings show that most parents would accept HPV vaccination for their sons just as readily as for their daughters.

On Target Researchers continue to take aim at finding hep C cures. Researchers are studying two new promising drugs that might be alternatives to the side-effects-loaded drug interferon, which is often used to treat people infected with hepatitis C virus. One med is a combination of two drugs, ABT-450/r and ABT-333. The other is sofosbuvir added to ribavirin (another med doctors currently use). Both combinations are examples of targeted therapies. These therapies are better er because they offer shorter treatment time and fewer side de effects than current treatments, says Fred Poordad, MD, a professor of medicine at the University off Texas Health Science Centerr in San Antonio. We could live with that. hat.

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S U M M E R 2 0 1 3 R E A L H E A LT H 1 1

FITNESS

Splish Splash! Water workouts can be an excellent exercise for anyone.

BURNT OUT?

Don’t let exercise become too much of a good thing. When you train intensely every day and don’t give your body a chance to recover, a lot of bad things can happen. The most common problem is fatigue. And it’s no surprise that your muscles might remain sore and your likelihood of injury increases. But you can also become moody and depressed, your sleep patterns can become disrupted, you might get sick more often, and you can lose the desire and enthusiasm for exercising. Believe it or not, the way to build a better body is to get the rest you need. When you don’t include sufﬁcient downtime in your training program, your body can’t recover and rebuild itself into a harder, stronger, more efﬁcient machine. Isn’t that your goal? To avoid overtraining, follow these

THE NUMBER OF PUBLIC SWIMMING POOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. Source: The Association of Pool & Spa Professionals

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tips: Reduce training frequency, get more sleep, boost your calorie intake to help your body recover faster, change up your workouts, and maintain relationships that help keep your life in balance.

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When people think of waterbased exercise, swimming usually comes to mind. But that’s just a drop in the bucket. There’s also walking or running under water and water aerobics classes. According to the Aquatic Exercise Association, you can expect to burn 400 to 500 calories per hour when exercising in the water. Also, water offers 12 times the resistance of air, which helps strengthen muscles. Boost the resistance and intensity of pool exercises by adding handheld paddles, kickboards, foam noodles and rings to your aquatic workout. And when you’re done, stay in the pool. It’s a great place to do stretches to improve ﬂexibility. It’s easy to jump into a water-based exercise program—you don’t need fancy equipment or previous training. Check with your local health club or recreation center for details. And remember, many centers require a physician’s approval before they permit you to dive into the pool.

SEX Ask Your Family Doctor Rachael L. Ross, MD, PhD, a.k.a. Dr. Rachael answers your questions.

How can parents explain the pitfalls of sexting to kids?

DOING THE DIRTY DISHES

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How couples divide the housework may boost their sexplay. After years together, many married couples complain that their sex lives fizzle. But research has found that some couples enjoy sex more often. Their secret? It turns out that these couples divvy up the housework along traditional gender lines—with men paying the bills, handling yard work and maintaining the car while wives cooked, cleaned and shopped for the home. Couples who shared the housework load equally enjoyed sex less often. For the study, which was published in the American Sociological Review, researchers at the University of Washington mined data from a national survey of about 4,500 U.S. heterosexual married couples from 1992 to 1994. “In particular, it seems that the gender identities husbands and wives express through the chores they do also help structure sexual behavior,” says Julie Brines, PhD, an associate professor at the university. But guys: Don’t think this is an excuse for you not to do “women’s work.” As another university researcher warned, this could increase domestic conflicts and make women less satisfied being married. “Marriage today isn’t what it was 30 or 40 years ago,” Brines sums up, “but there are some things that remain important. Sex and housework are still key aspects of sharing a life, and both are related to marital satisfaction and how spouses express their gender identity.” Now, who’s going to clean up that mess in the living room?

The percent of married men who are more likely than their single counterparts to say they’re very satisﬁed with their sex lives.

One of the hardest lessons to learn is the concept of permanence, and this is the biggest teaching point when it comes to sexting. Kids sext to have fun, to ﬂirt, to feel sexy and to conform to peer pressure. But the biggest danger sexting entails doesn’t come from the fact that someone took a risqué picture or wrote a sexually explicit message. After all, kids will be kids, and past generations did the same thing—only with pen and paper or Polaroid cameras. The problem with sexting arises when the image or sext is sent to one intended recipient and somehow gets forwarded to and seen by hundreds or thousands of other people— many of whom aren’t even teens—and it remains public forever. According to statistics, 71 percent of teen girls and 67 percent of teen boys admit they have sent or posted sexually suggestive content. Sexting can ruin your child’s reputation and self-concept. In fact, many teens confess that sexting ruined their lives. My advice for parents? Take time to discuss the long-term consequences of sexting with your kids and set rules and boundaries about what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate text messaging. What’s more, parents should be prepared to conﬁ scate their children’s phones if necessary.

Source: 2012 Esquire Sex Survey

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S U M M E R 2 0 1 3 R E A L H E A LT H 1 3

CALLED TO ACTION After Holly Robinson Peete discovered firsthand the challenges facing parents of autistic children, she jumped headlong into advocacy. By Kate Ferguson

When Holly Robinson Peete’s son Rodney Jr., a.k.a. RJ, was about

2 years old, he ceased making eye contact. Then he stopped responding to his name and no longer communicated with his twin sister, Ryan. At first, Peete (an actress with roles on the popular TV shows 21 Jump Street and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper) and her husband, Rodney (an NFL quarterback), thought their son had hearing issues, so they had his ears tested. Doctors said his hearing was fine. Then a few months later, they noticed some dramatic changes in behavior. In addition, his development stalled. That’s when the couple knew something was terribly wrong. RJ was diagnosed with autism, a disorder that affects the brain’s normal development of social and communication skills. As Peete tells Real Health, the events that followed molded her into a fierce activist for autistic children everywhere. Her HollyRod Foundation provides tablet computers and specially designed apps to autistic children, and Peete is planning The HollyRod Autism Network at California State University at Northridge, which will connect families with autistic children to resources and support services. ➤

When Holly Robinson Peete and her husband found out their son was autistic, their biggest hurdle was accepting the diagnosis.

When you got the diagnosis that your son had autism, how did you and your husband react? We were devastated. We didn’t know how to handle it. This was almost 13 years ago. I know that doesn’t sound like a very long time, but there was no one out talking about autism. There were no spokespeople telling you it’s going to be OK. There weren’t a whole lot of resources, and it took a while for us to lift our heads after that one. At that time, how much did you know about autism? I knew nothing about autism except for what I’d seen in the media, which was basically Dustin Hoffman in a film [1988’s Rain Man]. And I had no friends, no people around me who I knew were affected. It just wasn’t on my radar.

say he was diagnosed with classic symptoms of autism. What were some of the biggest hurdles faced by you and other family members? The biggest hurdle was for my husband and me to accept the diagnosis and figure out how to process it. Ther e wer e so m a ny quest ion s: Wher e shou ld we put h i m i n school? What kind of therapy would he get? How do we deal with our daughter in this situation? There were a lot of things to consider, but schooling concerns were probably the second biggest hurdle. But for families facing an autism diagnosis, usually, the main issue is denial. You’re in such a state of shock that doctors have given you this diagnos i s, a nd t he n you’r e told m a ny times—certainly in our case—that your child will never do so many

wherever we needed to, but we still saw hurdles and barriers and had to work through red tape and a lot of bureaucracy. We still got turned down by schools, so even though we had the resources and the wherew it h a l, we st i l l faced plent y of issues. That was one of the reasons why, later on, we knew we had to speak out for other families. If you don’t have resources, there is so little that you can do, and that makes it so much more difficult. That’s when we knew we had to help other families navigate this journey. What concerns do you have about the misconceptions or lack of understanding that people have about autism? I have many concerns, and they’ve changed over the years from when my son was 3 and [we were dealing with] having friendships and the

“NOW THAT MY SON IS 14, PROBABLY MY BIGGEST ISSUE IS HOW IS HE GOING TO FUNCTION IN SOCIETY AS A YOUNG AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALE.”

Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning there are varying levels of impairment. What is your son’s precise diagnosis? Well, honestly, I’d rather not share exactly what the diagnosis is. Saying what my son’s diagnosis is invites too much speculation as to what he’s doing now. I don’t want to give parents too much false hope. My son has done some amazing things. Basically, I can say that he was diagnosed with autism and there were some other things that he was diagnosed with as well at the time. But I’d prefer to just 1 6 R E A L H E A LT H S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

things. Then you have to process all that and juxtapose what you hear against all the dreams that you have for your child. We had to line up this diagnosis with how we thought our son was going to be. This can be really difficult. But every parent is different; every parent has access to different resources. How difficult was it for you and your husband to get the correct help for RJ? Here’s the thing. We had resources. We cou ld pret t y much ta ke h i m

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social stigma of being out. It has included people saying, “Can’t you cont rol you r ch ild?” when you r child is having sensory issues in public, in the supermarket, on the a i r pla ne — t hose i nc ident s h ave been dif f icult. Now t hat he’s 14, probably my biggest issue is how is he going to function in society as a young African-American male. Is he going to be able to recognize certain signs if he gets stopped by a police officer? What he should do, what he shouldn’t do? He’s quirky. He doesn’t

COURTESY OF HOLLY ROBINSON PEETE

From left: Ryan Elizabeth Peete, Rodney Peete Sr., Robinson James Peete, Rodney James Peete Jr. (“RJ”), Holly Robinson Peete, Roman Peete and the family’s dogs

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process t hings like most typical kids. That’s my latest fear as you can imagine, especially with incidents like what happened to Trayvon Martin [the black youth shot to death in Florida by a neighborhood safety officer]. I envision my son having just got finished walking to Coffee Bean—that’s his favorite thing to do in the neighborhood—and I panic when he goes. I don’t want to take away his independence, and I don’t want to drive the car alongside him. But I want him to be able to do the right thing in case he gets stopped by the cops, or if he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, or t hey’re chasing someone who looks like him. Last July, 50 Cent tweeted some disparaging words about autistic kids. What exactly went through your mind when you read it? I’ve met 50 Cent before, and I know he’s brighter than that. I knew that this was an innocuous statement and that he wasn’t really trying to insult an entire community. But I don’t think he really realized that by cappin’ on somebody—“Fool, you look autistic”—that he realized what he was doing. Often, people in influential situations underestimate their impact. So all I wanted to do was A.) Have him take down the tweet, and B.) Really recognize that he had a teaching moment and the opportunity to help the country [understand this condition]. We’re not going to let “autistic” be the new “R” word—and we’re not going to bra nd t hat as being some kind of bust on somebody. That wa s my goa l. I never asked for him to apologize. Other autism parents took the reins to ask h i m, “What do you mea n, What does autism look like?” And that started a movement with hash tagging on Twitter. [Search the topic as #Th isIsWhat Aut ism Look sLi ke.] People wer e send i ng 50 Cent pictures of their kids, so he really got a good ta ste of t he lobby i ng power of fa m i l ies w it h aut ist ic kids. We’re very powerful and protective of our children. We’re talking about 1 in 88 kids and 1 in 54 boys who have autism. I

think it just gets overlooked sometimes, and talk about the misconceptions—there are so many children on the spectrum. And they’re not getting the funding, they’re not getting the attention, it’s disproportionate to the prevalence, so his remark did present a great opportunity to educate t he public. I t ried ot her routes to get to him, a nd when I wasn’t able to, it was an opportunity to publicly say, you know what, this was not OK. I thought he handled it well, and his apology was really lovely and very evolved, and I was happy about that. I’ll be honest, I was more upset about something that happened after that. Joe Scarborough [radio and TV host of the program Morning Joe and a former politician], who has not apologized, made an inference that the man who went on that murderous rampage in C olo r ado h ad aut i s m . Wit h no knowledge [of the shooter’s background] and as a journalist, he stood on this platform and [backed up his viewpoint by saying], “Well, I have a son with Asperger’s.” And that made it more of a crime for me—that he was a pa rent and would say t hat people with autism can act out in some crazy premeditated homicidal rage. That’s just not true. When I read about that, I said, “Oh my God, now we’ve got one more [stigmatizing myth to overcome]: that kids with autism grow up to be violent homicidal maniacs. Maybe 50 Cent isn’t as connected with autism in his world, but this is a man who has an autistic son. Sounds like this really bothered you. When it’s a parent who needs to be schooled, that is really tragic. To me, that means he’s just not thinking, and he still hasn’t really understood how his statement might put in people’s m i nd s t h at c h i ld r en w it h autism could grow up—or young adults with autism who are lonely a nd socially discon nected—a nd this is something that they could do. There are so many other medical a nd mental disorders t hat could contribute to something like this, so this is not another stigma that we need to fight. ■

SENSORY STUDIES Scientists may have found a new way to detect autism in children—by looking at their brain activity. The most common way to check a child for autism is with special behavioral tests. But neuroscientists may have developed a way to detect the condition by evaluating kids’ brain activity, according to findings in the online journal PLOS ONE. For the study, researchers fitted 19 children—nine with autism spectrum disorder and 10 without—with sensors that tracked the activity of each child’s cortex, a region of the brain. The sensors recorded how different regions of the brain interacted with each other while at rest. Then scientists compared the brain interactions of the control group (the children without autism) with the brain interactions of kids with the condition. The results? Kids with autism had a significantly stronger connection between their rear and frontal brain areas compared with the kids who weren’t autistic. Researchers also detected a patterned flow of information to the frontal brain region but not the rear region of the children with autism. In addition, brain analysis sensors were able to measure magnetic fields generated by electrical currents in brain cells. Scientists found that this data could then reliably detect autism spectrum disorder with 94 percent accuracy. These findings are promising because they may help identify abnormalities in the brains of autistic kids. The discovery could also lead to new tools that complement the existing behavioral diagnostic tests for autism. The study’s lead researcher, Roberto Fernández Galán, PhD, says, “We asked the question, ‘Can you distinguish an autistic brain from a non-autistic brain simply by looking at the patterns of neural activity?’ and indeed, you can.”

CRIME & PUNISHMENT INCARCERATION DOES MORE THAN FORCE FEMALE PRISONERS TO SERVE TIME BEHIND BARS. IT ALSO DAMAGES THEIR PHYSICAL HEALTH AND MENTAL WELL-BEING. BY KATE FERGUSON

uring a little more t h a n 14 ye a r s i n pr i son, L au r a Wh ite hor n w it nessed f i rst ha nd how prison conditions can wreak h avo c w it h a wom a n’s h e a lt h . Whitehorn was arrested when she w a s 40; s ub se quent ly, s he w a s moved all over the country, spending time in almost half a dozen U.S. correctional facilities, including a federal institution in Lexington, Kentucky. While incarcerated she reached t he conclusion t hat t he term “prison health care” is an oxymoron. “There’s no such thing as health care in prison,” she says. “It’s

br oug ht bac k a nd st r ipped a nd sea rched aga in. Mea nwhile, t he whole time she’s completely ill and vomiting and can’t eat. This treatment made t he cond it ion muc h harder to heal.” Where gender and race converge is reflected in a report by Beth Richie, PhD, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, that explores the link between violence against women and women’s involvement in illegal activity. R ichie’s resea rch documents how the escalating incarceration rates of black women are related to issues of domestic or intimate v iolence, sex ua l assault, sex ua l harassment, stalking and sexual exploitat ion. “Unt il now, violence against women of color and against women in low-income communities a nd t heir involvement in illegal activity have been considered inde-

more, women who report or complain about the harassment and assaults may face further humiliation and abuse by correctional officials seeking revenge. “There a re all forms of sexual abuse that go on in women’s prisons because whenever you have men, many of whom are not particularly well-trained, who are in a position of power over women, there’s a barter system that goes on,” Whitehorn says. “There’s a lot of enforced sexual contact t hat isn’t penet ration—I also know about cases where women were forced to reveal their bodies to the male guards.” But the sexual abuse often goes much further. “I remember that in Michigan a few years ago, there was a huge spate of prison rapes of the women by the guards,” Whitehorn says. “It’s a matter of the power dy-

basically whatever [prisons] can provide without, in their eyes, jeopardizing their own security.” When Whitehorn was incarcerated at a prison in Dublin, California, a friend of hers at the facility developed lung cancer and wasn’t diagnosed for a very long time. “Every time she would have these terrible coughs, she would go to sick call a nd t hey wou ld g ive her coug h medicine or some kind of cold remedy,” Whitehorn says. “They would say she had the f lu and never did any further investigation until her illness was so far along that there was rea lly no hope of a cu re, or even any hope of extending her life. She had to get chemotherapy every day, and every time she was taken o u t o f l o c k u p, s h e w a s s t r ip searched and had to put on a different u n ifor m to go out. She’d be shackled hand and foot, driven out, 2 0 R E A L H E A LT H S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

pendently,” Richie wrote. She added that few researchers have explored how these two topics are related.

ut there are links. Many women who enter the prison system a re su r v ivors of sex ua l or physical abuse. While incarcerated, they’re placed in a situation that can recall that previous abuse. Prisons are typified by an intrinsic power imbalance between inmates and guards. Some prison guards apply direct a nd indirect physical force against the women, including “rape and other sexual assault, sexual extortion and groping during b o d y s e a r c h e s ,” a c c o r d i n g t o Amnesty International USA, a huma n rights orga nization. What’s

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namic in the [guard-inmate] relationship. Even in city jails, a lot of times women who have no way of gett ing t h ings, like ciga rettes— when it was still permitted to smoke in prisons—women would trade sex for ciga rettes f rom g ua rds. A nd d r ugs, t h at’s t he big gest t h i ng; guards would bring in drugs in exchange for sex.”

exual and reproductive health issues play a major role in inca rcerated women’s a nd g i rl s’ l iv e s . B e h i nd b a r s these issues are often ignored or attended to in insensitive, insulting ways that can harm women’s physical and mental health. “There’s a lot of stress for pregnant women,

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Many women in the prison system are survivors of sexual or physical abuse. Incarceration often recalls that previous abuse, especially when the intrinsic power imbalance between inmates and guards results in them being victimized once again.

and that creates health problems i n t he f ut u r e for t hei r bod ies,” Whitehorn says. “Then, there’s the fact that there’s no respect for when women are having their periods, when they might need some extra food or some extra care or something. In most places, you have to go to a guard to ask for a sanitary napk i n. I n some places, women have to turn in a dirty napkin to get a clean one, so the whole cycle of being a woman is turned into cause for shame and suffering.”

omen with fibroids have an especially tough time. If there is poor patient advocacy, women in jail are often subject to unnecessary hysterectomies for fibroid conditions. “I went through that process,” Whitehor n says. “I had pretty serious fibroids, and they wanted to do a hysterectomy on me. But because I had so many resources and friends on the street who did research for me, I found out there was a way of removing my fibroids microscopically without doing a hysterectomy. Someone I didn’t know but heard about had a simila r situat ion in

prison, and they did a hysterectomy on her. She was just 30.” An acquaintance of Whitehorn’s, Mer c ede s Sm it h, a 48 -ye a r - old mother of four, served 20 years in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York State. When she was first incarcerated, Smith was pregnant with her youngest son, Kadeem. After Smith went into labor, officers transported her out of the facility in shackles on the ride from jail to the hospital. Only when she got to the medical facility, did police unshackle her. Still, t hey snapped handcuffs onto her wrists and attached the metal bracelets to a bed rail. That’s the condition in which she gave birt h to her son. Like many pregnant women at such a critical time in the delivery process, Smit h was in excr uciating pain. She couldn’t understand why police thought it was necessary to keep her restrained and where they thought she was going in so much pain. But Smith is not alone. For hundreds of pregnant women who give bir t h in jail each yea r, t his treatment is routine. Today, in the United States, 32 st ates st i l l r eser ve t he r ig ht to shackle pregnant women to their hospital beds during delivery. The in hu ma ne pract ice goes aga inst federal law that says shackling is

unconstitutional, but states follow their own laws—and officers sometimes ignore even the state laws forbidding shackling. Smith is an outreach specialist for WORT H ( Wo m e n O n Th e R i s e Telling HerStory), an association of formerly incarcerated women who are actively working to change policies and laws that affect the health of women in prison; they hope to eliminate the obstacles inside and outside jails that impede prisoners’ access to medical care and services that keep them and their families healthy. Ti na Rey nold s, WORT H’s co founder, also went into labor while she was incarcerated. She was shackled and handcuffed—and her shackled feet were only set free moments before she gave birth to her son in the hospital. “After I gave birth to him, the shackles went back on and the handcuffs stayed on while I held my son to my chest,” she recalls. But Reynolds had a bittersweet moment years later when, in 2009, because of her efforts and those of the other women at WORTH, she saw New York become the seventh state to limit the shackling of incarcerated women during the birth and delivery of their children. There’s much more to be done, however, to make facilities accountable for the overall health of female inmates. ■

FEMALE TROUBLES

Amnesty International reviews three of the most prevalent physical and mental health issues that threaten women behind bars. Sexual abuse Because male officers have almost unlimited authority to supervise female inmates at all times, women are, essentially, powerless and at high risk of abuse. Women who complain about sexual assault and harassment often suffer from retaliation from male correctional officials. Guards wield almost unlimited power in prison and can threaten inmates’ children, withhold visitation rights or place prisoners in solitary confinement. These actions tend to keep female inmates quiet about abuses

such as rape, sexual assault and extortion as well as groping during body searches. In addition, because of ineffective complaint procedures, prison officials often aren’t held accountable for their actions.

Inadequate reproductive health care In 1994, the National Institute of Corrections stated that the gynecological services available for women in prison were inadequate. Only half of the state prison systems surveyed offered specific services for women, such as mammo-

grams and Pap smears, and often there’s a long wait to be seen.

Shackling during pregnancy Shackling of pregnant prisoners is policy in federal prisons as well as the U.S. Marshall Service and almost all state prisons. Reports document that shackling during labor may cause complications during delivery such as hemorrhage or decreased fetal heart rate. If a caesarian section is needed, a delay of even five minutes may result in permanent brain damage to the baby.

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COCONUT

FLAVA

Until recently, coconut oil was demonized because of its high amount of saturated fat. Turns out, not all saturated fats are equal. And now, more nutritionists regard the tasty oil as a good-for-you food. By Constance Brown-Riggs

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hen Sa ra h Dw yer replaced vegetable oil with extra virgin coconut oil last w inter, t he benefits were profound. She immediately lost five pounds—the five that had been lingering for the past year— and yet her energy level increased, a nd she was no longer ravenous between daily meals. Sarah is a vegetarian and a big fan of all things coconut. She can’t wait for her toast with coconut oil spread on it every morning. “I use a tablespoon of coconut oil for sautéing veggies or in beans and even in my grits,” she says. Sarah also drinks coconut water a nd coconut m il k, uses coconut creamer in her morning coffee and, on occasion, indulges in coconut-

Meanwhile, food manufacturers and restaurants were encouraged— and regulated in some cities like New York—to avoid using hydrogenated oils with trans fat. So they began experimenting with coconut oil. It isn’t animal-based; it’s solid at room temperature like hydrogenated oil; and it gives piecrust and other baked goods the f laky texture we love. Soon coconut oil began showing up in recipes for bread, granola, muffins and even ice cream. Despite its sat-fat content, coconut oil got a pass because it’s different f rom ot her satu rated fats. About half the sat fat in coconut oil is a type called lauric acid. Proponents of coconut oil say lau r ic acid, a medium chain triglyceride (MCT), can boost HDL “good” cholesterol levels, making it neutral in terms of

pared to its potential to raise the risk for heart disease.” However, the experts agree that when sol id f at s a r e needed you should use only products f ree of trans fats, and that in general you should t ry to keep your t rans-fat intake as low as possible. And while the health benefits of coconut oil have yet to be fully supported by scientific evidence, in the context of a healt hy, calorie-bala nced diet, there is room for coconut oil.

COCONUT COMPARISON

Today, store shelves are lined with a variety of coconut oil, but when it comes to healthy cooking they are not all created equal. Richard A. Amster, assistant professor and chef instructor at Suffolk County Commu n it y Col lege’s Cu l i na r y A r t s Center in Riverhead, New York, has experimented wit h coconut oil. He says, “Choos ing the right product will provide oil w it h t he most health benefits, best a roma a nd clea nest flavor.” Here’s a short and sweet primer: Organic: This refers to the way in wh ic h t he co conut s a r e g r ow n. Orga nic coconut oil is f ree f rom genet ica lly mod if ied or ga n isms (GMOs) and pesticides. Amster suggests that if a label claims the product is organic, you should also look for the seal of a certifying organizat ion l i k e E c o c e r t to en s u r e t he claim is valid. “Without a certifying agency the term [organic] loses credibility,” he says. Extra virgin or virgin: There is no real difference between ext ra virgin and virgin coconut oil. Both are made from the first pressing of fresh, raw coconut meat and conta i n no added coconut f lavor or scent. “This is the purest form of the oil and presents with the freshest flavor and aroma and provides the greatest health benefit to t he consumer,” Amster says. Cold-pressed: This is the process of oil extraction where coconut milk is extracted at a low temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The coconut

infused dark chocolate. But could all that coconut be good? In the 1970s, research found that the increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease in the United States was directly related to a high intake of fat—particularly saturated fat, the type that’s in animal foods like meat, la rd a nd butter, as well as coconut, palm and palm kernel oils. So we revamped our recipes, subst it ut i ng hea r t-hea lt hy fat s li ke margarine and corn oil. And food companies, yielding to consumer demand for healthy options, manufactured low-fat and fat-free versions of our favorite goodies. But then we learned that the margarine and other hydrogenated vegetable oils have “trans fat”—which acts like saturated fat, raising cholesterol levels and clogging arteries. A s a r e s u lt , h e a lt h aut ho r it ie s ad vised us to ditch the margarine and start using heart-healthy olive oil and canola oil. Eventually, food compa n ies a nd r est au r a nt s followed suit. 2 4 R E A L H E A LT H S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

heart disease. MCTs are handled by the body more like carbohydrates than fats. They are easily absorbed, d igested a nd ut il ized a s ener g y rather than stored as fat. That’s why Sarah lost weight and her energy level increased. And because coconut oil is plant-based, it may actually contain many antioxidants and ot her substa nces t hat ca n a f fect health in positive ways. But not a l l ex per t s ag ree t hat coconut oil is a magic potion. Janet Brill, PhD, a specialist in cardiovascular disease prevention and author of several books including Prevent a Second Heart Attack, believes that the saturated fat in coconut oil is just as problematic as the sat fat in animal products. “This is because in coconut oil, the lauric acid also comes packaged in with palmitic and myristic acids. Myristic acid is the most cholesterolemic fatty acid, meaning one that dramatically raises blood cholesterol levels,” she says. “If coconut oil has any positive effect on health it is modest com-

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Some experts point to a lack of scientific evidence about coconut oil’s benefits, while others say it’s a good energy source that’s easily absorbed.

milk is then allowed to stand for two days, which is when the fat separates a nd r i ses to t he top b efor e it i s poured off to produce extra virgin or virgin oil. Experts say coconut oil that is cold-pressed retains more of its natural coconut flavor. Ref ined: The term refers to the heavily mechanical and chemical process of extracting oil from coconut meat. The chemicals involved in the refining process include hexane, lye a nd ot her ha rsh chemicals— wh ic h of c ou r se me a n s r ef i ned coconut oil is not organic. Another downside is t hat refined oils a re often hydrogenated—the process of adding hydrogen to make liquid fat more solid at room temperatu re. Hydrogenated coconut oil contains trans fat. Amster says refined oils have less of an aroma and coconut flavor. In fact, refined oils may actually come from dried or rancid coconut meat. These lower quality oils can tolerate slightly higher cooking temperatures than virgin coconut oil.

COOKING WITH COCONUT OIL

All oils have a smoke point—t he temperature at which the oil turns i n t o a v a p o r, l o s e s f l a v o r a n d becomes u nsuitable for cook ing. Coconut oil’s smoke point is usually lower t ha n t he more com mon cook i n g oi l s l i k e c a nol a, ol ive, corn and peanut oils. “This means that it may be less suitable for sauautéi ng, wh ich depends on h ig h heat,” notes Amster. ter. r. You won’t be able to pa n or deep f at f r y w it h

coconut oi l eit her; bot h requ i re very high temperatures—but you can use it for roasting. If you’re new to coconut oil, you’ll be surprised to find it doesn’t have an overwhelming coconut taste like many coconut-flavored beverages, ca ndies or ba ked goods. Orga nic extra virgin cold-pressed coconut oil has a pure, clean and light coconut a roma a nd f lavor. A mster cook s omelets and sweats onions in coconut oil without any lingering coconut flavor. He says chocolate chip cookies and muffins also bake well with just a hint of residual coconut flavor, which complements the other ingredients in his baked goods. Roasting vegetables and brushing a whole chicken wit h melted coconut oil result in a product with a surprisingly clean flavor and just a hint of coconut, he adds.

USING YOUR COCONUT

So should you switch to the tropical oil? Emerging research reinforces the fact that natural ingredients are safer than highly processed ingredients. Unrefined coconut oil is natural, trans-fat free and has been used in tropical countries and around the world for years. If you choose to use coconut oil, do so in moderation. Organic, extra virgin, ccold-pressed ld-pressed coconut oil is no matter t hee purest. Remember, n what form of fat you eat, oil contabletains over 100 calories per table spoon—so limit your intake of this food if you’re counting calories. ■

Open-Faced Apple Tart This yummy dessert is full of coconut flava. 2½ cups pastry flour ¼ cup sugar ¾ cup coconut oil 1 large egg yolk 3 oz. ice-cold water 1 tsp salt 3 medium Granny Smith apples ½ cup sugar 1 tbsp cinnamon 1 cup raisins 1 egg ¼ cup crystal sugar Mix to combine the flour, sugar and salt. Break the coconut oil into walnutsized pieces and mix into the flour until the mixture looks like small peas. Add in the ice-cold water and mix to form a rough-looking dough. Knead on a work surface until a smooth dough is formed. Form into a log, 2 to 3 inches in diameter. Allow the dough to rest, wrapped and refrigerated. While the dough is resting, peel, core and cut the apples into 1-inch pieces. Mix with the raisins, cinnamon and sugar. Portion the dough into quarters and roll each portion into a circle 7 inches in diameter. Place a quarter of the fruit mixture into the center of each circle of dough and fold the edges of the dough up over the fruit, leaving the center of the tart exposed. Whisk the egg and brush each tart with the egg wash, sprinkle with the wi crystal sugar and bake at 375° until cry golden and the fruit has softened, gold approximately 15–20 minutes. appro

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delight is chock full of This coconutty coc calories, so you’ll want to satisfy your sweet tooth too with one-half tart. analysis per half tart serving: Nutrient ana 375; total fat: 16 grams; Calories: 375 saturated fat: 13 grams; cholesterol: 50 mg; sodium: sodium 190 mg; protein: 4 59 grams. grams; carbohydrate: carbohyd Makes 6 tarts. Recipe R Rec ipe courtesy of Amster. chef Richard A. Ams

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(POGUE) DUSTIN FENSTERMACHER; (CHILDREN) COURTESY OF ERIC POGUE

What happens to hair-care ingredients before they get bottled and sold? RH goes behind the scenes.

(POGUE) DUSTIN FENSTERMACHER; (CHILDREN) COURTESY OF ERIC POGUE

By Gerrie E. Summers

S U M M E R 2 0 1 3 R E A L H E A LT H 2 7

Hair research begins with an idea that addresses a consumer need and a company’s desire to expand a particular product category, explains Robinson, “What happens is either marketing or research and development (R&D) recognizes that there’s a consumer need for a new product.” Enter the company chemists. “There are different types of roles a chemist plays within a company,” Robinson continues. “There are chemists who do purely research. They study the science behind different ingredients and raw materials. Then, there are those who actually work to formulate a product. They are the ones responsible for combining ingredients in the right ratio that creates the final product a company launches in the marketplace. Finally, there are chemists who do both. I did a little bit of both, but mostly I worked on the formulating part. I was responsible for putting the actual ingredients together in the right ratio and the right concentration to create a finished product.” To do this, a chemist researches plants and other ingredients that when combined produces results that address specific hair issues. “The job of the chemist is to understand all the different ingredients out there and how to combine them, what percentage needs to be combined or could be mixed to create a product that is going to deliver some sort of performance or action.” Hair product scientists work in a typical laboratory setting: Picture them in white lab coats and goggles standing in front of counters with numerous jars of ingredients, along with test tubes and microscopes to study hair strands and the effects of these ingredients. On tables and countertops you’ll find devices to heat up and mix products, plus balances and scales to measure and weigh ingredients and then formulate them in the right percentages. What’s more, there are stability testing areas where scientists examine products to make sure they have an adequate shelf life. “We subject them to high temperatures and store them there for X amount of weeks,” Robinson says. In addition, hair chemists try to anticipate what conditions a product might be subjected to by consumers. “If you have a product that is left in your car on a hot summer [day] and you leave it there and you go back and try to use it after taking it out of the car,” Robinson says, “we make sure to test [to make sure] it will still be intact and effective.” Robinson says that it can take a lot of trial and error to create the most effective product. “I might make hundreds of different formulas of a product I’m trying to develop, to find the exact one that is going to have the right look, feel and smell, and that works when a consumer uses it,” Robinson says. This means that the bottle of shampoo you just purchased might have 18 ingredients that chemists carefully picked and evaluated for texture, fragrance, safety and performance, as well as for their ability to shine, strengthen or detangle your hair. But what’s even more amazing is that all those hair scientists’ work just gets washed down the drain! ■ 2 8 R E A L H E A LT H S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

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Hair Properties Believe-it-or-not facts about those precious strands ■

■

Healthy wet hair can be stretched up to 30 percent of its dry length without damage. It will return to its original length when dry. A single strand of hair can hold 3 ounces of weight. A lock of hair consisting of 100 strands can hold 22 pounds. An average head of hair (about 150,000 strands) can hold 12 tons. (Of course we can’t say the same thing for your scalp!) Strength and elasticity depend on the shape of the hair. African hair is the most fragile, breaking under a strain of 60 grams (2.11 ounces) after being stretched up to 40 percent. In a normal healthy hair shaft, the cuticle covering the cortex (the central shaft) is intact, making it nearly waterproof. Chemical treatments are made to penetrate the hair’s cortex in order to react with the keratin inside. Increasing temperature or applying an alkaline lotion separates the scales of the cuticle just enough to let the chemicals pass through. After chemical processing is finished, cuticle scales gradually close again. When over-processed, the cuticle scales lose their tightness and lead to over-porous hair. That means water can pass in and out of the cortex, weakening the hair. Hair gets electrically charged after coming in contact with different materials, such as brush fibers. Here’s a quick fix: Break out the moisturizing shampoo and conditioner!

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Wh at do oes a typiccal h air producc t go t hrough befo ore it’’s pu ut on storee sh helv ves? Fo or the answer, R ea a l Hee alth h spok k e w ith R on R obinss on, an i n d e pen n den n t coss mett ic ch h emiss t who o is the foun nder and CEO of BeeauttySttat.com m. As a former c heem ist forr s uch pree stii gio o us compaa nies as Clin n iquee, Reevlon, Lan ncô ômee and Estée Lauder, Rob binson n haas deveelopeed hun ndred ds of prroducts.

A roundup of the latest, must-have finds for hair, skin, health and beauty. These products are worth every cent.

John Masters Organics SPF 30 Natural Mineral Sunscreen (2 fl. oz., $32) Lavish on this mix of protective moisturizers before you run out to enjoy those hot summer days.

Revita Shampoo and Revita.COR Conditioner (6 oz., $30.95) Premium ingredients make this growth-stimulating combo well-known for fighting hair loss.

Elemental Herbology Cell Plumping Facial Hydrator (50 ml, 1.7 fl. oz., $74) A nutrient-rich daily moisturizer formulated to firm, tone and calm easily irritated skin.

NEUMA neuStyling Blow Dry Lotion (8.5 fl. oz., $24) Sunflower seed and apricot kernel oils combine with sage and rose hips fruit extracts to help protect hair from hot styling tools.

Barefooters (Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s size 5 to 11, $99.95) Slip on these walking shoes designed to naturally strengthen the feet, stretch ligaments and massage tired muscles.

Elemental Herbology SOS Circulation Serum (6.7 fl. oz., $47) This invigorating tonic is loaded with botanicals, astringents and minerals to get skin totally beach-ready.

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S U M M E R 2 0 1 3 R E A L H E A LT H 2 9

THOUGHTS

THE EXPERT SAYS

Doing brain exercises on the computer is just one part of a healthy lifestyle, say DaisyBrains.com cofounders Claire Herring and Gemma Brooks.

Train Your Brain

What exactly is brain training? Simply explained, brain training is the ability of the brain to change and modify neuron (a specialized nerve cell) activity and connections in response to increased demands we make when learning new skills.

Speech-language pathologist Claire Herring urges people to think of the brain as a muscle. A 2011 MIT study suggested that the typical brain can respond to challenges by reorganizing itself and developing new capabilities—not unlike what happens when you work to build muscle at the gym. Herring is the creator of Daisy Brains, cognitive games created to boost women’s memory, as well as problem-solving and creative-thinking skills. “Cognitive abilities, such as reasoning, memory, attention and sensory processing, can be improved with brain training and healthy habits,” Herring explains. “This can lead to more accurate recall, quicker processing and easier learning.” There are many different ways that people can exercise their brains, Herring says. For example, solve the following problem that tests your ability to use deductive reasoning: It is night, and the electricity has gone out. You have a candle, a gasoline lamp and a wood-burning stove. You have only a single match. What do you light first? (Answer: The match.) The way this challenge works is that as you puzzle out the solution to the problem, your brain gets a regenerative workout. “The brain has the ability to continue to develop through all stages of life,” Herring says. That’s why it’s important we challenge it with lots of different kinds of workouts each and every day. The good thing is, you’ll never have to break a sweat.

We Got Game

We felt that there was a void in the market for a product that focused on brain training specifically geared toward women. Women are being diagnosed with various forms of dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease) at a rate of three to one when compared with men. And, during hormonal changes, women often complain about memory loss. DaisyBrains.com was developed to exercise different areas of the brain and provide tips on things that people can do to maintain health. But

Claire Herring and Gemma Brooks saw a void in the marketplace for a product to help people boost their brainpower, so they created DaisyBrains.com. 3 0 R E A L H E A LT H S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

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In what ways can people exercise their brains besides challenging themselves with computer games? Any changes or novel experiences are good for the brain. For example, next week, try driving home from work a different way. Also, experiment with new forms of exercise, or call a friend you haven’t spoken with in years. What everyday activities are good to build cognitive abilities and skills in different areas of your life? Increasing your level of physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your brain. Also, spend time interacting with people. Studies show that staying socially connected is one of the basic components of cognitive health. Join a book club or a professional association, or become a volunteer.

the DaisyBrains.com community also boasts a large number of men. Personally, we complete brain exercises each and every day. Gemma likes to tackle the brain exercises as soon as she wakes up to get her morning started. I prefer to do mine in the middle of the day. As a result, we both feel that we have improved in areas of concentration, memory and deductive reasoning. That’s why we’re confident that DaisyBrains.com can help other people too.

DREAMSTIME.COM/ARTWORK

As research shows: If you don’t use it, you could lose it.

READER SURVEY

SPEAK YOUR MIND!

(And Win Free Stuff)

Despite research that shows people’s use of mobile phones and the Internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks, many people still feel socially isolated. The more isolated people are, the greater their risk of health issues—including early death. This is especially true for the elderly. One reason is that there’s no one else around to observe the worsening symptoms of a disease.

Pressed for time? Try these workouts!

Take the survey below to see how connected you are with other people and the world around you. We’ll select two winners at random whose surveys we receive and send them a ﬁtness DVD (suggested retail price $14.98). For ofﬁcial contest rules, visit realhealthmag.com/survey/rules.

1. Do you have friends whom you keep in touch with at least once a month? ❑ Yes ❑ No

2. Do you have friends you see in person several times each month?

10. Name:_______________________________________________________ 11. Organization (if you represent one):______________________ 12. Street address:_____________________________________________ 13. City & state:_________________________________________________ 14. ZIP code:____________________________________________________ 15. Email:_______________________________________________________ 16. Phone:_____________________________________________________

❑ Yes ❑ No

17. What year were you born?_________

3. Do you have someone special you can talk with for another point of view?

18. What is your gender? ❑ Female

❑ Male

❑ Transgender

❑ Other

❑ Yes ❑ No

4. Have you made any new contacts (friends or otherwise) in the past six months?

19. What is your household income? ❑ Under $15,000

❑ $15,000–$34,999

❑ $35,000–$49,999

❑ $50,000–$74,999

❑ $75,000–$99,999

❑ $100,000 and over

❑ Yes ❑ No

5. Do you belong to any social clubs or groups?

20. What is the highest level of education attained? ❑ Some high school

❑ High school graduate

❑ Some college

❑ Bachelor’s degree or higher

❑ Yes ❑ No

21. What is your ethnicity? ❑ American Indian or Alaska Native

6. Do you use the Internet every day?

❑ Arab or Middle Eastern

❑ Yes

❑ Asian

❑ No

❑ Black or African American ❑ Hispanic or Latino

7. Do you spend time on Facebook or other social media sites?

❑ Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

❑ Yes

❑ Other

❑ White

❑ No

22. Where do you get Real Health? 8. Do you arrange your vacation around whether your destination has Internet service?

❑ I’m a subscriber

❑ Yes

❑ My church

❑ No

❑ A community or college organization

❑ My doctor’s office

❑ Other:_______________________

9. Do you take your laptop, smartphone and other electronics on vacation with you?

23. Do you have Internet access?

❑ Yes

❑ No

Summer 2013

Read the real-life stories of people living with hepatitis C A WWE pro wrestler posts weekly video updates of his treatment progress A young woman born with hep C shares her experiences as she begins treatment An author and health educator gives her perspectives as a patient and as a nurse

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