Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths


Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.


All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.


Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.


"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.


"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.


"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.


But some are pretty interesting.


Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.


That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.


Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:


—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.


—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.


—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.


—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.


—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.


—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.


Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.


"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.


___


Online:


Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html


New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street opens flat after mixed data


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened flat on Thursday as economic data continued to paint a mixed picture of the economy and as investors sifted through a host of corporate earnings reports.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 16.05 points, or 0.12 percent, at 13,894.37. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 1.81 points, or 0.12 percent, at 1,500.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 0.55 points, or 0.02 percent, at 3,141.75.


(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)



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IHT Rendezvous: Europeans Dismantle People-Smuggling Ring

LONDON — European police said on Wednesday that they had dismantled a criminal network that smuggled illegal migrants into the European Union, arresting more than 100 suspects across the Continent, from France to the Balkans.

The network smuggled people principally from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Turkey.

Europol, a joint law enforcement agency set up to fight serious crime in the 27-member Union, said 117 house searches had been carried out in operations in the early hours of Tuesday morning that involved more than 1,200 police officers.

The latest crackdown on people-smugglers highlighted a chronic problem for European authorities as would-be migrants, desperate to escape poverty and conflict in their home countries, put their fate in the hands of organized criminal gangs to take a well-worn route via Turkey and the Balkans.

Interpol says the traffic is a high-profit, low-risk enterprise for transnational criminal syndicates.

“People smuggling syndicates are drawn by the huge profits that can be made, while benefiting from weak legislation and the relatively low risk of detection, prosecution and arrest,” according to the international police organization.

The International Organization for Migration (I.O.M.) said in a 2011 report that the activity earns organized crime groups an estimated $3 to $10 billion a year worldwide.

Europol described this week’s action as one of the largest coordinated efforts against people smugglers at a European level. It was also the latest indication that countries are pooling resources to fight international organized crime gangs.

Police and migration experts say there is a difference between people-smuggling, in which would-be migrants voluntarily pay to illegally cross transnational borders, and people-trafficking, which involves the criminal exploitation of duped or unwilling victims.

“Smuggling implies the procurement of irregular entry into a state of which the individual is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident, for financial or material gain,” according to the I.O.M. “Trafficking, on the other hand, occurs for the purpose of exploitation, often involving forced labor and prostitution.”

However, that may turn out to be a fine distinction for would-be illegal migrants who face abuse at the hands of the crime gangs.

Europol said migrants were often smuggled in inhuman and dangerous conditions in small hidden compartments in the floor of buses or trucks, in freight trains or on boats.

Gangs operating on the so-called West Balkans smuggling route have proved to be innovative and flexible in the face of increased international cooperation to tackle the trade.

Greek police broke up a smuggling network in 2007 that was transporting Albanian migrants across a dangerous mountain route. The smugglers then switched to alternative routes via Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia to Italy, Hungary and Slovenia.

The main destinations of the illegal migrants are France, Britain, Spain, Italy and Belgium. The raids this week involved operations in France and Germany as well as eastern Europe and Turkey.

Europol reported 103 arrests and said cell phones, computers, cash and a semi-automatic rifle with a large amount of ammunition were among the items seized.

In November, British immigration officers arrested eight suspects in an alleged criminal network suspected of helping Iranian migrants reach Britain from mainland Europe. That followed a joint investigation with Spain’s Guardia Civil that led to 11 other arrests in Madrid and Alicante.

Although the illegal immigrants may be traveling willingly in the search of a better life, people-smuggling is not a victimless crime.

The I.O.M. said in its 2011 report: “Numerous other crimes are oftentimes linked to people smuggling – human trafficking, identity fraud, corruption and money laundering – creating shadow governance systems that undercut the rule of law.”

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Facebook slumps as mobile ad growth fails to impress






(Reuters) – Shares of Facebook Inc were set to open 7 percent lower on Thursday as a surge in fourth-quarter mobile advertising revenue failed to live up to Wall Street’s high expectations.


Three brokerages downgraded the stock of the No. 1 social network, which has struggled to develop a full-fledged mobile advertising business.






Facebook has long established itself as one of the most important websites, but investors have worried that until the company’s mobile advertising strategy takes off, revenue growth will remain shaky.


The company reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday and said its mobile advertising revenue doubled to $ 306 million, suggesting it was making inroads into handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets.


Investors were looking for at least $ 350 million in mobile advertising revenue, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a note to clients.


“While the trajectory of mobile growth may not be as steep as some investors were hoping, the theme of mobile as the future of Facebook remains intact,” he said.


BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon, who downgraded the stock to “market perform” from “outperform”, however said Facebook’s 2013 stock performance would not be dictated by its ability to generate mobile ad dollars.


He said new catalysts were necessary to drive Facebook’s stock price up.


Facebook’s stock, which has lost over a quarter of its value since its botched debut in May, were down at $ 29.08 in premarket trading. The shares closed at $ 31.24 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.


(Reporting by Neha Alawadhi in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)


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Kate's Perfect Nose Inspires Women to Have Plastic Surgery









01/30/2013 at 10:00 AM EST







Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge


REX USA; AFP/Getty; REX USA


The dresses she wears fly off the shelves. Her hair is the envy of women around the world. And she's even helped boost sales of hosiery in the U.K.

So is it any wonder that women also want Kate's nose?

British plastic surgeons say requests for the Duchess of Cambridge's "near perfect" and petite nose have tripled since 2011, according to the Daily Mail, which has interviewed several women who said having a similar eye-catching royal profile was exactly the look they sought as they underwent rhinoplasty.

"Her nose is straight with a cute, rounded tip and is perfectly in proportion to her face," plastic surgeon Maurizio Persico said. "This gives Kate an attractive and striking profile."

"Plus, she always looks happy and confident in photos, which is especially appealing to women whose own appearance makes them unhappy – those who feel self-conscious about larger or crooked noses, which they believe dominate their faces," Persico added.

According to psychologist Carmen Lefevre, who studies facial attributes and behavior at the University of St. Andrews, it's not just because Kate's a princess that her nose inspires envy.

"The symmetry of Kate's nose, the angle between her lip and the tip of her nose and the minimal amount of nostril on show, are all near-perfect," Lefevre told the paper.

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent


BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.


Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.


Wounded by a roadside bomb in 2009, the former soldier said he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.


"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital.


Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.


That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.


"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."


Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could eventually provide much of the same function as his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.


Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."


Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.


Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.


Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."


The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.


"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.


For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.


The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.


Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.


The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.


"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."


Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.


A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.


"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.


He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.


Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.


And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.


"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.


Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.


Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.


"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.


His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."


"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."


___


Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.


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Wall Street edges higher, Amazon offsets GDP

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were flat on Wednesday as an unexpectedly weak read on fourth-quarter economic activity was offset by strong results at Boeing and Amazon.com.


Equities continued to shrug off negative news, with the S&P 500 staying above 1,500, a level that market technicians call an inflection point that will determine the overall direction in the near term.


The first read showed gross domestic product fell 0.1 percent, far below expectations for growth of 1.1 percent. However, private sector employment topped forecasts, with the ADP National Employment report showing 192,000 jobs added in January, higher than the 165,000 expectation.


"The GDP report is the only negative shock we've had in a while, and it isn't terrible since it showed increases in business and consumer spending, which is what everyone wants to drive growth from here," said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.


Deeper losses were prevented by a rise in both Boeing Co and Amazon.com Inc , which rallied after earnings beat expectations, continuing a trend this quarter of high-profile names advancing after results.


Amazon.com Inc rose 6.7 percent to $277.87 a day after reporting strong revenue growth. Boeing rose 0.5 percent to $74 after its results. The Dow component also said that while production continued on its Dreamliner jet, which has had technical problems recently, it was suspending delivery until clearance was granted by the Federal Aviation Administration.


Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 174 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 68.4 percent have been above analyst expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 5.50 points, or 0.04 percent, at 13,959.92. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.09 points, or 0.07 percent, at 1,508.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 5.73 points, or 0.18 percent, at 3,159.39.


The S&P 500 is on track to post its best monthly performance since October 2011 as investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record.


The Dow Jones industrial average has been flirting with 14,000, a level it hasn't seen since October 2007. Many analysts have said markets may need to take a pause.


"I'm neutral on markets at these levels, even though there aren't a lot of negatives out there," Frederick said. "At some point there will be a pullback, but the underlying trends remain strong and I think it is possible the S&P could hit a new all-time high sometime this quarter."


The all-time intraday high for the S&P 500 is 1,576.09, reached October 11, 2007.


The Federal Reserve concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday, and while the central bank is expected to keep monetary policy on a steady path, intensive debates continue behind the scenes over when the controversial bond-buying program should be curtailed.


Chesapeake Energy Corp rose 11 percent to $21.11 as the S&P's biggest percentage gainer, a day after saying Aubrey McClendon would step down as chief executive after a year in which a series of Reuters investigations triggered civil and criminal probes of the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer.


(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)



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IHT Rendezvous: Mali's Culture War: The Fate of the Timbuktu Manuscripts

LONDON — Scholars are urgently trying to determine the fate of a treasure store of ancient manuscripts in the city of Timbuktu.

As French-led forces consolidated their hold on northern Mali, international scholars feared the worst: that retreating Islamic militants had torched the Ahmed Baba Institute, home to 30,000 priceless items of scholarship dating back to the 13th century.

But many volumes may have escaped destruction by being hidden from fundamentalist forces that seized the north last year. The militants launched a campaign to eradicate historic vestiges of a medieval Muslim civilization that they deemed un-Islamic.

South African researchers involved in a project to preserve the Timbuktu manuscripts have had word that most of the treasures survived in private libraries and secure locations.

Mohamed Mathee of the University of Johannesburg told eNews Channel Africa, “It seems most of the manuscripts are OK. These manuscripts are with families and are safe.”

National Geographic News quoted Sidi Ahmed, a reporter who fled Timbuktu during its occupation, as saying: “The people here have long memories. They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe.”

Whatever the fate of the city’s ancient texts, the French intervention came too late to save some of the city’s most valued monuments, including centuries-old shrines of Sufi saints demolished by the Islamists during their nine-month rule.

It was part of a culture war that they waged to impose Sharia law after their capture of the north. The strict Sunni Salafists reject the worship of saints that is part of the Shia and Sufi tradition.

When UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, placed Timbuktu on its list of endangered world heritage sites after the Islamist takeover, Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for the Ansar Dine militants, responded: “We are subject to religion and not to international opinion.”

Elsewhere in North Africa, militants have attacked Sufi shrines as well as remnants of the region’s pre-Islamic past.

Radical Islamists were blamed last October for the destruction of stone carvings in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains that were more than 8,000 years old and depicted the sun as a pagan divinity.

Their destruction was reminiscent to that of the Buddhist statues of Bamiyan, which were dynamited out of existence in 2001 by the Afghan Taliban despite appeals from fellow Muslims.

Such seemingly wanton acts of religiously inspired vandalism are not, of course, confined to Islamic fundamentalists, as my colleague Barbara Crossette wrote at the time.

“Certainly it evoked the religious triumphalism that plagues a broad swath of the world, from China to the Balkans,” she wrote, “the destruction of centuries-old mosques by Hindus at Ayodhya or by Serbs in Bosnia, or the assaults on heritage that defy peace itself in Jerusalem.”

From the Crusades to the conquest of the Americas, a militant Catholic Church also displayed a predilection for eradicating the artifacts of pagans and religious rivals alike. In the 17th century English Civil War, iconoclastic Puritans hacked down the statues of churches and cathedrals.

Recent events in Mali have highlighted how today’s ideological wars are fought with more than just weapons.

The Timbuktu manuscripts, which include texts on religion, medicine and mathematics, had been treasured by local families but largely neglected by the outside world until the end of French colonial rule in 1960.

That changed dramatically in recent years as rival African powers sought to use culture in their campaigns for influence in the region.

As my colleague Lydia Polgreen wrote from Timbuktu in 2007, both South Africa and the Libya of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi were involved in efforts to revive the fortunes of the ancient city and its artifacts.

The South African initiative involved building a new library for the Ahmed Baba Institute, while Libya planned to build a luxurious 100-room resort to hold academic and religious conferences.

Charities and governments from Europe, the United States and the Middle East also poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into transforming the city’s family libraries.

“Timbuktu’s new seekers have a variety of motives,” she wrote. “South Africa and Libya are vying for influence on the African stage, each promoting its vision of a resurgent Africa.”

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Yandex puts mobile app blocked by Facebook on hold






MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian internet company Yandex has put an experimental application that allows users to search social networking sites from mobile devices on hold after it was blocked by Facebook.


Facebook, which launched its own search tool earlier this month, blocked the Wonder app three hours after its launch on January 24 for U.S. users.






The application allows users to look for recommendations on, for example, music or restaurants based on information from their friends on social network sites.


Facebook believes Wonder violates its policies, which state that no data obtained from Facebook can be used in any search engine without the company’s written permission, Yandex said on Wednesday, adding access to Facebook would not be restored.


“Since this access was revoked, we decided to put our application on hold for the time being,” the Russian firm said, adding it would consider partnership with other social networks and services.


Existing Wonder users are still able to search in Instagram, Foursquare and Twitter, a Yandex spokeswoman said, but marketing and further development of the application is on hold.


(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Mark Potter)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Levi and Jenny McClendon Welcome Ninth Child















01/29/2013 at 10:00 AM EST



Jenny McClendon is in seventh heaven!

The former Raising Sextuplets welcomed her seventh child recently – a baby boy named Cash Allen McClendon.

"An unbelievable gift.... Beyond words!!!!" McClendon wrote on Facebook. "Meet Cash Allen McClendon ... 8lbs 0 oz. ... 20.75 in. ...12:28 p.m. Thank you Lord for the miracle of life!!"

McClendon, who went by Jenny Masche before her split with ex-husband Bryan Masche, father of the sextuplets, is actually raising nine kids now. Last March she married her longtime beau Levi McClendon, who has two children of his own.

Jenny, mother to 5-year-old sextuplets Savannah, Bailey, Grant, Cole, Molli and Blake, always wanted a baby with Levi – and she announced this past November that she was pregnant.

"Levi and I are trying to gear up and imagine what life is going to be like in our already busy household with a newborn," she wrote at the time.

"In my head I think, 'This is going to be so easy, it's only one!' However, I imagine that even this one is going to give us some sleepless nights and an even crazier household."

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