Nearly one in five U.S. women has been a victim of sexual assault, new federal survey finds

Nearly one-fifth of U.S. women have been the victim of a sexual assault at some time in their lives, according to new federal data released Wednesday.

In addition, one in four has been the victim of severe physical violence by a boyfriend or husband, according to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which was conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The survey also found that one in six has experienced a stalking that made her very fearful or believed that someone close to her would be harmed or killed.

The survey also showed that about one man in seven has experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in his life, and one in 19 has experienced a stalking at some point.

Researchers calculated that on average, 24 people are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking every minute. In a year, that translates to more than 12 million women and men. More than 1 million women reported being the victims of a rape or an attempted rape in the 12 months preceding the survey, officials said.

Of women who have been victimized, almost 70 percent experienced some kind of violence from an intimate partner before the age of 25. And about 80 percent of female rape victims were attacked before age 25.

“This report highlights the heavy toll that sexual violence, stalking and intimate-partner violence places on adults in this country,” said Linda Degutis, who heads the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

The results come from a national representative telephone survey of 16,507 U.S. adults and mark the first of what will now become an annual survey of domestic violence.

Advocacy groups said the statistics underscore the severity of the problem.

“The prevalence of sexual and intimate-partner violence is staggering,” said Esta Soler of Futures Without Violence, a San Francisco-based group.

Federal officials said there was no way to directly compare the new data with previous estimates. Scott Berkowitz of the Washington-based Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network said the lifetime estimate of one in five female victims is “very close to previous estimates.”

The estimate of 1.3 million rapes per year is “vastly higher” than other studies, Berkowitz said. For example, he noted that the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, which is much larger, reported about 200,000 sexual assaults per year.

A little time in exercise

One of the best ways to avoid gaining weight during the holiday eating season is to ramp up your exercise regimen.Yeah, right.Chalene Johnson knows it’s hard to squeeze exercise into your December schedule. But she’s convinced that even the most overwhelmed among us can make it happen.

Johnson, creator of TurboFire workout program and author of “Push: 30 Days to Turbocharged Habits, a Bangin’ Body, and the Life You Deserve” (Rodale, 2011), applies “secrets of success” gleaned through observing folks who’ve succeeded in business, marriage and other areas of life to the realm of weight management. Here are her tips for making exercise happen, no matter how busy or tired you are.
Build it into your schedule. Take 10 minutes first thing in the morning or, better yet, the night before to plan. First, schedule the things you absolutely must do, being sure to account for how much time those activities actually will take. Then add your daily exercise. “Treat it with the same dignity and respect you would any other important task,” Johnson says. Make use of the hour before dawn if you can. “Nobody needs you at 5:30 a.m.,” she says. 
Whittle your list. Just for December, give yourself permission to drop a few things to make room for exercise. That could mean not volunteering in your kids’ schools, slowing down on the social media or cutting back on housecleaning. You could also outsource tasks such as gift-wrapping or untangling strands of lights. 

Make your promise public. Telling people you plan to exercise regularly during the holidays makes you accountable. Enlist a friend (“someone who won’t let you slide”) to join you in person or on Facebook. Or get your office mates to agree to a daily lunchtime walk.

Create a “why” list. “Write down all the reasons why you want to make fitness a priority during the holidays,” Johnson says. Post it where you’ll see it every day. Or create it as a note or calendar item on your cellphone so you’ll have it with you all the time.

Dry skin? Moisturize your air.

Got the winter dry-skin blues? Unfortunately, that moisturizer you’ve been slathering on will only help so much.

“Your skin is 70 percent water,” says Robert Greenberg, a dermatologist practicing in Vernon, Conn. And the dry indoor heat this time of year saps the skin of its moisture.

“Your skin becomes dry because it lacks water, not because it lacks oil,” Greenberg says. Using moisturizers and creams doesn’t really help, he says, unless you apply them right after your shower or bath (or after washing your hands), when you have lots of water in your skin. Moisturizers act as a barrier against evaporating lots of water, but the effectiveness is temporary.

So, is drinking more water the solution? Greenberg says no, adding that dry skin is not a sign of overall dehydration.

The best way to combat dry skin in winter, Greenberg offers, is to “try to change the environment by putting more moisture in the air. Houseplants with lots of water, a humidifier, a pan of water on top of the wood stove” can help a room feel more like summer, he says.

 

Even low levels of alcohol boost breast cancer risk......

Even indulging in just a few drinks a week raises a woman’s risk of breast cancer, according to a large Harvard study released Tuesday.

The analysis of data collected from nearly 106,000 nurses over 28 years found that those who imbibed as sparingly as three to six glasses of wine or any other alcoholic drink per week were slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than teetotalers.

Although doctors have long known that women who drank more than about one drink a day were more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, the new analysis marks the first clear evidence that even those who consume that amount or less are at increased risk.

“What is novel about our study is we had enough power to ask the question at lower levels of alcohol consumption,” said Wendy Y. Chen, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. “We found a significantly increased risk starting at three to six drinks a week.”

The findings are the latest seemingly head-spinning medical advice about alcohol. For years, doctors advised that women could safely consume about a drink a day, which could be healthful by reducing their risk for heart attacks. Men could get away with two. More than that has long been known to have more risks than benefits, especially for breast cancer among women. Scientists believe alcohol can cause breast cancer by hiking estrogen levels.

Many experts urged caution, however, about overreacting to the new findings. The slight increased risk for breast cancer from such low alcohol consumption was probably still outweighed for many women by the reduction in the risk for heart attacks, which by far kills more women than breast cancer.

“I’m sure a lot of women will be thinking, ‘They told me last week a glass a wine was good for me. Now, they’re saying it will raise my risk for breast cancer,’” said Steven A. Narod of the Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. “I would not want the average woman who is enjoying one, two, three drinks a week feeling guilty of negligence. At the level of one drink a day, I don’t think it’s a problem.”

But Chen and others said the new findings should prompt women to individually calculate their risks and benefits of alcohol consumption.

“You need to weigh the benefits that would come for cardiovascular disease against possible increased in breast cancer risk. We know that low levels of consumption do appear to be good in terms of heart health,” said Louise Brinton of the National Cancer Institute. “It’s a personal decision.”

For the study, Chen and her colleagues analyzed data collected from 105,986 women ages 30 to 55 who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study, an ongoing project scrutinizing a host of women’s health issues, between 1980 and 2008.

A total of 7,690 of the women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Those who consumed a low level of alcohol — between about 5 and 10 grams a day, which works out to about three to six glasses of wine a week — were 15 percent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer.

The risk appeared to increase by 10 percent with each 10 grams of alcohol intake per day, which is about the amount of alcohol in a single drink. Those who consumed at least 30 grams of alcohol a day on average — at least two drinks a day — had a 51 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared to those who abstained. It didn’t matter whether it was beer, wine, scotch, vodka, gin or any other alcohol. Those who drank less than about three drinks a week had no increased risk. Binge drinking was also associated with an increased risk.

Chen noted that it was the average lifetime consumption that was key.

“Let’s say you usually hardly have a drink but you are on vacation and have one glass a day on vacation, that’s not a problem,” Chen said. “That’s an important thing to emphasize — it’s not just what people do in the short term but their cumulative intake over time.”

While alcohol consumption after menopause appeared to increase the risk more than drinking earlier in life, the overall average lifetime consumption appeared to be the most important, Chen said.

“Let’s say you have someone who didn’t drink at all when they were younger. Now they can drink more. Those who drank more when they were young, they should think about cutting back,” she said.

Why supplements and why nutrilite?

REVOLUTION IN WELLNESS

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Immense growth to be achieved by wellness Industries.......

In the next five years, the Corporate Wellness Services industry will continue to thrive, according to latest report from IBISWorld, the nation’s largest publisher of industry market research and statistics. With higher corporate profit, incidence of adult obesity and healthcare costs, corporations will seek out this industry's participants to help educate their employees and reduce expenses. From 2011 to 2016, industry revenue is forecast to increase at an average annual rate of 9.8% to $2.9 billion. In 2012 specifically, industry revenue will grow an estimated 8.4% to $2.0 billion. During the year, healthcare costs will continue to increase, and effected firms will look for efficient ways to improve their profit margins. For this reason, industry research firm IBISWorld has added a report on the Corporate Wellness Services industry to its growing Wellness Services report collection.

The Corporate Wellness industry includes companies that primarily provide workplace programs that offer a combination of educational, organizational and environmental activities designed to support behavior that is conducive to the health of employees in a business and their families. According to IBISWorld, the industry’s major player, HealthFitness Corporation (Insight, JobFit, Empowered), provides integrated health-, fitness- and condition-management services for employees and individuals. This does not include programs designed internally by existing human resources personnel. The Corporate Wellness industry has experienced strong growth and is expected to prosper in the years to come. Corporate wellness services provide workplace programs to help corporations improve the health of their employees. As healthcare costs rose and discounts were implemented for employees participating in wellness programs, more corporations demanded services from corporate wellness providers. As such, in the five years to 2011, industry revenue is expected to increase an average 4.3% per year to $1.8 billion. An increase in corporate profit and a decline in Americans' overall health also helped boost revenue in the past five years. In 2011, IBISWorld estimates industry revenue grew 7.0% as corporate profit improved further by 8.5%, allowing more corporations to afford this industry's services.

According to IBISWorla analyst, Mary Nanfelt, from 2011 to 2016, industry revenue is projected to grow an average 9.8% per year to $2.9 billion. Similar to the previous five years, “corporations will continue to desire ways to cut rising healthcare costs, and corporate wellness programs will still be the most effective option,” says Nanfelt. Firms will also want to increase their employees' productivity. For example, research shows that obese workers tend to be less productive and miss more days of work on average. So in order to improve the overall health of employees, more firms will hire industry services. This demand, however, will be slightly offset by external competition, such as from gym memberships that companies buy for their employees or from more internal wellness programs coordinated by HR staff. These options tend to be less expensive and will take away some business from the Corporate Wellness Services industry.

How Brain Training Can Make You Significantly Smarter

As many people hit middle age, they often start to notice that their memory and mental clarity are not what they used to be. We suddenly can't remember where we put the keys just a moment ago, or an old acquaintance's name, or the name of an old band we used to love. As the brain fades, we euphemistically refer to these occurrences as "senior moments."

While seemingly innocent, this loss of mental focus can potentially have a detrimental impact on our professional, social, and personal wellbeing.

It happens to most of us, but is it inevitable?

Neuroscientists are increasingly showing that there's actually a lot that can be done. It turns that the brain needs exercise in much the same way our muscles do, and the right mental workouts can significantly improve our basic cognitive functions. Thinking is essentially a process of making neural connections in the brain. To a certain extent, our ability to excel in making the neural connections that drive intelligence is inherited. However, because these connections are made through effort and practice, scientists believe that intelligence can expand and fluctuate according to mental effort.

Now, a new San Francisco Web-based company has taken it a step further and developed the first "brain training program" designed to actually help people improve and regain their mental sharpness. Called Lumosity, it was designed by some of the leading experts in neuroscience and cognitive psychology from Stanford University.

Lumosity, is far more than an online place to exercise your mental skills. That's because they have integrated these exercises into a Web-based program that allows you to systematically improve your memory and attention skills. The program keeps track of your progress and provides detailed feedback on your performance and improvement. Most importantly, it constantly modifies and enhances the games you play to build on the strengths you are developing--much like an effective exercise routine requires you to increase resistance and vary your muscle use.

Does it work?

Apparently it does. In randomized, controlled clinical trials Lumosity was shown to significantly improve basic cognitive functions. One study showed students improved their scores on math tests by 34 percent after using Lumosity for six weeks, significantly greater gains than those made by other students in the same class, who were not training with the Lumosity program.

The company says its users have reported clearer and quicker thinking, improved memory for names, numbers, directions, increased alertness and awareness, elevated mood, and better concentration at work or while driving.

While many of the games at Lumosity are free, a modest subscription fee is required to use the full program over the long term.

However, Lumosity is currently offering a free trial of their program to new users so that you can see how well it works before you decide to subscribe. The trial is completely free (no credit card required) and the company believes the results will speak for themselves.