Facts and Myths About Sunscreen

Not all lotions and sprays are alike, and not everything you thought you knew about protecting your skin from harmful UV rays is true.

Before you stash sunscreen in your beach bag, tennis bag, glove compartment or wherever you keep it for upcoming sunny days, take a minute to check the label to be sure you’re applying ultimate protection. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revised the requirements for sunscreen labeling last year, and the changes take effect this summer. Here’s what you need to know and look for: Broad-spectrum protection. This means the sunscreen protects from both UVA and UVB rays. UVA rays cause skin aging and damage, and UVB rays cause sunburn. Neither is good, so you need to defend your skin against both. Under the new labeling rules, a sunscreen can be labeled “broad-spectrum” only if it protects against both types of harmful rays. No such thing…

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For Your Health

How to Avoid Shingles After Age 50

An FDA-approved vaccine cuts risk of the painful infection by 70 percent.

I wasn't planning to think about shingles all week, but couldn’t avoid it. It started with an email from a close friend saying she had the painful skin rash, which is caused by the varicella-zoster virus. I winced, recalling my own bout of shingles, when I drove to and from work every day, steering with my right hand and holding the seat belt away from my torso with my left, because the pain from having the belt touch the rash on my rib cage was intolerable. A day later, I came across a 2011 Institute of Medicine report on chronic pain.  One of the leading causes? Post-herpetic neuralgia, the nerve pain that sometimes follows shingles, and which can last anywhere from weeks to years. The shingles theme continued the next day when I saw my …

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No Milk Today?

Unless you consume nearly 2 pounds of dairy products daily, you may not be getting enough calcium. But there are alternatives.

Have you eaten your 1.75 pounds of dairy products today? If you’re like most Americans, that’s your share. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans consume 630 pounds of milk, yogurt, cheese and ice cream every year, a number that could increase when the agency updates its report in July. Dairy products, particularly low-fat varieties, can be excellent sources of protein, calcium, and vitamin D. But there are other choices for people who don’t like dairy, follow a vegan diet, or are among the 60 percent of adults worldwide who can’t digest milk products. Plenty of nondairy food sources deliver the calcium you need to help keep your bones strong. How much calcium is enough? If you’re older than 50, you need 1,200 mg of …

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Photos: Sneak Peak of Arts Alive at the Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope gets a taste of the Arts Alive Festival Saturday.

Visitors of the Kaleidoscope got a taste of the Arts Alive Festival during their art event Saturday. Guests heard live music, a violin performance, and saw different styles of arts and crafts and a sneak peak at the talented master street artists. "Mission Viejo community supports and promotes art so much," Aileen May of Dana Point said. Kaleidoscope helps promote the Arts Alive Festival by getting the community into the artist's state of mind, inviting them to take part in murals and sculptures that will be on display at the library, city hall, and the community centers.

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Take a Gut Check

Hints to improve your digestion and your overall health.

Americans feel it in their guts. Poor health, that is; the combined consequences of an unwholesome diet, stress, aging, and not drinking enough water. Every year, more than 90 million Americans seek help from a doctor for gut-related problems such as acid reflux, pancreatitis, gallstones, and irritable bowel syndrome, according to the American College of Gastroenterology. With a few simple and straightforward steps, you can improve your GI tract function, boost your overall health, and perhaps avoid being one of those 90 million in the doctor’s office. Your gut not only digests your food, but is integrally linked to brain function, hormones associated with sleep and thinking, sex drive, the heart, the body’s muscles, and immune function, …

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For Your Health

Tired, Forgetful? Could It Be B12

Can't remember to take your vitamins? A vitamin B12 deficiency may be to blame for your poor memory, poor balance or poor heart health.

Be sure you’re getting enough vitamin B12. The stakes of a B12 deficiency are high as is the rate at which B12 deficiencies go undiagnosed. You need vitamin B12 to form red blood cells, keep your brain sharp, and fuel your energy levels. Vitamin B12 also regulates the level of the amino acid homocysteine in your body. High homocysteine ups your risk for heart disease, so adequate levels of B12 are important for your cardiovascular health, too. With less than the recommended 2.4 mcg daily for adults, the symptoms of low B12 can range from simple fatigue and brain fog to serious changes in vision and balance.  Children need B12, too, between .9 and 1.4 mcg a day, depending on their age. Most of us can get enough B12 from food sources, which …

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Treacy Colbert

6:38 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Check with your doctor if you think you may be deficient in Vitamin B12. If you need a boost of this vitamin, choose a form that you place under your tongue (sublingual). That form provides better absorption.   more ›

Vote: New 'Stooges' vs. Old 'Stooges'

The new "Three Stooges" film opens today about Larry, Moe and Curly, but are you partial to the originals in all of their true slapstick glory? Take our poll below.

I was never a fan of the Three Stooges; I think they were more of a guy thing. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a few favorite episodes including We Want Our Mummy, where The Stooges trek to Cairo to rescue a kidnapped professor and return a priceless mummy, a case that may take them a while to wrap up or Punch Drunk where Moe is a boxing promoter looking for a good fighter. The Stooges Pull a Tooth is pretty funny, too ... And like most folks, I do have a favorite Stooge; it’s Curly because he was so sweet, loveable and was always the scapegoat for cruel Moe’s, finger-poking, nyuk-nyuking and woo-woo-wooing during their many knuckleheaded misadventures. The newest version directed by the Farrelly Brothers stars Sean Hayes, Chris …

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Fundraising Pays for CUSD Core Programs

Capo Unified asks parents to pay for items it should be providing for free.

By Dawn Urbanek Marcus Walton, chief communications officer for Capistrano Unified School District, called and expressed several concerns that the district had with an open letter that I wrote on March 15, printed by Patch. Mr. Walton asked me to clarify my position on a couple of items with which the district took issue. I have already clarified my position on the 63 percent increase in employee compensation over the last 12 years; while at the same time, CUSD has had to cut $98 million dollars from its budget. See LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Teacher Salaries and Change.  I am now going to address the district's concern about the portion of my letter regarding fundraising.  In Mr. Walton's LETTER TO THE EDITOR: CUSD Responds, the district took …

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southcountynative

10:41 pm on Sunday, April 22, 2012

Seems well funded and the teachers took a pay cut so did administration. Teachers met weekly. There are also parent groups working with the students and teachers have freedom to experiment! A good example of finding a solution - luckily it is very cheap to live in either place. Which makes it cost effective to take the cuts. It is most apparent in the lack of strife between the district and its …   more ›

Researchers Fight Dementia at Brain Science Frontier

California researchers develop model of how dementia spreads

Filmmaker James Cameron proclaimed that he had opened a “new frontier” when he reached the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep last month, 200 miles below the surface of the ocean. Quietly and with less fanfare, California researchers have unlocked an important discovery about the human frontier of the brain, detecting new information about how dementia spreads. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco concluded that Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other forms of dementia, may move directly between connected neurons in the brain. The degree of connectedness between a nerve region in the brain and a disease “hot spot,” or epicenter, appears to have the strongest influence on how the degeneration of neurons occurs in people …

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