Beautiful News For Beautiful People

Women are becoming more concerned with their health all the time. They want to lead better lives, look better, feel better, and thrive when times are rough. They are willing to go to extremes, and sometimes they pay a huge price. Now experts are revealing new ways women can win the war and be more beautiful than ever.

When it comes to obesity, the big item discussed this year was Leptin. Experts first discovered a link between this hormone and weight loss in 1994. At that time, researchers were able to help overfed mice stay slim. They figured they could do the same thing with people. All they had to do was inject a little leptin and say good-bye to the pounds. Unfortunately, things didn't work well with humans. Losing weight meant their bodies became stingier with calories. Their bodies also became more efficient at retaining weight. Further testing revealed through scans that brain activity in areas connected to restraint and control diminish after weight loss. When researchers hiked leptin, the areas became more active. This is why scientists feel leptin deserves more study.

Another problem facing women is addiction. This year the American College of Surgeons (ACS) decided to make ER life into something better. They unveiled something called SBI -- screening and brief intervention -- during which counselors conduct brief drug or alcohol interventions immediately. This comes from the belief that emergency settings offer the perfect place to provide wake-up calls to patients who don't yet have acute addictions. These interventions have been shown to decrease a return trip to the trauma or ER center by fifty percent.

If they're not having problems with addiction, women may be having problems with infertility. Studies show that freezing embryos allows couples several in vitro fertilization cycles from the same egg collection. It enables them to hold off for a better time for implantation in a mother who may be undergoing chemotherapy or may have other concerns requiring her to delay pregnancy. A new, landmark study from Denmark found that infants born from frozen embryos have no increased risk of low birth weight, birth defects, or compromised health, compared with those born from "fresh" ones. According to the research, freezing caused no adverse repercussions, and, in fact, the babies born from the frozen embryos weighed more. That's good news for moms and babies.

Women are also very aware of the value of antioxidants. Dark chocolate cocoa powder has up to three times the antioxidants found in green tea. It also has twice the antioxidants in red wine. This is good for your heart. Studies have shown that dark chocolate's polyphenols affect serotonin levels in the brain. That means your mood will get a boost. This year dark chocolate has gained even more support in the medical world. Heart-transplant patients displayed a decreased risk of clogged arteries two hours after consuming forty grams of dark chocolate. In another study, researchers from the University of Illinois found that subjects who ate a 22 gram CocoaVia dark chocolate bar daily for two months lowered their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Research is underway to see if dark chocolate can be used to diminish PMS symptoms. This is sweet news for all of us.

All of this is good news for the average woman, who has enough to think about already. She can hope to get thin, have children when she's ready, fight addictions, and eat dark chocolate. What better way can we start the new year? It's about time we celebrate being women and enjoy the special treats at our disposal.

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