During his much ballyhooed appearance on ABC’s “The View” President Obama was hit with a gamut of pop culture questions. While he handles most questions with the dexterity of a ninja debate champion he wasn’t going anywhere near the Melt Gibson racist rant debacle.

“I haven’t watched a Mel Gibson movie in a while,” the President answered when asked if Gibson needed anger management.

After Kanye West was railed for picking on Taylor Swift at the VMAs the Pres piled on saying that West  was a “jackass” for his outburst. His opponents had a field day saying that was not “Presidential behavior.” I guess that is why he didn’t want the headache of speaking out on Mad Max, though I really wish he had.

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Common got his S.A.G. card. Baby, he’s an actor.

After appearing in roles in the Steve Carrell/Tina Fey comedy Date Night and starring opposite Queen Latifah in Just Wright, Common is looking to transition from movie roles to television.

The rapper, who is probably making way more loot from these acting roles than for his albums, has been cast in the upcoming AMC network’s television western series “Hell On Wheels.”  Common will portray Elam, a freed half-white, half-black slave in the show which centers around the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.

“Common brings a layered intensity to a very complex role,” said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s VP of programming. “This part required someone who can transcend the stereotypes of the period and bring the character to life in a truly unique way, and he brings that.”

SOURCE

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O Harmony Challenge Results — Episode 1

Don’t miss an encore presentation of TV One’s new series “Donald J. Trump Presents the Ultimate Merger,” Thursday, June 24 at 8:30 PM ET. Omarosa looks for her perfect mate among a cadre of a dozen hot, successful bachelors that she puts through a gauntlet of tests, including R&B star Al B. Sure!

Want a sneak peak? Click on any of the song titles or use the controls in the player below to listen to the album. Then tell us if you think it’s HOT or NOT in our listener poll and post your review in the comments below. Tracks may contain explicit lyrics and content. Listener Discretion Is Advised.

Some inheritances are a curse. I don’t mean your grandmother’s cabinet of porcelain fawns, nor your uncle’s portfolio of watercolor still lifes, nor the 40 years of Model Railroader magazines stowed in the rafters of your dad’s garage. Worse than any of these is the hand-me-down that could be hiding in your genes. No one wants to wind up with the family’s hereditary disease.

Whether it’s diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or heart disease, having a family history of a hereditary disease can cast a shadow over your life. Some folks try to ignore it, others become obsessed with their family’s medical history and genetics. There’s always that uneasy feeling: Will it get me too?

“A history of hereditary disease can cause a lot of anxiety and worry,” says Adel Gilbert, MS, CGC, a genetic counselor at Johns Hopkins University. “It can really affect your quality of life, or even how you live your life.”

I’ve spent most of my life in this gloom. My father died at 43, unexpectedly, of a stroke. And his father died at 64 (heart attack), and his father at 57 (heart attack), and his father at 61 (stroke). So the average age of death for the past four patriarchs of my family is 56 — a lifespan that would be above average for a 19th century coal miner and superb for a Neanderthal. But it’s not so hot for a man of the 20th century, let alone the 21st.

I’d like to beat the odds. I’m 34 now. I’d like to forestall or avoid the cardiovascular disease that felled my forefathers. Not only would I like to surpass the current record of 64 years — I’d like to exceed that life span by decades.

But is that a foolish hope for a guy with my family history? Is an early expiration date already written indelibly in my genes? Are my chances of getting to 80 any better than a mayfly’s? Under the cover of medical journalism, I turned to genetic experts to find out.

Can Genetic Testing Trump Family History?

“I see lots of people who are convinced they’re genetically doomed,” says Carrie Zabel. She’s a genetic counselor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, whose job is to help people better understand their hereditary risks.

It’s no wonder people can feel so hopeless about their DNA. We view genes and genetic testing with superstitious awe. A news report about the discovery of a gene can sound as ominous as the prophecy of an ancient oracle. Genes seem to control everything — our intelligence, our risk for disease, whether we like anchovies. Each breakthrough in genetic medicine seems to erode a bit more of the tiny allotment of free will that we thought we had.

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As a single, busy woman living in New York City, sick wasn’t a part of my vocabulary when I entered the last year of my 20s. Nonetheless, it soon found its way into my life.

It began with a swollen toe joint, which I easily dismissed as a yoga injury. But when the swelling and pain persisted and began to spread to other parts of my body, I knew something was going wrong. After a series of visits with a primary care physician and a lot of blood work, the test results came back in the “strongly positive” category for rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes severe pain and swelling in the joints, along with a host of other fun symptoms like unshakable fatigue and fevers. As a lifelong overachiever, it was the one test I hadn’t wanted to score highly on.

The next six months of my life were probably some of the darkest, most painful ones I have known. I was not prepared for the onslaught of doctor and physical therapy appointments that came my way, or at how quickly my physical condition deteriorated. It had never occurred to me that I might have trouble washing my hair and dressing myself at the age of 29. But most of all, I was unprepared for the emotional fallout of finding out I had something incurable at such a young age. I felt like my life had only just begun, and yet, it felt like it was suddenly going to end horribly wrong.

Many of the books and resources I found at the time did nothing to dissuade these feelings of isolation and doom. Words like disabled and disfigured screamed out from every page, along with statistics about my increased chances for cancer and heart disease.

To top it all off, the advice and case studies seemed to be geared toward women twice my age and assumed that I was married. Suggestions like “having your husband help you carry the groceries” didn’t do me a whole lot of good, given that I was single and living on my own. My independence had been a source of pride for me, but it suddenly felt more like a liability. How was I supposed to get through this all by myself? Though my family was a wonderful support system, they lived far away, and when you are used to doing everything on your own, it’s difficult and humbling to ask friends to help with things like cleaning your bathroom or getting dressed.

What’s more, there was scant advice on issues that pertained to being young and single—and sick—such as navigating the dating world with a chronic illness and thinking further down the line to having a baby one day. How was having rheumatoid arthritis going to impact all the future decisions of my life?

That’s when I decided that if I wanted my story to be out there, and more importantly, if I wanted to find other young women who were facing the same tough reality about their health, I would have to do it myself.

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VIA: REUTERS.COM

(Reuters Health) – People who get plenty of vitamin K from food may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who get less of the vitamin, a new study suggests.

 
Researchers found that among more than 38,000 Dutch adults they followed for a decade, those who got the most vitamin K in their diets were about 20 percent less likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during the study period.

The findings appear to be the first to show a relationship between vitamin K and diabetes risk, and do not prove that the vitamin is the reason for the lower risk, write the researchers, led by Dr. Joline W.J. Beulens of the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Instead, they add, the results should fuel further research into whether vitamin K does play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

It’s estimated that more than 23 million, or nearly 11 percent, of U.S. adults have type 2 diabetes. The most important risk factors for type 2 diabetes include older age, obesity, family history of diabetes and race — with black, Hispanic and Native Americans at higher risk than whites in the U.S. The extent to which specific nutrients in the diet might affect diabetes risk remains unclear.

Vitamin K exists in two natural forms: vitamin K1, or phylloquinone, found largely in green leafy vegetables, as well as some vegetable oils, such as canola and soybean oils; and vitamin K2, or menaquinone, which people get mainly through meat, cheese and eggs.

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VIA: WEBMD.COM

COPD presents 13 million Americans with new challenges and opportunities for better health.

 
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Quiz the average person on the street, and how many could tell you what it is? Would you know that it’s the 4th leading cause of death in the United States? Not likely. But that is one of COPD’s unfortunate claims to fame.

A serious and progressive lung disease diagnosed in more than 13 million Americans, COPD develops when lungs become damaged from smoking and sometimes from heavy exposure to pollution, chemicals, or dusts. Genes may also play a role in the development of the disease.

COPD causes airways to become partially blocked, making it very hard to breathe. You can’t reverse the damage it causes, and COPD has no cure. But you can do many things to slow its progression and live a longer, higher-quality life.

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Via: NIM.NIH.Gov
If you frequent your local grocer, you may have encountered this dilemma while in the produce section–whether or not to buy organic. New research has found that there is no strong evidence that organic products have nutritional health benefits.

The few studies that were conducted were short term and showed to have limitations. In the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Alan D. Dangour and his colleagues write, “A surprising and important finding of this review is the extremely limited nature of the evidence base on this subject, both in terms of the number and quality of studies.”

No information was gathered detailing the long term effects of eating organic foods and the impact on overall health and the environment. But those who buy organic products consume them for other reasons. Organic products are made without the use of conventional pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, antibiotics or hormones. All of which may indeed show to have long-term benefits.

Via: WebMD.Com

As women age, the threat of gaining weight increases. There seems to be a solution to this problem. A new study shows women who are at a healthy weight already and get an hour of moderate activity every day can avoid gaining any unwanted pounds.

A lot of research has been done to show how to loose the weight. According to I-Min Lee, ScD, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, “there’s very little research on preventing weight gain in the first place.” Her study concluded the more active participants were the less likely they were to gain weight.

So, as you age and you want to maintain your weight just incorporate moderate activity in your day to day schedule. Moderate activity does not mean you have to run 10 miles per day. Here are some activities to consider: brisk walking, casual bicycling or ballroom dancing.

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