The Checkup: December 19, 2010 - December 25, 2010

Is that right? Santa should shed 50?

I would say that suggesting Santa lose 50 pounds this soon before Christmas is risky business. But that didn't stop about 60 of 100 U.S. physicians recently surveyed in a "Holiday Healthcare survey" conducted by the big Asian bank CLSA.

By Jennifer LaRue Huget  | December 24, 2010; 7:00 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (1)
Categories:  Cardiovascular Health, Family Health, General Health, Is That Right?, Nutrition and Fitness, Obesity, Weight loss, heart failure  
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Pro-vegetarian PCRM names worst cookbooks of 2010

Sorry, Trisha Yearwood and Gordon Ramsay. Too bad, Ina Garten. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine doesn't like the way you cook.

By Jennifer LaRue Huget  | December 23, 2010; 7:00 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (20)
Categories:  Cancer, Nutrition and Fitness, Obesity, Prevention, Vegetarianism  
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One embryo good for IVF, study finds

Embryologist Ric Ross places human embryos onto a petri dish at the La Jolla IVF Lab in La Jolla, Calif. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)) Infertile women undergoing IVF are much more likely to end up with a healthy baby if they only have one embryo transferred during...

By Rob Stein  | December 22, 2010; 12:01 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (1)
Categories:  Kids' health, Motherhood, Parenting, Pregnancy, Reproductive Health, infertility  
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Teen birth rate hits record low

As the nation continued to struggle in the recession in 2009, the rate at which U.S. women are having babies continued to fall, pushing the teen birth rate to a record low, federal officials reported Tuesday.

By Rob Stein  | December 21, 2010; 11:30 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (52)
Categories:  Motherhood, Pregnancy, Sex, Teens, Women's Health  
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What's up with Weight Watchers?

At the end of November Weight Watchers switched up its popular weight-loss system, moving from the now-familiar Points program, wherein every food was assigned a value mostly according to the number of calories it contains, to the new PointsPlus program. What's the diff? Under PointsPlus, points are assigned according to a formula that takes into account not just calories but the mix of key nutrients a food contains and other, harder-to-quantify values.

By Jennifer LaRue Huget  | December 21, 2010; 7:00 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (5)
Categories:  Me Minus 10, Nutrition and Fitness, Obesity, Weight loss  
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GERD and esophageal cancer: 5 things you should know

After I reported on a study about gastroesophagael reflux disease (GERD) and esophageal cancer last week, I heard from the folks at the Esophageal Cancer Action Network (ECAN) , a nonprofit organization that works to raise awareness of esophageal cancer and advocates for better research into the deadly disease's causes and potential treatments.

By Jennifer LaRue Huget  | December 20, 2010; 7:00 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (2)
Categories:  Cancer, Prevention, digestive tract health  | Tags:  Cancer  
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