Researchers make progress with insomnia

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:16:42 GMT
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON - Researchers studying a disease that causes people to suddenly drop off to sleep are trying to turn what they have learned into a new way to help insomniacs get some shut-eye.
They found that blocking brain receptors for orexin, a blood peptide, promoted sleep in rats, dogs and people, according to a paper in Sunday's online issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

Orexin, also known as hypocretin, is important in maintaining wakefulness. It is absent in the brains of people who suffer from narcolepsy, a chronic disorder in which people cannot regulate sleep-wake cycles normally. It is estimated to affect more than 135,000 people in the United States, according to the http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine
Background on narcolepsy: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/narcolepsy/narcolepsy.htm

Worlds oldest new mom lied to clinic

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:56:56 GMT

LONDON - A 67-year-old woman who is believed to be the world's oldest new mother told a British Sunday newspaper she lied to a U.S. fertility clinic — saying she was 55 — to get treatment.
Carmela Bousada said in her first interview since she gave birth to twin boys on Dec. 29 that she sold her house in Spain to raise $59,000 to pay for in vitro fertilization at a California clinic, The News of the World reported.

"I think everyone should become a mother at the right time for them," Bousada said in a video of the interview provided to Associated Press Television News.

"Often circumstances put you between a rock and a hard place and maybe things shouldn't have been done in the way they were done but that was the only way to achieve the thing I had always dreamed of and I did it," she said.

Bousada turned 67 this month but said she told the Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles she was 55 — the clinic's cut off for treating single women, the report said. She said the clinic did not ask her for identification.

Dr. Vicken Sahakian, the clinic's medical director, confirmed late Saturday that he treated Bousada, but said clinic procedures would have required her to provide her passport.

"I did not know that she was 66," Sahakian told The Associated Press, declining to comment on her case further. "We do check identity."

Bousada now hopes to find a younger husband to help raise her two sons, Pau and Christian, the newspaper said.

The retired department store employee lived with her elderly mother for her entire life in Cadiz, in southern Spain. She hatched her plan to have children after her mother died, at an unspecified age, in 2005, the newspaper said.

She kept her plan secret from her family and when she finally told them she was two months pregnant, they thought she was joking.

"Yes, I am old of course, but if I live as long as my mom did, imagine, I could even have grandchildren," she said in the video.

She was hospitalized during her pregnancy after she collapsed in a supermarket, but said her health has been good since she delivered.

"When the doctors said they had to make an incision for the Caesarean, I told them, 'Make it really low so that I can still wear a bikini,'" Bousada was ed as saying.

The twins, who were born seven weeks premature, remained in hospital for three weeks, but are now healthy and at home with Bousada, the report said.

Romanian citizen Adriana Iliescu gave birth to baby Eliza Maria in January 2005, also at the age of 66. Bousada was 130 days older than Iliescu when she gave birth.

Yoga stretches into public schools

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:20:19 GMT
By RACHEL KONRAD, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - In Tara Guber's ideal world, American children would meditate in the lotus position and chant in Sanskrit before taking stressful standardized tests.
But when she asked a public elementary school in Aspen, Colo., to teach yoga in 2002, Christian fundamentalists and even some secular parents lobbied the school board. They argued that yoga's Hindu roots conflicted with Christian teachings and that using it in school might violate the separation of church and state.

Portrayed as a New Age nut out to brainwash young minds, Guber crafted a new curriculum that eliminated chanting and translated Sanskrit into kid-friendly English. Yogic panting became "bunny breathing," and "meditation" became "time in."

"I stripped every piece of anything that anyone could vaguely construe as spiritual or religious out of the program," Guber said.

Now, more than 100 schools in 26 states have adopted Guber's "Yoga Ed." program and more than 300 physical education instructors have been trained in it.

Countless other public and private schools from California to Massachusetts — including the Aspen school where Guber clashed with parents — are teaching yoga.

Teachers say it helps calm students with attention-deficit disorder and may reduce childhood obesity. The federal government gives grants to gym teachers who complete a teacher training course in yoga.

"I see a lot fewer discipline problems," said Ruth Reynolds, principal of Coleman Elementary School in San Rafael. Her observation of the school's six-year-old yoga program is that it helps easily distracted children to focus.

"If you have children with ADD and focusing issues, often it's easy to go from that into a behavior problem," Reynolds said. "Anything you can do to help children focus will improve their behavior."

In 2003, researchers at California State University, Los Angeles, studied test scores at the Accelerated School, a charter school where Guber sits on the board and where students practice yoga almost every day. Researchers found a correlation between yoga and better behavior and grades, and they said young yogis were more fit than the district average from the California Physical Fitness Test.

Guber, married to former Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Peter Guber, embraced yoga after moving to California in the 1970s. Their 13-acre Bel-Air estate includes a clifftop garden leading to a Yoga House retreat.

In 2004, Americans spent almost $3 billion on yoga classes and retreats, books, DVDs, mats, clothing and related items. About 3 million American adults practiced yoga at least twice a week in 2006, more than doubling from 1.3 million in 2001, according to Mediamark Research.

Despite mainstream acceptance, yoga in public schools remains touchy. Critics say even stripped-down "yoga lite" goads young people into exploring other religions and mysticism.

Dave Hunt, who has traveled to India to study yoga's roots and interview gurus, called the practice "a vital part of the largest missionary program in the world" for Hinduism. The Bend, Ore., author of "Yoga and the Body of Christ: What Position Should Christians Hold?" said that, like other religions, the practice has no place in public schools.

"It's pretty simple: Yoga is a religious practice in Hinduism. It's the way to reach enlightenment. To bring it to the west and bill it as a scientific practice for fitness is dishonest," said Hunt, 80.

"I've talked to too many people who got hooked on the spiritual deception of yoga. They come to believe in this and become enamored with Hinduism or eastern mysticism," he said.

Concerns about yoga's spiritual implications have also fueled a cottage industry of books and videos that offer the purported benefits of yoga — flexibility, strength and weight loss — without mentioning the y-word.

Laurette Willis, 49, wrote an exercise regimen called "PowerMoves Kids Program for Public Schools." The stretching routine includes pauses for children to contemplate character-building es from Martin Luther King Jr., Emily Dickinson, Harriet Tubman and William Shakespeare. Willis, who lives near Tahlequah, Okla., also created an exercise regimen called "PraiseMoves: The Christian Alternative to Yoga."
"I'm not here to say that yoga is necessarily bad, but it is counter to what I think the public education system is for: It should have programs without any form of religious overtones whatsoever," Willis said.
The dispute confuses some yogis, particularly Westerners who say they yoga as it's practiced in the United States is primarily about fitness and stress relief.
Baron Baptiste, who owns three studios in the Boston area and practices with his 7-year-old son, loves Guber's program. He said his son takes yoga far less seriously than he does.
"We adults need to be reminded to lighten up, breathe in the joy and have some fun," he said.

Hamm Garciaparra help cancer fight

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:31:43 GMT
By KEN PETERS, AP Sports Writer
BELLFLOWER, Calif. - Some six months pregnant with twins, Mia Hamm deftly switched the soccer ball from her right foot to her left, then rolled it behind her to keep an eager young defender from taking it away.
Eight-year-old Anthony Arroyo watched approvingly before gleefully sprinting up the field toward the opponents' goal.

"It's been a while," said the 34-year-old Hamm, retired from soccer but still one of America's most-recognized athletes. "Some things definitely have changed. I've put on a little weight."

There's a strong connection between Hamm and Arroyo, who, thanks to the National Marrow Donor Program's registry, can run and play soccer with the other kids.

Hamm and husband Nomar Garciaparra of the Los Angeles Dodgers were on hand Sunday afternoon at his old high school to kick off a program to help patients and their families in their fight against cancer.

The two call their program "9 to 5" because they consider giving back to the community a full-time effort.

While youngsters scurried about on the St. John Bosco High School field, adults filled out forms and had swabs taken to register with the marrow donor program.

"Being a donor can be a life-altering experience. It's an opportunity to help change the world," Hamm said.

Garciaparra said, "Just registering can save a person's life."

Hamm, who began a foundation to support research on diseases of the bone marrow, had a tragic personal experience: her brother Garrett died at 28 of aplastic anemia, a rare blood disorder. He did receive a bone marrow transplant, but other complications caused his death in 1997.

She and Garciaparra are teaming with Children's Hospital Los Angeles and plan to put together a fundraising soccer match next year that will feature stars from sports and the entertainment industry.

Hamm put her arm around Anthony, noted that he had a marrow transplant after a match was found in the registry, and asked him how he was feeling.

"Good," he shot back, grinning.

Anthony's parents, Ron and Juanita Arroyo, beamed afterward as they watched him running around the field.

"We feel very lucky," Juanita Arroyo said. "They were able to find a perfect match for him."

Dr. Neena Kapoor, Anthony's doctor, watched him chasing around and said, "It's always amazing. It's the best reward we can get."

Hamm's due date is around mid-April, and she said with a laugh, "I can feel some kicks. I can't decide whether that's like me or like Nomar's fidgeting when he's playing baseball."

With an obvious soccer mom and baseball dad, what sport will their children favor? Said Garciaparra: "That will be entirely up to them."

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