Living in: Caribbean beach areas

23 February 2011| By Sunshine Flint

Many a holiday in the Caribbean has sparked a dream of owning your own island hideaway — a fantasy tailored to all comers, from louche afternoons by the infinity pool to hardcore para-surfing through coral reefs.

Related destination guide: Caribbean

Fortunately, there are island paradises where the prices are right or the buying is easy and the reward is aquamarine water, sugary sands, abundant sun, and fruit so fresh the idea of eating something from the supermarket seems laughable.

Jamaica

The Ian Fleming International Airport opened in January to accommodate private jets - up to six at a time. But even if you are not flying in on the latest Bombardier Challenger, Jamaica still has amazing year-round weather and is a good value for second-home buyers. Most flock to Ocho Rios and Montego Bay on the north coast, where many of the resorts and the new cruise shop port at Falmouth are located. Other areas to consider are Portland in the south, where San San and Frenchman's Cove are known for freshwater and spectacular beaches. Jamaica's unique culture is also a selling point. "Jamaica has a really strong, interesting culture and that comes through in its music and art," said Vanessa Keith, principal of Studioteka and an architect with projects in Jamaica. "You get to know the people too, like the local fisherman, If they catch something big, they will come to your front gate and sell it to you."

A typical condo costs around $200,000 to $250,000 and villas start around $450,000. "Jamaica is the best value around for both a winter and summer resort," said Nigel Pemberton, chairman of Graham Associates in Montego Bay. "The price of real estate is amongst the lowest in the Caribbean." Security can be an issue in Jamaica, and many people buy in a gated community or upscale villas that are monitored by a security service or the police.

"Real estate was affected by the economic downturn, but with the improving conditions, developers are building again," said Howard Johnson, Jr, president of the Realtors Association. Various fees apply when purchasing a home, but the realtor's commission is usually paid by the vendor, not the buyer. Another option is buying in a resort community development like Round Hill or Palmyra where your property is looked after and maintained.

Belize

Coastal Belize has some of the most spectacular diving and snorkelling to be found in the Caribbean, and the small country's official language is English, making it a popular destination for retirees and holiday home buyers from the US. Corozal, near the Mexican border, is popular with ex-pats who fly into Cancun - which has more direct flights - and take a bus south. Ambergris Caye, north of the capital Belize City, is fringed by white sand beaches and limpid blue bays where turtles and colourful fish swim above the coral reefs. Swank resorts rub shoulders with brand-new condo developments. Land is at a premium here, so most buyers purchase condos, whereas in Corozal, many buy pre-construction lots.

In Placencia in southern Belize, where Francis Ford Coppola's Turtle Inn has held sway for a certain type of elite traveller, roads have recently been paved, opening the area up to developers, and the entire

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area is about to undergo a radical change. About a dozen hotel, resort and golf course projects are underway or approved, in addition to a new airport. The developments have Miami-chic style homes, manicured lawns and views of the sea and lagoon.

Chicago’s celluloid city

22 February 2011| By Matt Bolton, Lonely Planet Magazine

Whether portraying a criminal underworld or a high–school utopia, Chicago always looks right at home on the silver screen.

The city of the Dark Knight

The man in black is stood way up, on the ledge of the 90th floor of America's tallest building. His cape swirls in the wind that screams around the tower and he looks grimly down upon the city. The lights of the skyscrapers below glow like burning cigarette ends through the murk of twilight. The man knows that the darkness brings to the surface the detritus of this city - the criminal, the psychotic. And only he can stop them. He takes a breath and hurls himself off the building, swooping deep into the gloaming until he disappears from view. The man is Batman, and the city is Gotham - home of the American nightmare.

Of course, the people who actually live here don't see it quite like that. The Gotham of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is actually Chicago, and for the residents of the Windy City, having their city chosen to depict urban dystopia is just another thing to be proud of. Up at the viewing platform of the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower, the staff are used to movie stars wandering around. This was where Nolan decided Christian Bale's Batman should survey the city before making his stomach-churning leap. And the 442-metre-high tower has continued to be put to good cinematic use.

'A few months ago, some scenes for the new Transformers movie were filmed here,' says Dave Lacki, a Willis Tower guide. 'They had guys jumping off the roof and gliding down to that car park there.' He points at what from this distance looks like a tiny square on a piece of graph paper. 'They dropped down outside this window. It was pretty special.'

Chicago's skyline certainly makes for a terrific establishing shot. This city is the home of the skyscraper. The first in the world, the Home Insurance Building, was built in 1885 on South LaSalle Street. Ever since, Chicago has been a laboratory for architectural experimentation, a celebration of engineering ingenuity and the joys of building something really, really tall. In 1974, Chicago sealed its reputation with the completion of the Sears Tower, then the world's biggest building.

The cityscape today is a sheet of steel stalagmites, scored with the trails of highway lights curving around the rim of Lake Michigan. Like New York, this is a classic American metropolitan landscape, testifying to the relentless march of money and modernism that built this nation. But unlike the instantly recognisable New York, there's something intangible about Chicago. It looks familiar and yet hard to place - a city that's on the tip of your tongue, remaining just out of reach.

That's why it's such a popular choice as a movie location, according to Maria Roxas, a location manager on Batman Begins. 'Zoom out, and people know it's Chicago,' she says. 'Zoom in, and it could be any big city. Chicago is a city of different levels - the tallest building in the US, street level, and underground roads.' She's referring to Lower Wacker Drive, the subterranean haulage network which staged car chases in both of Nolan's Batman films.

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Chicago’s celluloid city

22 February 2011| By Matt Bolton, Lonely Planet Magazine

Whether portraying a criminal underworld or a high–school utopia, Chicago always looks right at home on the silver screen.

The city of rhythm and blues

The prominence of Chicago as a film set is a relatively recent development. Mayor Richard J Daley, who was in office from 1955 to 1976, was adamant that Hollywood should not be allowed to invade the city. He feared that film makers would focus solely on the grubbier aspects of Chicago's history - guns, gangs and gangsters. So it was not until Jane M Byrne took over the mayoralty in 1979 that Chicago began to offer up its streets to the big screen - starting with The Blues Brothers.

Dan Aykroyd, the film's co-star, said in 2005 that 'Chicago is one of the stars of the movie. We wrote it as a tribute.' And the film, in which a couple of street-rat blues musicians attempt to get their old band back together, certainly features a stream of familiar city locations, from Wrigley Field baseball stadium to East 95th Street Bridge. But The Blues Brothers also acted as Chicago's olive branch to the film industry. The authorities were so obliging to director John Landis - even letting him crash a car into the mayor's own building, the Daley Centre, narrowly missing the huge Picasso sculpture in the forecourt - that the city instantly shot up directors' hotlists. Here was a city you could have fun with.

The Blues Brothers is one long celebration of the Chicago music scene. Chicago's South Side was a haven for African-Americans fleeing the virulently racist South. And it was from here that blues music began to seep into the popular consciousness via local labels such as Chess Records.

The Blues Brothers acknowledged this heritage by filming its famous Shake Your Tail Feather dance scene in the South Side, with Ray Charles providing the accompaniment. A mural depicting some of Chicago's blues heroes was painted on the wall of a pawn shop, Shelly's Loan Co - rebranded as Ray's Music Exchange for the movie - and the pavement became the dancefloor. The mural's still there, a little faded, but nonetheless a symbol of Chicago's significance in the history of pop music.

The South Side used to be full of small blues joints, where veteran bluesmen would bark lyrics of lovelorn pain. Nowadays, the best place to experience the atmosphere that so entranced John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd is on the North Side, at Rosa's Lounge. Set up by Italian blues fanatic Tony Mangiullo in 1984, Rosa's is a narrow dive bar with large posters of famous visitors plastered on the walls - including a young, even thinner, Barack Obama. Unlike the more commercial clubs, Rosa's is a throwback to the roots of Chicago blues. 'I wanted to recreate the spirit that I found in South Side bars like Theresa's [revered blues bar] when I first moved here,' says Tony. 'The people there were so friendly, even though I didn't speak any English. So I wanted Rosa's to be the friendliest blues bar in town.' Judged by the convivial atmosphere amongst the barflies here tonight, shooting pool and clambering up on stage to knock out a solo, he's not gone far wrong.

The city of high school dreams

For all The Blues Brothers' success, its tale of cop-dodging music fiends didn't do much to allay Mayor Daley's fear that movies would portray Chicago in a dodgy light. It took the emergence of the man who would become Chicago's most successful homebred director to offer reassurance. Starting with his 1984 directorial debut, Sixteen Candles, John Hughes released a succession of movies in which he turned his

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hometown into a high school utopia. And huge hits like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club and Home Alone imprinted this image on the minds of a million teenagers across the planet.

Chicago’s celluloid city

22 February 2011| By Matt Bolton, Lonely Planet Magazine

Whether portraying a criminal underworld or a high–school utopia, Chicago always looks right at home on the silver screen.

The city of gangsters

Big Al stands at the door of the Green Mill cocktail lounge, rapping a wad of dollars against his broad knuckles. His head is brutally shaved and his small moustache has been carefully waxed to a point. Around his neck hangs a single bear's claw. 'Six dollars,' he growls to the young couple who have just come through the door. 'Don't talk during the band.' The couple hand over the money and walk towards the bar, looking as if they'll never speak again, let alone tonight. Big Al has worked the door here longer than he cares to remember, and he's insistent that the atmosphere at the Green Mill remains exactly how it was when a certain other Big Al was a regular here in the 1920s.

'That was Capone's booth right there,' he says, pointing towards a red velvet enclave at the corner of the bar. 'Sitting there, he could see the front and the side door at all times. As soon as he came in, the doors were locked and no one could enter or leave. And whatever the band were playing when he arrived, they stopped mid-song, and started playing his favourite, Rhapsody in Blue.'

Even today, Green Mill couldn't be more gangster if it insisted everyone wore trilbies and carried violin cases. It's like walking into a scene from Goodfellas - the crowd seated at candlelit tables, suited-up waiting staff distributing Old Fashioneds, the band on stage playing whipsmart swing and jazz. It's not surprising that such an atmospheric club has made numerous celluloid appearances, from being blown up in James Caan's Thief to acting as John Cusack and Jack Black's hangout in High Fidelity.

By the 1990s, Chicago had started to capitalise upon, rather than avoid, its gangster history. Sixty years after the city had been in the control of Al Capone, Bugsy Malone et al, a string of films were released that recreated the cat-and-mouse chase between the police and gangsters. The most successful was Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro's The Untouchables - the key scene of which was shot on the stairs of Union Station, where Costner raced to catch a runaway pram.

In 2008, director Michael Mann pushed historical verisimilitude to new heights when he took over the entire Lincoln Park block that houses the Biograph Theatre, now Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre. The Biograph was the cinema that legendary bank robber John Dillinger was leaving in July 1934 when he was gunned down by police, after being set up by his date, Anna Sage, known as the 'woman in red'. Mann was fastidious in his quest for accuracy while making Public Enemies, his Johnny Depp-starring Dillinger biopic. Every shopfront on the block was transformed to look as it did in Dillinger's day; even the smallest item in the shop windows was replaced by its 1930s counterpart. No doubt much to the set designer's chagrin, Mann then proceeded to shoot the assassination scene entirely at night.

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Chicago’s celluloid city

22 February 2011| By Matt Bolton, Lonely Planet Magazine

Whether portraying a criminal underworld or a high–school utopia, Chicago always looks right at home on the silver screen.

The city of the 'L'

Chicago has taken the same approach to public transport as it has to architecture - the higher, the better. The 'L' (for 'elevated') might look like a monorail from a 1950s funfair, but it remains the crucial link in Chicago's infrastructure. The roar of carriages thundering along the tracks that arch above the Loop, the city's financial district, turns a walk around town into a surround-sound experience: the trains rattling above, the growls of the cars at street level, the distant rumble of the subway beneath the sidewalk.

The 'L' trains are resolutely utilitarian, with sheet-metal skins and formica seats - an appropriately gritty means of getting about what is at heart a bluecollar city. It is no surprise that the majority of its appearances on screen have been in thrillers or as a signifier of urban alienation. In The Sting, Robert Redford leaps off the roof of the 43rd Street station to escape the police, while Harrison Ford favours the 'L' as a good place for a punch-up in The Fugitive. John Cusack's existential crisis in High Fidelity is given an edge of metropolitan misery by his journeys on the 'L', staring out of the window, contemplating his chances with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Chicago certainly has an uneasy relationship with the 'L'. Take a ride on the Brown Line, the secondoldest 'L' route and it's easy to understand why adverts for new suburban housing estates say things like 'living close to the 'L' shouldn't mean a metre away'. The tracks pass so close to the surrounding apartments - like the one belonging to Blues Brother Elwood - that a passenger could reach through a window and switch off a buzzing alarm clock.

But the Brown Line also acts as a fast-track to the core of Chicago. The train slips between the skycrapers like a snake in the grass, before nipping across the river to the Magnificent Mile shopping district. It then rolls onto Wrigleyville, home of the terminally unlucky Chicago Cubs baseball team.

This route makes up the final section of John Candy and Steve Martin's torturous journey in John Hughes's Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a film about two Chicagoans who are desperate to get home in time for Thanksgiving.

Of all the Chicagos that have appeared on the big screen - a Gotham of tall shadows and low lives, the Blues Brothers' town of rhythm and blues, or the glamorous demi-monde of Al Capone - as the train heads towards the crisp silhouette of the Loop, it is Hughes's vision that rings true. This really is a city you'd travel halfway across the world to come home to.

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Venice’s back alley wine bars

22 February 0011| By Gregor Clark, Lonely Planet

The magic of Venice lies in its back alleys. Forming a parallel universe to the jam-packed shopping and sightseeing districts around Piazza San Marco and the Rialto, the city's labyrinth of narrow side streets and footbridges offer an opportunity to leave the crowds behind and lose yourself in unexpected delights.

Among the most enticing discoveries hidden in these backstreets are Venice's bàcari - tiny neighbourhood bars that serve up some of the city's tastiest food and wine. In contrast to the calculatedly cute tourist restaurants along the main thoroughfares - where prices usually far exceed quality - bàcari offer both value for money and an authentic taste of Venetian culinary culture.

Throughout the city, around midday and again in late afternoon, it is customary for Venetians to duck into the nearest bàcaro for a drink and a bite, often in response to a chance meeting with friends in the street. Even in the 21st Century, such spontaneous get-togethers remain a quintessential part of Venice's pedestrianised lifestyle.

Typically, a bàcaro is an animated hole-in-the-wall decorated with wine bottles and perhaps a few stools or small tables. Show up just before lunch or dinnertime and you will find swarms of people chatting, sipping small glasses of wine (ombre) and nibbling on the countless bar snacks (cicheti) displayed along the counter.

Cicheti range from sublime little sandwiches to scrumptious seafood morsels speared on toothpicks. Some of the ingredients, such as prosciutto, cheese and artichokes will be immediately familiar to non-Venetians, but it pays to try Venetian classics such as grilled or roasted seppie (cuttlefish), bottarga (cured tuna roe), folpeti consi (baby octopus in vinaigrette), sardelle in saor (fried sardines marinated in vinegar and onions), polpettine (Venetian meatballs) and baccalà mantecato, a local favourite consisting of codfish beaten into a creamy paste with olive oil, often served on a square of grilled polenta. Some bàcari supplement these age-old recipes with creative dishes of their own. Whether traditional or innovative, cicheti are always reasonably priced, typically costing between two and five euros.

The roots of Venetian bàcaro culture go at least as far back as the 1700s, when Casanova was already frequenting the venerable Cantina Do Mori. The word "bàcaro" derives from the name of the Roman wine god Bacchus, and the term "ombra" for a glass of wine has its own uniquely Venetian etymology. Whereas in most parts of Italy, "ombra" simply means "shade" or "shadow", its slang use in Venice dates back to the days when Venetian wine merchants would set up shop in the shadow of the San Marco bell tower, moving their wares throughout the day to stay out of the sun. In this context, prendere un'ombra - "grab some shade" came to mean "grab a glass of wine", an affectionate colloquialism that survives to this day.

The libations served in bàcari range from humble tap wines to more expensive varietals. Perennial favourites from the Veneto region include sparkling Prosecco and golden-hued Soave, while Tocai and Refosco wines from the surrounding regions of Trentino and Friuli also appear on many menus. Whatever you do, make sure to try some of the lesser known local wines such as Fragolino, whose delicate strawberry-like flavour is incomparably subtle and delicious.

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New Orleans’ burger boom

14 February 2011| By Tina Peng

Think of New Orleans cuisine, and you think of gumbo, jambalaya and mountains of crayfish. A burger stuffed with foie gras and served with truffled fries? Not so much. But with two recently opened gourmet burger joints — complete with secretly-sourced buns and homemade ketchup — and two more on the way, New Orleans is on the edge of a hamburger revolution.

"I think it's going to be great," said Adam Biderman, owner of the Company Burger, which should open its doors by April. "I think the more selection for the city, the better. We've got hundreds of po'boy shops. Why can't we have burger shops vying for the same amount of attention?"

MVB

When the Magazine Street diner Slim Goodies shuts down on Sunday nights, MVB takes over its space to dish out a rotating list of milkshakes and burgers, including the Burger Benedict (with crispy pancetta, fried egg and hollandaise sauce), the Keep Austin Weird (with green chile puree and melted Mexican cheese) and the Knuckle Sandwich (with lobster meat, beurre fondue and remoulade sauce). "Each week, somebody had a meal, or somebody ate this, and we tried to see how we could turn it into a burger," said partner Rene Louapre. In addition to adding creative toppings, the chefs grind and hand-form their own patties, cut their own fries and make their own ketchup.

MVB is currently a once-a-week pop-up, but it serves about 200 diners a night (5 pm to whenever they run out of burgers) and regularly sells out of burgers. There are plans to open a full restaurant "within the next couple of months", Louapre said.

Cowbell

Owner Brack May's original vision for this restaurant was a menu composed entirely of hamburgers named after Frank Zappa songs, at the kind of casual, family-friendly burger joint he used to love in his hometown of Menlo Park, California. He decided to diversify after learning that another burger restaurant would be opening up the street, but Cowbell's burger, an Angus blend served on buns from a top-secret distributor, is still its main event. It is served with a side of fries and aioli mayonnaise, and can be topped with a zinfandel, bacon and onion compote, or with smoked bacon and an egg.

The restaurant opened in mid-December and also offers shrimp quesadillas, macaroni and cheese and a barbecued ribeye.

The Company Burger

Although owner Adam Biderman has mainly worked as a chef in upscale restaurants, he never envisioned white tablecloths and four-fork place settings for himself. And when he started brainstorming restaurant ideas, he realized that everywhere he has worked, "all we talked about was where the best burger was", Biderman said. "That's all we wanted to do after we got out of work - eat a hamburger."

When the restaurant opens this spring, Biderman's burgers will feature all-natural beef served with homemade ketchup and pickles on specialty buns. He is even experimenting with homemade waffle fries. "You try to make everything other than the American cheese and the red onions."

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II. Much advice about the effects of drinking proves to be false

By Roger Highfield

New Scientist

Tuesday, January 11, 2011; 12:30 AM

From doctors to bartenders to new year's resolutionaries, there's no shortage of people offering advice about alcohol. Now take a look at what scientists have found when they put some conventional wisdom under the microscope.

Drinking coffee will get you sober faster.

FALSE: Caffeine may wake you up, but it won't lower your blood alcohol level. In fact, a cup of coffee may make it harder for you to realize you're drunk, according to Thomas Gould of Temple University in Philadelphia.

In experiments on mice, reported in 2009 in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, he found that caffeine - the equivalent of one to eight cups of coffee for humans - made the rodents more alert but did nothing to reverse the cognitive impairment caused by alcohol, such as their inability to avoid stimuli they should have known were unpleasant. In other words, a shot of caffeine may simply fool drunken people into thinking they are sober.

Beer then liquor, never sicker. Liquor then beer, never fear.

FALSE: There is no chemical interaction between these drinks that makes you feel particularly bad the next day. It is the total amount of alcohol consumed that matters.

Perhaps when you have already had several beers you'll drink more shots, and more quickly, as your self-control will be reduced.

What is less clear is whether darker drinks such as bourbon are more likely to give you a hangover than a clear spirit such as vodka. That idea appeared to be confirmed by a 2009 Brown University study. One possible explanation is that dark drinks have a higher concentration of congeners, the byproducts of fermentation.

However, another study, at the Boston University School of Public Health, found no connection between getting a hangover and the type of alcohol consumed.

James Bond was right: Martinis should be shaken, not stirred.

TRUE: for most people's taste. British Agent 007 ordered his vodka martinis "shaken, not stirred," but is there really any difference? Yes, according to a team at the University of Western Ontario in Canada that studied the ability of the classic martini, made with gin and vermouth, to deactivate hydrogen peroxide, which is produced by the body's metabolism and is a potent source of free radicals. In 1999, they showed that martinis were more effective at deactivating hydrogen peroxide than their main ingredients alone. For reasons that are not clear, the shaken mix was twice as effective as the stirred mix.

But does the resulting cocktail tastes better? One suggestion is that an agitated martini contains more microscopic shards of ice, giving it a more pleasant texture, or "mouthfeel." However, the most likely

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reason for Bond's preference seems to be that it helps reduce the taste of residual oil left over when vodka is made from potatoes, the base vegetable used at the time Ian Fleming wrote his spy novels.

Champagne gets you drunker than wine.

TRUE: The bubbles in champagne may make a difference. A small 2003 study in Alcohol and Alcoholism suggested that it may be more intoxicating than wine. The reason remains a mystery. Perhaps bubbles open the pyloric valve in the stomach, letting the alcohol reach the intestine and hence the bloodstream more quickly. Alternatively, fizzy drinks might increase the rate of alcohol absorption by stimulating the lining of the stomach.

Wine consumption explains the "French paradox."

FALSE: French people suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet rich in saturated fats.

Filtered and bottled water consumption could increase tooth decay risk

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, January 17, 2011; 7:19 PM

Little did I know that filtering my family's tap water might put our teeth at risk.

Two years ago, when I was pregnant and reporting on how the federal government was unwilling to regulate the rocket-fuel component perchlorate in drinking water, my husband and I decided to install a reverse osmosis filter in our kitchen tap. Since D.C. tap water has come under fire for its high levels of everything from lead to hexavalent chromium, it seemed like a sensible move.

But during a recent visit to the dentist, my hygenist remarked she had started noticing a rise in tooth decay among children who drank only filtered or bottled water, presumably because they were not drinking fluoridated water. And it suddenly occured to me: Neither was my 20-month-old son, with his 17 teeth.

As Americans' consumption of bottled water has risen - it has doubled over the past decade - it is reducing the daily exposure Americans get to the mineral that helps prevent tooth decay. And while researchers have yet to do a comprehensive study of what impact this is having, especially on children, many dentists and pediatricians believe the issue deserves serious examination.

"I think it would be good to look at," said Howard Pollick, a clinical professor in the Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences at the University of California at San Francisco and a spokesman for the American Dental Association.

Prodded by studies showing that fluoride significantly reduced tooth decay, U.S. municipalities began adding it to public drinking water systems in the 1940s. Today, about 65 percent of Americans get fluoridated tap water, including 95 percent of people in Virginia, 99 percent in Maryland and 100 percent in the District.

While a vocal minority of Americans remain skeptical, the ADA and most other health authorities remain convinced that fluoridation benefits the general population.

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District dentist Pierre Palian, who treats my family, told me that after utilities started fluoridating public water supplies, "the cavities rate was cut in half. The only thing they could attribute it to was fluoridating the water."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies fluoridation of public drinking water as one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century, noting that studies show it reduces cavitities in adolescents by between 8 and 37 percent, and among adults by 20 to 40 percent.

But when it comes to getting greater precision, researchers are faced with the problem that most people in the United States don't take their children to the dentist before age 3, and most drink water from a mix of sources. As a result, it's difficult to measure the impact of fluoride on children's teeth.

Looking beyond smoking, lung-cancer activists want early detection and treatment

By Laura Ungar

Special to The Washington Post

Monday, January 24, 2011; 8:14 PM

After battling lung cancer and losing her sister to the disease, Marilyn Martens likes to hear the public-health community rail against smoking.

But she says anti-tobacco messages can't be the sole weapon against America's deadliest cancer; the focus needs to be widened to better emphasize early detection and treatment, too.

"It's really going to have to be all of these things," said Martens, 52, of Rockville, who underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2008. "I think there's a long way to go."

Martens is one of a growing number of lung cancer survivors, victims' relatives and advocacy groups calling for a greater, more comprehensive focus on the disease - similar to the multi-pronged approach to breast cancer.

Lung cancer killed 158,683 people in 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Five-year survival for lung cancer is 15.8 percent, up only slightly from 13 percent 35 years ago.

Doctors said there have been promising developments in treatment and early-detection research in recent years. But awareness of this progress is clouded by the overwhelming role that smoking plays in the disease, many say, an issue reemphasized in a Surgeon General's report last month. The report said that tobacco smoke contains at least 70 chemicals and compounds that cause cancer and that there is no "risk-free level of exposure" to tobacco smoke.

"We have a public-health epidemic that cannot be addressed with stop-smoking alone," said Laurie Fenton-Ambrose, president and chief executive of the Lung Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington. She said early detection and treatment are also crucial to reducing deaths.

But as they push for more attention to lung cancer, activists face a persistent stigma. "It's hard to digest that lung cancer is seen as the cancer you give yourself," said Martens, who was once a light smoker.

"No one deserves this disease," added Fenton-Ambrose.

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Among other obstacles are a dearth of survivors to be voices for the cause and a lack of money. According to the alliance, federal research money for lung cancer from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense totaled $218 million in 2010, compared with $1.15 billion for breast cancer.

But survivors said they are learning lessons from breast cancer activists and others who have successfully lobbied for money and attention to their causes. And doctors pointed out that there is plenty of overlap: Research on one cancer often leads to developments in others.

Fenton-Ambrose said she's determined that lung cancer comes out of the shadows. "Our movement for lung cancer has just begun," she said.

Can relaxation drinks put you to sleep?

By Rachel Saslow

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, February 14, 2011; 8:20 PM

Once, "relaxation beverages" consisted of alcohol, chamomile tea and warm milk. Now, the field includes a slew of new drinks promising a better night's sleep using such ingredients as melatonin, valerian root and - think turkey - tryptophan.

They have apt names such as Unwind, iChill and Dream Water, and offer such flavors as Berry-Berry Tired, Snoozeberry and Lullaby Lemon. They're the inverse of energy drinks. Consumers can wake up with Red Bull and then wind down with Slow Cow.

But can consumers trust these fruity concoctions to give them their z's?

According to Steven M. Scharf, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, the answer is a resounding maybe.

"The issue is this: Some of them probably have some biologic effect, but they haven't been as well studied as you'd like," Scharf says. "Nobody's ever compared valerian root to [the prescription sleep aid] Ambien."

The chief ingredient in many of these beverages is melatonin, a hormone that induces sleepiness and helps coordinate the body's biological clock. It's typically released by the pineal gland around 10 p.m.; secretion stops around 4 or 5 a.m., helping to trigger the body to wake up, Scharf says.

The body produces about three-fourths of a milligram of melatonin a day. The manufacturer of the sleep aid Snooz'n says its 2.5-ounce "shots" contain five milligrams of melatonin; Unwind, a "relaxation blend," has three milligrams per 12-ounce can.

Oral doses of melatonin haven't worked much better at inducing sleep than a placebo in most studies, Scharf says, and a single, concentrated shot of the stuff doesn't exactly mimic the body's time-release system. However, a study published in January in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that a pre-bedtime cocktail of magnesium, zinc and a five-milligram dose of melatonin significantly improved sleep among a group of 43 elderly Italian insomniacs.

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Jason Healy, the head of InterMark Brands, which markets Snooz'n, says he drinks his product on nights when he is stressed-out or when he is traveling internationally. The back of the Snooz'n bottle says the beverage will "combat stress, energy drinks and sleeplessness" and takes about 30 minutes to take effect. When it launches nationally in March, Snooz'n will be available in grocery and convenience stores and pharmacies, like most of these drinks.

"We attack [insomnia] from two angles," Healy says. "You've got to turn off all the stimulants and also get into a natural sleep cycle."

Melatonin is used for the latter, while ingredients such as valerian root and chamomile take care of the former, Healy says. Both of those herbs are associated with soporific effects, according to the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. Valerian root has properties that resemble the benzodiazepine class of medications (such as Valium and Xanax), but Scharf says he has no idea how they compare with standard sleeping pills because of the lack of comparative studies.

More questions about cellphone safety

By Rob Stein

Are cellphones safe? That question has gotten a lot of attention, but so far, as my colleague pointed out on Monday, there has been no convincing evidence that those ubiquitous devices actually cause health problems. However, a new federal study may stir things up further, even though the bottom line again is that it raises more questions than it answers.

For the study, Nora Volkow of the National Institutes of Health and colleagues conducted PET scans on the brains of 47 subjects throughout 2009, as they randomly held phones up to their left or right ears for 50 minutes at a time, sometimes on but muted and other times off.

Brain activity in the region closest to the antenna, an area known as the orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole, was significantly higher -- about 7 percent more active -- when the phone was on, compared to when it was off, the researchers found.

"The increases were significantly correlated with the estimated electromagnetic field amplitudes, both for absolute metabolism and normalized metabolism," the authors write. "These results provide evidence that the human brain is sensitive to the effects of ... acute cellphone exposures."

They add, however, that "these results provide no information as to their relevance regarding potential carcinogenic effects (or lack of such effects) from chronic cellphone use. Further studies are needed to assess if these effects could have potential long-term harmful consequences."

The study was published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Henry Lai of the University of Washington and Lennart Hardell of University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden, said the meaning of the findings remains far from clear but "warrant further investigation."

"An important question is whether glucose metabolism in the brain would be chronically increased from regular use of a wireless phone with higher radiofrequency energy than those used in the current study. Potential acute and chronic health effects need to be clarified. Much has to be done to further investigate and understand these effects," they wrote.

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The findings may indicate that other changes in brain function occur from exposure to radiofrequency emissions, they said.

"If so, this might have effects on other organs, leading to unwanted physiological responses. Further studies on biomarkers of functional brain changes from exposure to radiofrequency radiation are definitely warranted," they wrote.

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Staying Healthy: Healthy Habits for Men

By Lara Endreszl

Published: Saturday, 31 October 2009

Juggling jobs, relationships, social obligations, bills, and staying on top of a healthy gym routine is a lot to handle. As a woman, trying to find the time to eat better seems to be the last thing on my list and it can’t be much easier for men. Here are a few tips for making men’s lives a little bit better from morning to night:

Eat Breakfast

Eating breakfast everyday keeps your metabolism in check, your weight down, and your cravings at bay. Filling up on fiber early on keeps you satisfied throughout the day. Dr. Oz recommends oatmeal with dried fruits, nuts, and his own personal touch…flaxseed oil.

Work through Pain

Sometimes taking the load off of a sore back, neck, or legs is worse for you than if you work through the pain. Experts suggest that nursing your pain isn’t always the best course of action because resting can weaken your muscles and you may lose strength over time. If you haven’t pulled any muscles or slipped any discs, take an anti-inflammatory pain reliever and stay on your feet.

Snack like a Squirrel

You don’t have to hoard nuts for the winter, but grabbing a handful during the middle of the day can actually keep you healthier than eating a bag of chips or waiting until dinner to satisfy your food cravings. Full of omega-3 fatty acids, these are the type of proteins we look for in our diets from fish, also known as good fats.

Sweat is Your Friend

While walking to the office or public transit is eco-friendly and cost efficient, chances are you don’t get the full cardio effect until you do your time on the treadmill. Sweat away your toxins and reduce your blood pressure and risk of heart attack by switching up your routine; the wetter the better. Tacking on weight training makes your body work harder to bulk up and lose any extra pounds that may be damaging to your frame. Aside from looking better to your partner, you may feel better and be able to get more sleep, more on that later. For more stamina, find a workout buddy!

Be Friendly

When men get stressed, they often clam up and don’t tend to talk about their problems. Women, on the other hand, can usually tell a story until their lips bleed. With more stress in the world than ever, it’s no wonder your body may not be feeling up to par. Grab a beer—or your partner—and tell them what’s on your mind, sharing may just save your life or keep the stress away.

Save for a Rainy Day

Like the harmful stressors everyone puts upon themselves at any moment, a lot of these have to deal with financial woes. If you are able, sock away some of your paycheck every month to save for a rainy day or an emergency by investing some of that worth in a separate savings account you can run to if you

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need to, but put your own limits on how you are allowed to spend it. Down the road, merely thinking about how to spend that extra cushion you set aside can make even the gloomiest day perk up a bit.

Go Between

We have all been conditioned to learn that brushing your teeth two times a day is the normal but in order to keep your oral health at its best, go deeper with floss. Your best bet is to floss before bedtime to clean the bacteria from the hard to reach spots in your mouth so it doesn’t grow into a problem overnight.

Sleep like a Baby

If you are a parent, you understand the importance of getting a child to go to bed at a certain time every night in order to keep their mind and body stable and free from grouchiness. You should treat your sleeping patterns the same way. Set a bed time and keep it—at least during the work week—and get at least seven hours of sleep. Professionals advise that sleeping regularly can stave off calories and stress because being groggy can incur bad decisions like eating greasy food or sucking down your usual morning coffee in half the time.

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Alcohol and Sleep: Women Get the Short End of the (Stir) Stick

By Drucilla Dyess

Published: Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Although consuming alcohol is known to deepen your slumber during the early hours of sleep, it can also have a rebound effect that causes disruption of a good night’s rest during later night hours. Until now, the gender impact of this “rebound effect” has scarcely been studied. However, a group of researchers from the University of Michigan recently conducted a study finding that women who drank alcohol got fewer hours of sleep, and woke at more frequent intervals for longer periods of time, than did men who also imbibed a few drinks. The full details of the research can be found online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

The analysis involved monitoring the sleep of 93 healthy adults in their twenties, including 59 women and 34 men, after their consumption of either alcohol to the point of intoxication, or a non-alcoholic beverage prior to going to bed. There were 29 participants among the group that had a family history of alcoholism. Drinks were served to the participants between the hours of 8:30 and 10:00 p.m. Following this, their sleep was monitored between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.

Lead author J. Todd Arnedt, an assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Michigan, reported that, “Alcohol increased self-reported sleepiness and disrupted sleep quality more in women than men, [and that] morning ratings of sleep quality were worse following alcohol than a placebo.” Arnedt also pointed out that among all the participants who consumed alcohol, no difference in sleep quality was noted between those having a family history of alcoholism and those who did not.

On average, women who drank alcohol got about 20 minutes less sleep than those who did not, which is the equivalent of about 4 percent of a total sleep time of eight hours. Arnedt explained that the gender differences could be related to differences in alcohol metabolism, as a more rapid decline is seen in BrAC (breath alcohol concentration) among women following alcohol consumption than is observed among men who drink alcohol. He then added, “It is important to note that the peak BrACs were equivalent between men and women in our study so the findings are not due to higher BrACs among the female subjects. We also do not believe that the differences were due to differences in alcohol experience because the prior alcohol use was also equivalent between the men and women.”

The latest study results serve as confirmation of previous study findings that a high dose of alcohol leads to a deeper sleep early in the night, followed by disruptions in sleep later on. Arnedt acknowledge that the findings about gender differences “may have implications for future studies examining the relationship between sleep quality and risk for the development of alcohol use disorders, as well as studies evaluating how sleep quality relates to relapse among recovering alcoholic individuals.”

For a better night’s sleep, whether male or female, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can help. Consuming alcohol only in moderation, along with getting regular exercise and eating a heart-healthy diet can promote restful sleep, as well as preserve your health.

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