Oh, hey, look at this: A hair product claiming to be formaldehyde-free isn’t. Which is not surprising to us as all, but is still big news. The Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology in Oregon was contacted by a Portland salon when the straightening solution they were using in their salon caused difficulty breathing, nose bleeds and eye irritation in stylists using the product as directed.
Guess what the product was? Brazilian-blowout straightening solution, which was labeled explicitly formaldehyde free.
The Oregon OSHA laboratory analyzed the sample using four different test methods. Formaldehyde was reported to be detected by each method at 10.6%, 6.3%, 10.6% and 10.4% of the product.
Because our Brazilian blowout inspired us to write our book in the first place, we get asked about this a lot. And in the last little while, we keep getting the question-statement: But Brazilian blowouts don’t use formaldehyde anymore!(?) To which we always say: Perhaps not, but they do use biformyl, which is also known as glyoxal and Oxaldehyde, and is a relative of formaldehyde, that isn’t particularly safe and also sometimes also contains the big F.
You can see some toxicological info for that chemical here and here. Note how the second one, under “exposure” it says: “AVOID ALL CONTACT!” (Caps and exclamation mark are, for once, not ours.)
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Last week the New York Times reported on the results of a new study about massage, and it’s clearly of interest—the piece is still being featured as top-read content. To find out just what happens to us after a massage, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles recruited some 53 healthy candidates to receive some treatments.
About half of the group was assigned Swedish deep-tissue massages and the others a lighter-touch style of rubdown. All subjects were strapped with gear to take blood samples right before and immediately after the one hour massages. Here are the results:
Volunteers who received Swedish massage experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in blood and saliva, and in arginine vasopressin, a hormone that can lead to increases in cortisol. They also had increases in the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system.
Volunteers who had the light massage experienced greater increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment … and bigger decreases in adrenal corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the adrenal glands to release cortisol.
Even skeptics are having a hard time ignoring these exciting outcomes. To celebrate, Siobhan and I both went for great cheapie massages this weekend. I’m definitely partial to deep tissue, but it looks like all different kinds could offer benefits.
Do you get regular massages? And if not, does this study inspire you to?
This is going to be a new series if the news keeps up the way it’s been going, and we suspect it will. Tipped off by a super famous dermatologist on Twitter (where else?), we were lead to a scientific study about Brittle Nail Syndrome, a condition wherein people’s nails are brittle, and so they sometimes break. In addition to weakening the nails, we learned from the abstract, the Syndrome can also affect people’s quality of life. Hey, now. What’s this?
“Although impairment of life quality has not been evaluated for patients with brittle nail syndrome, the reduction of life quality in other nail problems has been studied and is evident.”
Anyway, women are twice as likely to have this problem and apparently it is sometimes caused by dehydrated nails and damage to the matrix. You know what can cause dehydrated nails and damage to the matrix? The toxic chemicals in nail polish.
Just sayin’!
Remember that time when, even though no one was touching you, you felt like you kind of maybe sort of came in your sleep (or, lucky you, at the diner or whatever)? Well, according to a new study, you probably actually did.
Says Dr. Barry Komisaruk, co-author of The Science Of Orgasm:
“The pleasure centres of the brain associated with orgasm light up in women who think themselves to orgasm in exactly the same way as in women who orgasm through more conventional means.”
This is the saddest story ever, and apparently it’s been going on for years: honeybees are dying. As reported by ABC News this past March:
In 2009 almost 29 percent of the bee colonies in the United States collapsed, say scientists who surveyed commercial beekeepers and brokers. That’s slightly less than the 36 percent loss in 2008 and the 32 percent counted in 2007, but an informal survey just finished suggests that the die-off continues.
We’ve already talked about why bee byproducts are so incredible. But this goes far beyond honey masks and the beeswax in our lip balms. Much of our fragile ecosystem balances on the bee: one in every three bites of food apparently comes from a plant source that was pollinated by one.
So why is this happening? Nobody is sure, but the conjectures sound awfully similar to ones made about other so-called mystery epidemics. Environmental toxins, like pesticides, seem a plausible culprit. According to researchers at Penn State:
No one pesticide, they said, was strong enough to be lethal—but they said it is possible that some of them are combining in some way that is not yet understood.
Yep, sounds about right. When are we going to realize that using willy-nilly combinations of chemicals that we know little about to begin with is bound to wreak some unspeakable havoc on the earth, on bees, on our bodies… Sound like anything else we’ve been talking about? Ugh.
I’ve had pretty severe cramps for most of my menstruating life. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always liked to think that the pain had some evolutionary purpose: like preparation for childbirth, or just a general toughness training required to survive in this mad, mad world.
It turns out that whatever the reason, menstrual cramps are definitely doing something: A new study out of Taiwan has shown that cramps actually alter gray matter in the brain, even affecting crampers during the pain-free part of the month. As MSN reports:
Exactly how the changes in the brain could affect women’s experience of pain is unknown, researchers said. But the brain abnormalities suggest that menstrual pain may have similarities with other chronic pain conditions in that over time, repeated bouts of excruciating aches make the brain unusually sensitive to pain — in effect, making the experience of pain worse.
Oh great, so pain begets more pain? I refuse to believe that this is the whole story—it fits too neatly into some original sin punishment narrative—and anxiously await the follow-up studies.
Meanwhile, I will say that my own pain has decreased significantly over the last few years. Healthier living? Less estrogen in my beauty products? Age? Who knows. As I’ve bemoaned in the past, existing research on women and their hormones leaves much to be desired—but I am happy to no longer be on an Advil drip every month.
Informal survey time! If you cramp, what lifestyle changes seem to have a positive or negative effect on your pain?
According to a new study, young girls are developing breasts as early as 7 and 8 years old these days. As the New York Times is reporting, a survey of 1,239 girls aged 6 to 8 found the following:
At 7 years, 10.4 percent of white, 23.4 percent of black and 14.9 percent of Hispanic girls had enough breast development to be considered at the onset of puberty.
At age 8, the figures were 18.3 percent in whites, 42.9 percent in blacks and 30.9 percent in Hispanics. The percentages for blacks and whites were even higher than those found by a 1997 study that was one of the first to suggest that puberty was occurring earlier in girls.
Reasons for the racial disparity are inconclusive, though obesity definitely plays a role in early onset puberty because body fat can produce sex hormones. But the author of the study, Dr. M. Frank Biro, doesn’t think weight tells the whole story.
Exposure to environmental chemicals—many of which are estrogen-mimickers—may also be playing a role. You know where this is going right? Several suspected hormone disruptors are found in personal care products.
Among the many reasons this study is so disconcerting? Seven and 8 year old girls are not psychologically ready to be in women’s bodies, let alone deal with the attention that engenders. We couldn’t say it better than the Dr. Biro:
“I think we need to think about the stuff we’re exposing our bodies to and the bodies of our kids. This is a wake-up call, and I think we need to pay attention to it.”
Recently I’ve been revisiting a favorite past time: the nap. I used to sneak in a little slumber whenever I had the chance, but years in an office job kind of deprogrammed my inner napper.
Well, she’s back! Last week Siobhan and I did a radio tour by telephone (we have some of our up interviews here): This meant waking up at the crack of dawn for a few days. I don’t mind getting up early, but each day around 4 pm, my lids would start to pull over my eyes. So I took the 20 minute power naps… and they were great.
We’ve all heard about the benefits of sleep—which we also cover extensively in the book—and I’ve heard many a rumor about the of perks associated with short naps. But what does the research say? Turns out the buzz is warranted: According to a group of scientists at NIMH and Harvard, afternoon snoozes reverse information overload. And who doesn’t need that these days? They go so far as to say that napping prevents burnout.
Which makes you wonder: If naps increase productivity, and prevent burnout, shouldn’t they be an encouraged part of our daily routine? Most people tend to fade in the afternoon, hitting a mental wall sometime around 4pm—what if instead of going to the vending machine for a candy bar, employers created spaces for tired employees to lay their weary heads? Or at the very least, didn’t frown upon a desk nap (for those lucky enough to be able to sleep in such conditions).
What about you? Would you take a snooze at work if it was guilt-free?
So we both happen to be 31 years old but, pinkyswear, we are not making this stuff up. A new study done by QVC—yes that QVC—has revealed that 31 (and not, say, 23) is the peak age for beauty.
Even more exciting, according to the Telegraph:
Some 70 per cent of more than 2,000 men and women polled cited confidence as a key factor in making a woman attractive, ahead of the 67 per cent who included physical beauty and 47 per cent who looked for a sense of style.
I don’t know about you but confidence wasn’t exactly booming in my teens and early twenties even if certain physical attributes were, ahem, more buoyant with youth. And confidence is something that accrues with age. You know what else does? Happiness! Maybe this getting older thing is not so bad after all—right?
The verdict is in: Women can do more things at once, or should that be: men can do less? A group of British researchers have finally put this long-held (but never verified) theory to the test and the results are pretty unequivocal.
According to the The Week, here was the researchers’ methodology:
They gathered 100 students—50 men and 50 women—and gave them eight minutes to perform three tasks at the same time. They all got the same tasks, which included solving simple math problems, finding restaurants on a map, and devising a strategy for finding a lost key in an imaginary field. Then, while they were juggling those assignments, the subjects received a telephone call, which they could answer or ignore. If they answered, they were asked some general knowledge questions while they continued the original tasks.
Apparently the women were undaunted by the multiple tasks and 70 percent of them outperformed their male counterparts. The men did well on the math, decent on the map test, but totally sucked at strategizing about the key.
It turns out the men didn’t use any kind of logical approach (!) but rather jumped right in with no plan.
I think even our male readers are probably having a little chuckle at that, no?
Ok, now for the rub: Multitasking is actually shown to make everyone less efficient (even us girls who are so good at it). Apparently when you focus on a single task both sides of your brain work together, but when you multitask they divide to conquer and that slows productivity. Still, my takeaway from this study? Women are more logical.
One more thing, though. Not to get all bra-burny, but why is it that this is just being looked into now? When working on the book this was something we ran into time and again: So much of the available research skews male and so much about women’s brains and bodies (and you know, hormones and skin…) remains cloaked in mystery. At least this is bound to change in coming years with so many ladies entering these fields.
Would you like to see more studies about women?
