iStockphoto Just in time for the start of tanning season, a federal task force is formally recommending that physicians counsel children, adolescents and young adults with fair skin about minimizing ultraviolet-light exposure to cut the risk for skin cancer. As WSJ reported in November, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a draft recommendation for comment with a novel idea: Rather than focus on the specter of cancer later in life, hone in on the sun’s harsh effects on appearance, which is likely to resonate more with teens who flock to beaches and tanning parlors. The recommendation — available on the USPSTF website and in the Annals of Internal Medicine — replaces a 2003 statement that the evidence was insufficient to recommend for or against counseling. Task force chairwoman Dr. Virginia Moyer tells the Health Blog that over the last decade, researchers have built up evidence showing that the behavior of teens and young adults can be changed with a variety of counseling approaches, such as  showing them photos taken with a UV camera to demonstrate the extent to which UV rays can damage the skin. Moyer, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says public comments on the recommendations were generally favorable. The task force doesn’t recommend any particular way to discuss appearance, but the basic message is: “In people who are sensitive, exposure to sun and tanning beds results in ugly skin,” she says. “We aren’t being underhanded in any way to suggest this is a good way to get the message across, because the damage that causes ugly skin is the damage that causes skin cancer down the road.” With primary care doctors stretched for time already, will counseling take up too much time? Moyer says the message can be delivered in the course of general advice but that doctors can use their office staff and waiting room time to show videos of the sun damage to skin or use the UV cameras on patients. “If patients have to wait anyway, why not use the time for something beneficial,” she adds.

Babies conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) have a higher risk of birth defects than those conceived naturally, but the increased risk may stem from the parents rather than the treatment itself, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the study, among the largest of its kind to date, researchers analyzed more than 300,000 births in Australia and found the risk of birth defects to be 26% higher with IVF than with natural, or unassisted, conception—a finding consistent with previous research. IVF involves combining – but not injecting– a woman's egg with sperm, usually in a laboratory dish, then transferring the resulting embryo into the woman's uterus. But virtually all of the increased risk associated with IVF could be attributed to the health and demographic profile of the mother, including her age, body mass index, socioeconomic status, and any health conditions (such as diabetes) she may have experienced before or during pregnancy. The direct influence of IVF on the risk of birth defects appears to be "very modest," says lead researcher Michael J. Davies, Ph.D., an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Adelaide, in Australia. Health.com: A top doc reveals 8 fertility misconceptions "It's important to counsel couples regarding the risk of conception [with] in vitro, but, controlling for all confounding factors, there's not really an increased risk for babies conceived with IVF," says Dr. George R. Attia, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. However, the same may not be true of all infertility treatments. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), another so-called assisted reproductive technology the researchers examined, was associated with a 77% higher risk of birth defects versus unassisted conception. That figure fell to only 57% after the parents were taken into account, suggesting the procedure itself conferred some of the risk. ICSI involves removing an egg from the body, injecting it with one carefully selected sperm, and implanting the embryo into the mother. Compared to IVF the procedure is "mechanically more invasive, and bypasses a number of selection processes that may otherwise preclude that sperm from fertilization," Davies says. Health.com: Are fertility drugs safe? In all, roughly 18,000 babies in the study were born with one or more birth defects, such as cerebral palsy or heart abnormalities. The rate of defects was about 7% with IVF and about 10% with ICSI, compared to about 6% with unassisted conception. Although the findings would seem to suggest that IVF is less risky than ICSI, the two procedures aren't entirely comparable. Unlike IVF, ICSI is primarily used when the male has a fertility problem, such as a very low sperm count. As the study notes, it's possible – as with IVF – that birth defects associated with ICSI may stem from the underlying causes of male infertility, not the treatment. The researchers weren't able to test this theory, since the current study focused on mothers and took into account the father's occupation only. Health.com: Trying to get pregnant? 10 proven sperm killers Previous studies have linked IVF to birth defects, as well as to an increased risk of autism and childhood cancer, but it hasn't been clear how much of the risk can be directly attributed to the procedure. The new findings regarding IVF should be "reassuring for patients," said Dr. Glenn Schattman, president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, a professional organization for doctors who provide infertility treatments, in a statement. In another finding, the study confirmed previous research on the practice of freezing and storing embryos for future use, known as cryopreservation. With both IVF and ICSI, babies born from frozen embryos were less likely to have birth defects than those born from fresh embryos, perhaps because the freezing process helps weed out weaker embryos. The "fittest and healthiest [frozen embryos] tend to survive, thereby reducing the risk during subsequent stages of development," Davies says. Health.com: Is your fertility window closing? The study had a key shortcoming that will need to be addressed in future research. All of the participants underwent their infertility treatments between 1986 and 2002, so the findings don't reflect new advances in the field that may have affected the risk of birth defects, theauthors say. Davies and his colleagues presented their findings today at the World Congress in Building Consensus in Gynecology, Infertility and Perinatology, in Barcelona, Spain. Filed under: Children’s Health , Fertility , Pregnancy , Women’s Health Tagged: Amanda Gardner – Health.com , Health.com

By now, you’ve probably noticed that we’re a little bit excited about the upcoming warmer months. Between our no sweat ways to kick-start your bikini body , our roundup of boot camp workouts to try before bikini season , and our list of the five best debloating foods , we’ve been shaping up for the Summer season. But looking your best in a bikini isn’t the only reason to ramp up your workouts when the warm weather hits. Maybe you’re training for a race to push your limits, or maybe you just want to increase your endurance so you can enjoy a bevy of Summer sports. So tell us: what’s your warm-weather motivation? What's Your Warm-Weather Workout Motivation? I want to look good in a swimsuit. I want to be fit enough to enjoy outdoor sports. I don’t do anything different to get in shape for Summer. Other, I’ll let you know in the comments.

This good news couldn’t come at a better time, especially with all the chocolate bunnies and cream-filled chocolate eggs hopping around. A study examining surveys from nearly 1,000 adult men and women published in the journal Archives of Medicine shows that people who eat chocolate frequently (more than twice a week) have a lower BMI (body mass index) compared to those who consume it less regularly. In fact, even though chocolate eaters in the study consumed more calories overall, they still had lower BMIs. Researchers think there may be something in the chocolate that makes the calories consumed less likely to be deposited as fat. Chocolate contains polyphenols, which in animal studies have been known to increase the number of energy-burning mitochondria inside cells, as well as improve blood flow. Both of these factors could boost metabolism, which in turn would prevent weight gain. Some researchers, however, aren’t convinced, because they feel in order for polyphenols to have this kind of effect on BMI, the chocolate consumed would need to contain high levels of polyphenols, such as that found in pure cocoa. Chances are the participants were eating processed chocolate with low levels of polyphenols. Studies do show that indulging a little can curb cravings, preventing possible binges. This in turn prevents weight gain, which could also be a reason chocolate eaters have a lower BMI. Unfortunately, this recent chocolate research doesn’t give you the green light to devour an entire chocolate bunny just yet. The researchers only found an association between eating chocolate and staying slim, and feel more detailed research needs to be done in order to confirm the connection. Now we want to know: how often do you eat chocolate?

Take a break from heavy foods with this shredded Brussels sprouts salad from FitSugar reader Gabbysgfree . She posted in our Healthy Recipe community group . A shredded Brussels sprouts salad with caramelized onions, toasted almonds, and a tasty cumin-grapefruit vinaigrette! Learn how to make this salad after the break!

We’ve all heard the adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks." But new research reveals that you CAN teach an older adult how to improve their brain skills, with the added effect of changing a personality trait, making them more open to new experiences. Using subjects from a study designed to improve brain skills of older people, the researchers hypothesized that improving cognitive skills might also increase participants openness – a personality trait that allows a person to be receptive to new experiences or being engaged by novel ideas such as an intellectual challenge. Lead researcher Elizabeth Stine-Morrow of the University of Illinois explains, “It also makes sense that, reciprocally, if you engage in cognitive abilities that you enjoy and that are rewarding, that will also make you open to experience. And that’s what we found.” The study, published in Psychology and Aging, included 183 older adults, ages 60 to 94 years old. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to a 16 week long home-based program designed to improve their inductive reasoning skills, and the remaining subjects served as the control group.  All participants were tested on measures of  inductive reasoning before the study began and again after the 16-week study period. The control group subjects simply engaged in the pre- and post-study testing. Each training group participant was given self-guided material that included tests for recognizing patterns in numbers and letters, along with crossword and Sudoku puzzles, which also sharpen inductive reasoning skills. The material was designed to allow each subject to feel challenged by the material, but not overwhelmed or frustrated by the tasks. Participants kept logs of how much time they spent on the material, and each week they met with researchers, turning in their logs, and getting more challenging material to work on the following week.  While both the control subjects and the intervention subjects tested similarly in the pre-study testing, after the 16 week study, the researchers found a significant increase in measures of inductive reasoning and openness among the intervention group. “The hallmark of this program is that [the seniors] were learning a concrete skill and they could see this in their test performance,” Stine-Morrow explains.  The research is unique in that, “people in the inductive reasoning group gradually increased in their scores on a very reliable measure of openness to experience,” she adds. This is novel because “there’s a lot of research that suggests as we get older… people don’t change radically in their personality… so the fact that we could, with a small cognitive intervention, increase this openness to experience, which in the long run may affect cognition, it’s exciting and a little bit different.” When asked to explain the take-home message of their study, Stine-Morrow cautioned that the results must first be replicated in future studies. But what the results imply, she says, is that it’s a good idea to put yourself in situations where you learn new things in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you. "So stay somewhat in your comfort zone, but push on the boundaries a little bit. And that in turn is likely to make you more comfortable with new experiences, so ideally this could be a sort of self perpetuating process.” Stine-Morrow notes that there’s a lot of debate in scientific literature about whether people can alter cognitive processes with brain activity, adding that scientists know “that people who are engaged in a lot of [brain] activity do better in a variety of ways, but we need to be careful here. What we know is that really active people have better cognitive abilities, but it could be that if you’re more cognitively vital, then you have more resources to go do all these things.” It may be as simple as use it or lose it – it certainly can’t harm our brains to pick up a challenging word or number puzzle. Filed under: Brain , Senior Health Tagged: Ann J. Curley – CNN Medical Assignment Manager

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There are exercises that target your abs to help you get the rock-hard stomach you’ve always dreamed of. But if you really want to double-team belly bulge, you’ll need to eliminate sugar and processed carbs while also incorporating fat-burning foods into your diet. Keep reading to see which foods can help trim inches from your waistline! Source: Thinkstock View Slideshow ›

Wearing flip-flops and walking barefoot may be one of your favorite things about Summer weather, but unfortunately it can damage the skin on your feet. The constant exposure to air dries out your delicate skin, creating calluses. The pressure of pounding your feet on the ground when you walk or run exasperates the issue and causes heel fissures , or cracks in the skin. If you continue to walk or run, the cracks can split open and become deeper, which can lead to bleeding and infection. Aside from not looking the prettiest, they are also really painful. Here’s what you can do to heal your cracked heels and prevent fissures in the first place.

A review of previously published research finds that telling people to reduce dietary sodium produces small reductions in blood pressure but has no effect on heart attacks or death from heart disease. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to salt with abandon, an author of the study says. Rod Taylor, professor of health services research at the University of Exeter’s Peninsula Medical School, and colleagues crunched data from seven randomized controlled trials with at least six months of follow-up. But even with studies covering 6,250 participants, there wasn’t enough data to tell one way or the other whether lowering salt consumption helps people avoid heart issues or live longer. The findings were published in detail by the Cochrane Library and in abbreviated form in the American Journal of Hypertension . Taylor tells the Health Blog that he doesn’t question the notion that salt consumption is linked to cardiovascular risk. But he says giving individuals dietary advice alone isn’t likely to cut it as a means of permanently lowering their salt intake, and therefore isn’t likely to have a long-term impact on health outcomes. “What’s not working is the advice,” he says. A more effective policy would also focus on strategies at the population level — things such as manufacturers voluntarily lowering levels of “invisible salt” in packaged foods, Taylor says. Those foods, plus restaurant meals, are responsible for about 75% of the sodium we take in. Meals served in schools and workplaces are also good areas to target, he says. Without broader efforts, “we’re not going to achieve the goals” laid out by government and public-health groups, he says. The latest U.S. dietary guidelines recommend daily consumption of less than 2,300 mg of sodium for the general population and less than 1,500 mg for people over 51, for African-Americans of any age, and for people with hypertension, kidney disease or diabetes. Americans aged 2 and up currently average about 3,400 mg per day, CDC stats show. Taylor says there’s also a need to study these types of population-wide interventions to be sure they do what they’re supposed to. There might be some unintended consequences for some populations; for example, one trial suggests salt restriction may possibly be harmful in heart-failure patients, he says. (The authors of that study concluded it wasn’t clear whether a high dose of diuretic or low-sodium diet was responsible for a higher hospital readmission rate.) That kind of information is crucial to have. “Let’s implement, but evaluate,” says Taylor. Gordon Tomaselli, president of the American Heart Association and chief of cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, agrees that the trials that were analyzed don’t offer enough evidence to say with certainty that reducing salt reduces major cardiovascular events. “The trends are in the right direction, but they’re not statistically significant,” he tells the Health Blog. He says this issue is tough to study in a healthy population — either you need small studies following people for a long time, or larger studies following people for a somewhat shorter time. A combination of epidemiological studies and smaller, more targeted randomized trials are likely the way to study this question, says Tomaselli. Critics of the hypothesis that salt consumption is linked to cardiac events and death interpreted the findings as confirming their point of view. “We have all heard the twin salt reduction refrain, ‘Lower your salt consumption and you will reduce your blood pressure,’ immediately followed by ‘Lower blood pressure reduces heart disease and saves thousands of lives,’” Morton Satin, vice president of science and research at the Salt Institute, told us in an email. “The anti-salt lobby never says explicitly, ‘Lowering salt consumption will reduce heart disease and save thousands of live.’ This is because two half truths don’t make one whole truth.” Image: iStockphoto