Miranda Lambert wants women to rock their curves – Self Prepare to be inspired by this 93-year-old yoga teacher – Shape 1 in 4 Americans eats fast food every day, and more sad food stats – Hungry Runner Another argument for going gluten-free, and it’s not weight loss – Mind Body Green The countdown to Summer is on; your 30-day shape-up plan – HuffPost Living Skip the chemicals and make your own all-natural insect repellent – Blisstree Belly blues? Use Ayurveda yoga to calm your tummy troubles – Yoga Journal 5 vegetarian-friendly gifts for your foodie dad on Father’s Day – Vegetarian Times

Sleepwalking isn't just a quirk of Homer Simpson and other cartoon characters who go on unconscious adventures. New research suggests it's even more common than you may think. Researchers published a study in the journal Neurology involving more than 19,000 American adults, and found that nearly 30% had sleepwalked at some point in their lives. Far fewer said they experienced sleepwalking within the last year – only about 4% did. One percent had two or more episodes per month. Dr. Maurice Ohayon of Stanford University and lead author of the study says sleepwalking can be risky business; some people can harm themselves or others while wandering about. Sleepwalking is far more likely to occur in childhood than adulthood; previous research suggests that as many as 30% of children have been affected. Prior to this study, there was no good estimate of how many Americans sleepwalk generally, the researchers wrote. A study 10 years ago in Europe found a prevalence of 2%. And 30 years ago, a study in Los Angeles found about 2.5% of about 1,000 people experienced sleepwalking. There wasn't a significant difference in sleepwalking in men vs. women, but the behavior did decrease with age, with the exception of those who reported it more than once per week. Family history and genetics may play a role: 11.4% of people who reported sleepwalking said at least one sibling had episodes, compared to 7.8% of the rest of the participants. Individuals who said they sleepwalked in the previous year were more likely than others to have had a family history of sleepwalking. The study authors also took into account participants' usage of medications for sleep, anxiety, depression and other purposes. They found that people who take a kind of antidepressant for anxiety called SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) had a higher likelihood of sleepwalking at least once per year. Those who took over-the-counter sleeping pills and tricyclic antidepressants were more likely to experience sleepwalking at least twice per month. Although previous studies have suggested that psychotropic medications are associated with sleepwalking, this one suggests that pills don't cause nighttime wandering per se; however, they may trigger these behaviors in people already predisposed, study authors wrote. But keep in mind that the results are based on people's own recollections and knowledge of their sleepwalking behaviors; the researchers did not independently confirm the participants' sleepwalking accounts. Furthermore, some people, particularly those who live alone, may engage in sleepwalking without being aware of it. So the researchers may have underestimated sleepwalking behaviors. Dr. Lisa Shives, founder of Northshore Sleep Medicine in Evanston, Illinois, said the study's estimate of 30% of people with at least one sleepwalking episode in their lives sounds about right. People do tend to outgrow sleepwalking after their teenage years, but there remains a minority who continue to have recurrent episodes. There have been some bizarre incidents recorded of people's behavior while sleeping. One woman was reported to have sex with strangers during sleepwalking episodes . Sleepwalking has also been used as a legal defense, sometimes successfully , for people who have allegedly committed crimes while sleeping. "You really need a strong documented history that somebody has been doing this for a while" for sleepwalking to be a believable defense in court, Shives said. The precise causes are still mysterious, partly because sleepwalking is so hard to study. Shives has had patients who are chronic sleepwalkers normally, but don't exhibit the behavior in the laboratory. It's important to focus on safety measures for people prone to sleepwalking, Shives said. Lock doors and windows at night. Kitchen knives and other sharp objects may even need to be put away at night. You may need an alarm system for exits. Some lifestyle modifications may help, such as having a regular sleep schedule, reducing noise or light in the place where you sleep, and avoiding stress and fever. Hypnosis may help get rid of their sleepwalking behaviors. Another treatment that may help is called "anticipatory awakenings," where the person is awakened about 15 minutes before they would normally sleepwalk and stay awake during that period. Benzodiazepine medications have also been prescribed. How can I stop my son's sleepwalking? And take note: It's a myth that waking a sleepwalker would result in brain shock or death; the person may be startled or disoriented, but waking him or her up could save the person from doing serious harm. Still, some experts recommend gently guiding the sleepwalker back to bed if possible. Filed under: Living Well , Sleep Tagged: Elizabeth Landau – CNN.com Health Writer/Producer

Get legs like Sandra Bullock with these 3 moves – Self Why Americans may be destined to be fat – The Daily Beast Use your passion for running to give back to the community – Peanut Butter Fingers How to encourage a friend to lose weight without sounding insensitive – Prevention Is global warming to blame for these horrendous allergy attacks? – Daily Spark Get inspired by these kick-ass fitness commercials – Fitness Get ready for Summer gardening with this peaceful yoga series – Yoga Journal Wow dinner guests with these roasted tofu fillets and jade pesto – Vegetarian Times

Mei-Chun Jau for The Wall Street Journal Christy Findlay, school director at The Peanut Gallery Preschool/Early Learning Center in Flower Mound, administers an insulin shot on Caleb Macias, a 3-year-old diabetic, while his lead teacher Cristina Saavedra comforts him with a frog toy. As many as three million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, a disease which can be neither be prevented, nor cured. As a result, explains the Journal’s Laura Landro , more researchers and public health officials are urging people to get tested for the illness, often called juvenile diabetes, since early detection can help reduce some of the illness’s dangerous effects. Once diagnosed, though, living with the disease presents a number of challenges. The Journal’s Kate Linebaugh spoke with parents of diabetic toddlers who, they say, are regularly excluded from child care facilities.  She explains: Many centers cite state and local laws that require certification for administering medicine like insulin as a reason. Small home-based child-care operations with limited staff and resources argue that taking care of diabetics would disrupt their programs and interfere with the other children. “There are 50 states, there are 50 different ways of doing this unfortunately,” said Katie Hathaway, director of legal advocacy at the American Diabetes Association. She argues that day-care centers “have to have somebody who provides insulin to those kids.” Laura Landro and Kate Linebaugh will answer your questions about  Type 1 diabetes, in a live chat moderated by Personal Journal Health Editor Larry Greenberg, Tuesday at 1 p.m. EDT. Ask your questions about testing for, and living with Type 1 diabetes, by clicking on “Comment Now” below.

Associated Press In 2004, Merck pulled the popular pain medication Vioxx from the market, after a study showed it doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke. Now we know more about what caused these side effects, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Their conclusion: In trying to relieve pain, these drugs also suppress the production of enzymes that play a key role protecting the heart. In the journal Science Translational Medicine today, the researchers published the last of some 20 studies in humans and mice examining the biological underpinnings for the cardiovascular risks from taking Vioxx and related drugs. The label for Pfizer’s Celebrex, the only drug in the class still on the market, warns about the risks. These drugs aimed to provide pain relief without causing the bleeding ulcers that could result from taking other painkillers. They’d do that by blocking a single enzyme, called Cox-2, that makes fats that cause pain. Yet one of these fats protects the heart. Blocking Cox-2’s production turns out to have a cascade of biological effects that raise the cardiovascular risk even among healthy patients, says Garret FitzGerald , director of Penn’s Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics. For instance, blocking Cox-2 suppresses production of molecules that protect the heart by breaking up potential clots and promoting blood flow. Merck said in a email that it hadn’t had an opportunity to thoroughly review the mice-study data released today, but that “experience has shown that the results of animal studies do not always translate well into humans.” No comment yet from Pfizer. A study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed how suppressing Cox-2 causes hardening of arteries in mice. That explains why clinical testing of the drugs indicated they can raise the heart risks even among healthy patients who are taking the drugs for more than a year, FitzGerald says. With a theory explaining why drugs like Vioxx can be dangerous, FitzGerald says a consortium of researchers is now exploring ways to identify patients who could benefit from taking one of the drugs without great risk.

Look out Viagra – there's a new erectile dysfunction drug in town. It's called Stendra (aka Avanafil) and it's newly approved by the Food and Drug Administration, making it the first ED drug to come out in almost 10 years. Although Stendra has not been tested against what is known as the "Little Blue Pill," drug makers say that – for some men – it may work faster. "If things are heated up, theoretically you can get improved function earlier, within 15 minutes, with this drug," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, and co-author of a recent study about Stendra in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. "You can argue this is the first potential on-demand drug." The "on-demand" drug could end up in high demand for men with ED who do not respond to drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Goldstein, who has authored more than 300 studies in the field of sexual dysfunction, said that early data suggests Stendra may perform faster than other ED drugs, but that must be proven in a larger, real-world population. Goldstein and his team studied 1,267 men who took a 50, 100 or 200 milligram dose of Stendra – or placebo – about 30 minutes before engaging in sexual activity. The men filled out questionnaires indicating, for example, how long it took before they engaged in sexual intercourse or became aroused. "For some men it works in 15 minutes, for some men it took longer," said Goldstein. To be clear, no one is suggesting that men should drop Viagra – or any other of the popular ED drugs– for Stendra. "There is no drug that is the best," said Dr. Laurence Levine, a professor in the department of Urology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, who was not a part of the Stendra study. "Each patient's own chemistry may make one drug better than another. There are certain advantages and disadvantages to all of these drugs." Stendra is another option in a field of effective and safe drugs, said Levine. A small minority of patients experienced side effects after taking Stendra, according to the study, including headaches, flushing, nasal congestion and back pain. And overall, patients taking any ED drug – all of which work similarly – should be aware of rare side effects like sudden loss of vision or hearing, according to the FDA. Filed under: Men’s Health , Senior Health , Sex Tagged: Stephanie Smith -CNN Medical Producer

It's known as the "youth bulge" – a decrease in child mortality rates leading to the largest generation of adolescents in history: 1.2 billion to be exact. As many of those teens face poverty, natural disasters and wars in addition to overwhelming physical and emotional changes, researchers worry about the lack of available health resources. "The high income world has been grappling with a rising tide of risks for non-communicable diseases, including the problems of obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use," write the authors of a paper published in The Lancet this week. "That tide is now overwhelming many [lower-to-middle-income countries] who have yet to bring in measures to control the problems of injury, infectious disease and maternal mortality in this young age group.” Adolescent is defined by researchers as those aged 10 to 19, due to growing trends in the earlier onset of puberty and delayed transition into adult roles. The paper, titled "Health of the world’s adolescents: a synthesis of internationally comparable data," is just one of several published in this edition of the journal. Those papers are paired with a report card on adolescent health released by UNICEF . Both publications offer an intriguing overview of teenagers' health and the risks they face around the globe: – The U.S. has the worst adolescent mortality rate out of 27 high income countries. Its rates of violent deaths (gang-related, homicides, etc.) are 10 to 20 times higher than other developed countries. – Suicide is the leading cause of death among adolescents worldwide, with the highest rates in Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. – Early childbirth is the leading cause of death for adolescent girls in Africa. Complications related to pregnancy account for 50,000 deaths each year. – In Eastern and Southern Africa, unsafe sex is one of the greatest risk factors for 10 to 14 year olds. – One in five adolescents in high income countries are binge drinking at least weekly. The U.S. also has a high rate,despite having a legal drinking age of 21. – Approximately 2.2. million adolescents are living with HIV. – More than a third of teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are anemic, or have a deficient number of red blood cells and/or hemoglobin in the blood. Most anemia is due to insufficient iron in a person's diet. Anemia can increase the risk of hemorrhage or sepsis during childbirth. – Although obesity is a growing problem in many countries, nearly 50% of girls aged 15 to 19 in India are underweight and more than 25% are underweight in 10 other countries. – Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest prevalence rates of adolescent tobacco use. For more information, visit TheLancet.com or UNICEF.org Filed under: Adolescent Health Tagged: Jacque Wilson — CNN.com writer/producer

Taking the diabetes drug Actos may increase one’s risk of developing bladder cancer, Health Canada and the drug’s maker warn.

A special computer game is as effective for treating adolescent depression as one-on-one counselling with trained clinicians, Australian researchers report in the British Medical Journal.

The short-lived high teenagers get from using amphetamines or the club drug MDMA – better known as Ecstasy – could lead to longer-lasting depression later on, a new study suggests. Researchers in Canada interviewed 3,880 teenagers from low-income neighborhoods in Québec. Compared to their peers who used neither drug, teens who reported taking MDMA or amphetamines at least once in the tenth grade had 70% and 60% higher odds, respectively, of experiencing depression symptoms in the eleventh grade. Using both drugs nearly doubled the odds of depression. The findings don't show a cause-and-effect relationship between drug use and later depression, but they do come close. Unlike much previous research, the study controlled for a wide range of factors that might influence both drug use and depression, including problems at school and at home, a prior history of depression and anxiety, the strength of a teen's social networks, smoking and alcohol use. "This doesn't ensure causality, but that's the closest we can get with this kind of study," says Jean-Sébastien Fallu, Ph.D., a study coauthor and an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Montréal, in Quebec. Health.com: Surprising causes of depression The only way to establish cause and effect would be to create a randomized controlled trial in which one group of teens took MDMA or amphetamines and a similar group took placebo pills, but that would be impossible for ethical reasons, says Jeffrey T. Parsons, Ph.D., the chair of psychology at Hunter College, in New York City. Other researchers have reported similar links between MDMA and amphetamine use and subsequent depression, says Parsons, who was not involved in the new study. "We're starting to be convinced that this, in fact, causal," he says. The study was published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Health.com: How you can help someone who's depressed The use of MDMA and amphetamines – including methamphetamine, or meth – is increasingly common among youths, and not just those who frequent clubs and rave parties, the authors say. In this group of teens, 8% said they used MDMA and 12% said they used amphetamines (or "speed") in the tenth grade, when they were 15 or 16 years old. Seven percent of teens said they used both drugs at least once. Notably, the authors did not specifically ask the kids about prescription stimulants such as Adderall (also known as amphetamine salts) or Ritalin, both of which are prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and can have amphetamine-like effects when taken in high doses or otherwise misused. Studies have shown that children with ADHD are more prone to depression. When the tenth graders were interviewed again in the eleventh grade, 15% reported symptoms of depression, such as feelings of hopelessness and sadness, loss of appetite, and trouble concentrating. The fact that using both MDMA and amphetamine increased depression risk more than using either drug alone suggests that the two drugs may interact in harmful ways, the authors note. Health.com: Can psychedelic drugs treat depression? The study does have some important limitations. Although the authors did their best to control for the use of other drugs (including alcohol and marijuana), they can't completely rule out the possibility that such drugs are contributing to the association, Fallu says. In addition, the study may present an incomplete picture because it excluded high-school dropouts and focused on relatively young teens who are likely to be experimenting with drugs rather than using them regularly. The link between drug use and depression may be different – and perhaps stronger – among older, frequent users and teens who aren't in school, Fallu says. Filed under: Adolescent Health , Depression , Drug Safety , Health.com Tagged: Amanda Gardner – Health.com