Feminine Magazine

2006-03-24T11:27:00.000-08:00

Finding drunks in a bar -- what are the chances?

Thu Mar 23, 9:57 AM ET

Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkeness, Beck said.

The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

"We feel that the only way we're going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this," she said.

"There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they're intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car," Beck said. "People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss."

She said the sting operations would continue throughout the state.

2006-03-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

Study Looks at All the Lonely People

Sun Mar 19, 5:06 PM ET

SUNDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- More than a third of adults say they are lonely, especially people in their 40s, a new study shows.

U.K. and Australian researchers conducted 30-minute phone interviews with 1,289 adults in the state of Central Queensland, in Australia.

They found that 35 percent of the respondents said they were lonely. People aged 50 and older had the lowest levels of loneliness. Levels of loneliness began to rise at age 20 and peaked between the ages of 40 and 49.

People with strong religious beliefs were less likely to be lonely than people who had no such beliefs. Women were more likely to have strong religious beliefs, which may explain why women reported lower levels of loneliness than men, the researchers said.

Retired people were less likely than unemployed people to be lonely, and there was a link between household income and loneliness -- people with lower incomes reported higher levels of loneliness.

The researchers found no significant association between loneliness and how long a person lived in their current community.

"Understanding what makes people lonely is very important, as loneliness can increase the risk of health conditions, such as heart disease and depression, and other problems such as domestic violence," researcher Professor William Lauder, of the University of Dundee in Scotland, said in a prepared statement.

"One of the most interesting findings in this study is that it challenges the belief that retirement is linked to diminished social contacts and that people get lonelier as they get older," Lauder said.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians explains emotional health.

2006-03-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

By Arlene WeintraubFri Mar 10, 5:01 PM ET

As Dr. Ron Rothenberg bursts through the door of his anti-aging institute in Southern California, a cell phone pressed to his ear, his nurse warns him of the busy day ahead. There will be four-hour consultations with each of three prospective patients, she says. They're all coming to hear the 60-year-old Rothenberg's pitch about how his tailored regimens of diet, exercise, and hormones will make them feel younger and live longer.

In between the meet-and-greets, Rothenberg catches up with patient Dr. Howard Benedict, a retired dentist. The two men met in 1999 and became friends while surfing at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Rothenberg put Benedict on a $10,000-a-year regimen of 30 vitamins and supplements, plus testosterone gel and injections of human growth hormone. Benedict says his arthritis pain has eased so much that he rides his bike and surfs for hours at a stretch, after sucking down a huge protein smoothie he learned to make from Rothenberg's in-house nutritionist. "Those other guys my age, they're only out there surfing for a half-hour," says Benedict, 61. As a sly smile creeps across his face, he adds: "I feel like I'm 20 years old with my wife. It's just amazing."

For Rothenberg, this is a typical day at the California Healthspan Institute in Encinitas, which caters to patients eager to slow down the inevitable march toward Metamucil mornings and Viagra nights. As 77 million baby boomers approach retirement, the relatively new field of anti-aging is racing to keep up with them. Anti-aging medicine goes way beyond Botox, Retin-A face creams, and medical spas that offer plastic surgery and laser-based cosmetic procedures. In fact, only a small portion of what these new medicine men and women do is aimed at making patients look younger. Instead, anti-aging doctors seek to turn back the internal hands of time by prescribing megadoses of supplements that they believe prevent the body's organs from deteriorating and dying. In addition to hotly disputed biologic drugs such as human growth hormone (HGH), there's an alphabet soup of supplements that includes DHEA, antioxidant vitamins C and E, glucosamine, Omega-3, and more. Women have been consumers of hormone replacement therapies for decades. Now men are also being primed to view middle age in terms of male menopause, sometimes called andropause. That's one reason more patients than ever are starting to gobble up the anti-aging promise.

Controversies

The movement even has its own professional group: the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), which issues a certification to doctors who want to hang out a shingle in this field. A4M sponsors conferences, sells books and DVDs about anti-aging, and serves as a general clearinghouse of information for patients looking for the nearest clinic. It also waves around research showing that the industry pulls in $56 billion a year now -- and that number could swell to $79 billion by 2009. The promise A4M and its members dangle before patients is summed up perfectly in the title of Rothenberg's self-published book: Forever Ageless. According to A4M, 1,500 doctors have sought board certification in anti-aging medicine since 1996. Rothenberg, who has about 300 patients, was No. 10 on the list, and he's proud of his status as a pioneer. "We're reversing the aging process and improving quality of life," he says. "I see it every day."

Rothenberg and other practitioners in the field have precious little scientific data to back up their claims that the potions extend life. But they insist the regimens will guarantee what Rothenberg calls "rectangularization" -- years of healthy living followed by a short, acute decline, as opposed to a slower, triangle-like descent toward the grave. As Rothenberg puts it: "Rather than spending a few years in a nursing home, why not fall apart fast and die?"

The anti-aging movement is barely one step ahead of the controversies it has spawned. Many of the dietary supplements these physicians recommend are not regulated as medications by the Food & Drug Administration. That means the products don't go through the rigorous safety and efficacy testing that most prescription drugs face. Furthermore, some hormone products prescribed by anti-aging physicians are made by specialized pharmacists who, detractors say, may not be adhering to the same FDA standards of consistency and purity as mass-market drug manufacturers. The anti-aging arsenal could swell substantially in coming years as a whole complement of experimental biotech drugs comes on stream (page 72).

Many critics are crying for the FDA to crack down on the anti-aging industry, especially on the renegades who illegally hawk their wares all over the Net. The claims of the promoters range "from the extreme fringe to the downright illegal," says Dr. Thomas Perls, associate professor of medicine and geriatrics at Boston University, who has been such an outspoken opponent of the anti-aging industry that A4M sued him and another professor in 2004 for defamation.

HGH is by far the most controversial weapon in the anti-aging arsenal. A substance produced in the body, it was synthesized by several biotech companies in the early 1980s. The first products were approved by the FDA in 1985 to help short children grow taller. Lately the anti-aging industry has latched on to HGH as a tool for boosting immunity, memory, heart function, muscle mass, and more. (An upcoming book, Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, has created a stir by alleging that baseball slugger Barry Bonds took HGH, among other performance enhancers.)

Rothenberg, who has taken growth hormone himself, believes it could help people live to be 125. But it's illegal for anyone to distribute HGH for anti-aging purposes, and critics believe many players in the anti-aging industry who prescribe it are violating laws and endangering patients in the process. The drug industry formally opposes the efforts to link HGH with anti-aging, but behind the scenes, companies may not have done much to douse the enthusiasm: In December a federal court unsealed a whistleblower suit against a unit of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE - News), accusing the drug giant of promoting HGH for anti-aging use (page 70).

Then there are concerns that anti-aging promotions may be more like scams. Because aging is not actually a disease, very little of the expense is covered by insurance. That leaves patients paying often substantial fees out of pocket. Rothenberg's complete health assessment -- a two-day process that includes meetings with a nutritionist and an exercise physiologist -- costs $2,500 or more. The patient often walks away with a long shopping list of diet supplements and natural hormones that can run $250 a month. And HGH can set patients back by as much as $2,000 a month. "Buyer beware: These anti-aging clinics are marketing themselves as one-stop shops for getting tuned up after 60," says Daniel Perry, president of the Alliance for Aging Research, a skeptical Washington (D.C.) group that advocates for the study of aging. "But people are spending a lot of money to get treatments that may not be medically necessary."

Rothenberg points to himself as proof that anti-aging medicine works. A former hippie, he earned an M.D. at Columbia University. He practiced tropical emergency medicine in the Amazon, then returned to the U.S. and taught seminars on the subject at the University of California at San Diego, where he is still on the faculty. (He was also the local rattlesnake expert.) He first started injecting himself with HGH about a decade ago. Having just passed his 50th birthday, he felt off his game -- tired, disengaged with his patients at his San Diego practice, and less lively on his surfboard. "I was losing my edge," says Rothenberg, who, with his rapid-fire speech and easy laugh, bears more than a passing resemblance to the comic actor Gene Wilder. "I was losing my memory. Libido-wise, it was take it or leave it." Today, with a regimen that includes supplements and testosterone, he has enough energy to run his practice, train other anti-aging physicians, and even work once a week as an emergency room doctor.

At 8:30 a.m. on a crisp February day, Rothenberg takes the stage at a seaside Holiday Inn in San Diego, eager to share his knowledge with fledgling anti-aging physicians. He's the moderator of a conference sponsored by San Diego's University Compounding Pharmacy (UCP), which enjoys a booming business selling anti-aging treatments. Rothenberg asks how many of the 166 people in the audience are attending their first anti-aging seminar. Hands shoot up all over the room. His enthusiasm rises. "Aging is a disease that can be prevented or reversed," he booms to the newbies. "We are not prisoners of our destiny." Later, he dashes across the conference room, with the microphone in his hand, fielding questions for presenter Dr. Pamela W. Smith, who has started up 27 anti- aging clinics in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Houston. Admiring Rothenberg's boundless energy, she quips: "That's the growth hormone!"

Cancer Risk?

Rothenberg himself treats growth hormone with gravitas. That's because federal laws, inspired by sports-doping scandals in the late 1980s, bar doctors from prescribing HGH for uses not approved by the FDA. One disease in adults that does qualify is adult growth hormone deficiency, which Rothenberg believes many of his patients, including Howard Benedict, have. The disease carries symptoms such as depression and increased body fat. Blood tests can confirm the deficiency, but they're not always reliable, Rothenberg says.

At the conference, Rothenberg explains to doctors that it's O.K. to diagnose the disease on symptoms alone, as long as physicians document the diagnosis as being adult growth hormone deficiency, rather than a condition HGH has not been approved to treat, such as fatigue. In response to concerns that too much HGH can cause cancer, Rothenberg flashes a reference to a study carried out by endocrinologist Dr. Mary Lee Vance and others that he says shows there's no cancer risk.

Hearing about this scene, Vance is incensed. She says the patients in the cited studies were given just enough growth hormone to replace severe deficiencies. And while they didn't suffer increased rates of cancer, other research has shown that HGH can promote tumor growth. What's more, the hormone can spark high blood pressure, blood clots, and structural changes in the hands and feet, according to Vance, professor of medicine for the University of Virginia Health System. "They're misquoting (scientific) literature up the wazoo," she gripes, referring to the anti-aging proponents.

Lately, the FDA has started to take notice of improper marketing of HGH. The FDA's office of criminal investigations pursued 55 HGH cases last year, which is more than four times the number it looked into in 2000. "The FDA believes that a physician who prescribes, dispenses, and/or administers HGH for an unauthorized use violates federal law," says agency spokeswoman Laura Alvey in an e-mail. She points out examples such as the case of a Florida dentist who last year pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegally selling HGH over the Internet. He could face up to five years in prison for each of four counts, and $1 million in fines.

Rothenberg believes that responsible anti-aging physicians are simply restoring HGH in patients to its appropriate, youthful levels. And the fact that there's no exact science to diagnosing adult growth hormone deficiency leaves them a lot of leeway. Package inserts for products such as Genotropin, Pfizer's version of HGH, lay out guidelines for detecting the disease, but, says Rothenberg, "there's nothing in the law that says how to prescribe this. It's a gray area."

It's not just HGH that worries critics. Anti-aging doctors also prescribe testosterone, often in skin gels, and they recommend the hormone DHEA, which can convert to estrogen and testosterone in the body. They say the treatments enhance heart health, sexual performance, and memory in men, and fight menopause symptoms in women. Anti-aging doctors run a battery of blood and saliva tests prior to prescribing testosterone, and say they're simply replacing what's missing. But slipups can be costly: Too much testosterone can cause mood disorders and hair loss in men. In women, it can bring on acne, deepening voices, and unwanted hair growth.

The hormones estrogen and progesterone have also given rise to controversy. FDA-sanctioned synthetic versions, such as Wyeth's (NYSE:WYE - News) Prempro and Premarin, got a bad rap in 2002, when a giant study by the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) suggested the hormones might increase the risk of breast cancer and heart disease. At that point, many traditional gynecologists shied away from prescribing hormones.

Through the Cracks

More recent studies have downplayed the heart disease risk, but in the meantime, anti-aging doctors have stepped in to fill the void, promoting natural, or "bio-identical," hormones as safe alternatives. Critics take issue with these products for several reasons. First, bio-identical hormones are made by so-called compounding pharmacists. Historically, they have been permitted by law to customize medications for individual patients -- for example, people who react adversely to certain ingredients. But under FDA rules, they should not be manufacturing or selling drugs to a mass market. To get into that business, they would have to submit to strict supervision of their facilities, the quality of their products, the claims on their labels, and the like. Critics blast the FDA for letting too much activity slip through the cracks.

The second big complaint involves the very term "bio-identical." The hormones prescribed by anti-aging doctors are generally derived from plants such as soybeans and sweet potatoes, and combined into proprietary recipes, which may never be tested in human trials. Anti-aging proponents say the substances are natural, safe alternatives to FDA-approved hormones such as Premarin and Prempro, which are derived from the urine of pregnant horses. But many doctors are leery of the bio-identical pitch. "Yams do not make hormones like humans do," says Dr. Bruce Bouts, an internist in Findlay, Ohio. "Compounding pharmacies are selling a bill of goods."

In October, 2005, Wyeth weighed in on the debate by filing a petition to the FDA requesting that the agency regulate the compounding pharmacists with the same stringent standards it applies to pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. "We're concerned about what we believe is illegal mass-marketing," says Ginger Constantine, vice-president for women's health and bone-repair research at Wyeth. "They're saying their products are safer, but they haven't tested that." Federal regulators say that they're on the case. "The FDA is aware of the concerns raised about compounded bio-identical hormone products, and the agency is evaluating this issue," according to Steven Silverman of the office of compliance at the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation & Research.

Many anti-aging advocates have an almost cult-like faith in the movement. John Grasela, who runs UCP with his brother, Joe, says he has been taking many of the supplements he sells for the past 10 years. "I'm in the best shape of my whole life," says Grasela, 57. Dr. Alvin Yee, a protege of Rothenberg's who recently opened an anti-aging practice in Costa Mesa, Calif., says he designed an anti-aging regimen for himself, even though he's only 36 years old. "I've gained eight to nine pounds of muscle," he says during a break at the UCP conference, where physicians were enthusiastically perusing the selection of powders, protein bars, and syringes lined up against a back wall. "My girlfriend noticed."

What's missing amid all this excitement, though, is any firm scientific proof that these regimens actually slow down or reverse the aging process. That proof may never come. A truly scientific study would have to span several decades and include a control group that's taking a placebo. Imagine how difficult it would be to persuade patients to participate in such a trial, knowing that they could end up taking a sugar pill for 50 years, rather than the pill that might actually extend their lives. "Where's the big double-blind study, placebo-controlled? It's never going to happen," Rothenberg concedes. A handful of 10-year studies of hormone replacement are starting now, Rothenberg says, but he's not willing to wait for the results. "Let's take our best shot now."

One of the most important watchdogs in the practice of medicine is conspicuously absent in the anti-aging industry. Health insurers, by and large, have no supervisory role here. Most anti-aging clinics and compounding pharmacists require their patients to pay cash. The patients may be reimbursed later for some services, such as standard blood tests, but the doctors themselves are rarely filing the claims. So they're off the radar of the insurance companies, which have been trying of late to break physicians of what they consider to be bad habits, such as writing unnecessary prescriptions for costly and potentially harmful drugs. That means patients have one less entity looking out for their safety -- or at least their pocketbooks.

Some critics have taken it upon themselves to fill in as watchdogs. A paper published in the Oct. 26, 2005, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Assn. describes the distribution of human growth hormone for anti-aging as both rampant and illegal.

An estimated 30% of the growth hormone prescriptions in the U.S. are written for non-FDA-approved uses, according to the paper, co-written by Boston University's Perls and S. Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "They say they're stopping or reversing aging, but what evidence do they have?" says Olshansky. "What evidence do they have that it's safe? Our job is to protect the public."

The anti-aging industry is fighting back. In 2004, A4M filed a lawsuit against Perls and Olshansky in an Illinois circuit court. The suit alleges that for years, the two professors have engaged in "defamatory conduct" and interfered with A4M's ability to do business. The suit blasts Olshansky, for example, for once granting A4M a "silver fleece" award -- a designation meant to shame medical professionals who claim they have invented ways to reverse aging. The suit also alleges that at a 2004 A4M conference, Olshansky left a bottle of vegetable oil labeled "snake oil" for Drs. Ronald M. Goldman and Ronald M. Klatz, who head A4M.

The parties on both sides declined to comment specifically on the suit, which is still pending. Of Olshansky and Perls, says Klatz: "They're not scientists. Because of our success, they're trying to make a name for themselves. They're on a self- appointed soapbox." As for Rothenberg, he doesn't let himself get distracted by the controversy. "Growth hormone is no worse than any drug that can be prescribed off-label," he says.

The public has little inkling about the expert bickering. Anti-aging centers are popping up all over the country, some with franchise-like models. Since 2003, Patrick Savage and his identical twin, Dr. Paul Savage, have opened seven branches of their anti-aging center, called BodyLogicMD.

It all started five years ago, when Paul decided to seek help from an anti-aging doctor. He wanted to slim down his 267-pound frame and get tips for lowering his stress level. After six months on growth hormone and DHEA, he had shed 87 pounds, gained muscle mass, and felt great. Then Paul, who lives in Chicago, went to visit Patrick in Boca Raton, Fla., for Christmas. The brothers hadn't seen each other in a number of years. "Patrick opened the door and said: 'Wow,"' Paul recalls. "His wife was like: 'Oh, wow. Oh, wow."' Soon Patrick started on his own anti-aging regimen, and the two made a business of it. They hope to double the number of BodyLogicMD practices this year and increase their patient base by at least 300%.

Some patients are aware that anti-aging is controversial, but they say they must answer to how they feel. Paul's patient Suzi Tillman first went to see him after a hysterectomy left her feeling that her entire body had simply shut down. "I wasn't sleeping, I couldn't think straight, I called my children the wrong names," says Tillman, 51, a former professional ballroom dancer who now teaches dance and works with senior citizens. "I felt ugly. For an empowered woman, this is scary." Now she is taking 15 supplements a day and rubbing a cream made of compounded estrogen into her skin. She feels like her old self. "Oh, the relief to have that cloud gone."

The bigger the anti-aging movement gets, the less caution it may be applying to experiments that are truly out-there. A handful of anti-aging doctors now offer a treatment called chelation therapy, which was once commonly used to treat lead poisoning. Chelation involves infusing a patient with chemicals that are believed to bind to metals and clear them out of the body. The process may reverse heart disease, proponents say. But it can cost as much as $2,400 and take up to three months. And its heart benefits have never been proven, critics say. The Web site quackwatch.org, run by Dr. Stephen Barrett, has posted multiple articles and studies to debunk the treatment. "There is neither any evidence nor any logical reason to believe it works," he says.

While Rothenberg isn't sure chelation therapy is a good fit for his practice, he admits that he's watching it closely. "I've read the data," he says. "And if I had a bad angiogram, I'd explore chelation therapy for myself before investing in surgery."

After a busy day meeting prospective patients, Rothenberg dines on sushi and reflects on the anti-aging revolution. He says he's open to changing how he practices this nascent discipline, based on any research that sheds light on what works and what doesn't. For example, he used to recommend ginkgo biloba, an herb that is supposed to boost brain power, but he rarely does so any more. "The data hasn't supported it," he says. "I've got an open mind." Meanwhile, he has brought other members of his family into the act. His 84-year-old mother, who teaches foreign languages, is now a patient. And his 16-year-old son has undergone hormone testing, just to make sure the teen's testosterone levels are normal.

Rothenberg has tweaked his own anti-aging regimen over the years. He hasn't taken growth hormone in a while, but he still injects himself with testosterone, as well as taking thyroid hormone and an assortment of multivitamins. The surfboard perched on the wall over his desk, together with large framed photographs of himself hanging ten, stand as testaments to his own search for eternal youth. He still surfs when he can, and often escapes to his vacation home in Cabo, where he grows coconut trees for fun. But the place he really likes to be is in the office, tailoring treatments to keep his patients youthful and happy. "I'm like the personal family doctor from the Norman Rockwell era," he says.

By the end of the day, all of the visitors Rothenberg has met for the first time have signed on to be his patients.

2006-03-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

EU Women Work More, Live Longer, Are Better Educated, Earn Less

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Women in the European Union work more hours and live longer, are better educated and earn less than men, according to EU statistics.

Women work more hours a day -- including paid employment, study and household work -- in every country surveyed except Sweden, according to the figures published today. The average life expectancy of women in the 25-nation EU is 81.2 years, compared with 75.1 for men. Women, who account for more than half of university-level students in almost all EU nations, earn 15 percent less than men once in the workforce.

``These statistics show that women achieve overall a better educational level than men, but that this isn't reflected in the labor market,'' European Commission spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing told reporters in Brussels today.

The comparison between the lives of men and women in the EU was published by the bloc's Luxembourg-based statistics office, Eurostat, to mark International Women's Day on March 8.

The statistics also showed that women were more likely to be unemployed than men in the EU, only 32 percent of managers in the EU are female, and about a third of working women are in part-time jobs compared with 7 percent of men.

Women work the longest in Lithuania and Slovenia, at around 8 hours a day, and the shortest in Germany and Belgium, at about 6 1/2 hours. The figures, taken from surveys conducted between 1998 and 2004, are for the average time spent on activities throughout the year, including weekends and vacations. Women spend more time than men on doing household chores, with men spending more time at paying jobs and studying.

On pay, the biggest gaps between men's and women's pay were in Cyprus, Estonia and Slovakia with about a 25 percent difference. The narrowest gaps were in Malta, Portugal and Belgium, at around 5 percent.

Credit: Bloomberg.com

2006-03-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

Toys for boys...

Wed Mar 1, 8:10 AM ET

Maybe it's because men don't like to ask for directions -- but satellite navigation devices for cars are very much a "guy thing."

"We would love to close the gender gap. We are not very successful, quite frankly," Harold Goddijn, Chief Executive of car navigation systems maker TomTom, told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.

Despite advertising targeted at women, the big majority of TomTom's customers are men, Goddijn said at the summit in Paris.

"It is still very much a guy thing, but also a bit of a girl thing where the guy buys it for the girl," he said.

"Twelve percent of people who buy our products are women. For a technology product, that's not that bad."

2006-02-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

Man sentenced for ride-by bottom slap

Sun Feb 26, 8:28 AM ET

A Colombian man has been sentenced to four years' house arrest for slapping a woman's bottom as he rode by her on his bicycle, sparking debate on whether the punishment fit the crime.

Showing re-enactments of the incident, television news shows were filled on Friday with legal experts offering opinions about the judgment handed down earlier in the week by Bogota's district court.

Some said that to confine bicycle messenger Victor Garcia to his home for four years for smacking Diana Marcela Diaz's buttocks was excessive. Others said it would deter other men.

One program showed three models having their denim clad bottoms smacked so hard by a phantom hand it could be clearly heard by television viewers.

The women said that while the punishment seemed extreme, they hoped the case would mean they would be safer while on foot.

"It happened to me once," one of the models said. "I was walking very relaxed and a guy rode by on his bicycle and, 'ta!' He smacked me. I took off my shoe to hit him with it but he was already too far away."

Valentine's Day Isn't Cuddly for Everyone

2006-02-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer Fri Feb 10, 3:58 PM ET

NEW YORK - Last Feb. 14, Liz Tuccillo called directory assistance to get a phone number for a store. Big mistake.

"Happy Valentine's Day." It was the last thing Tuccillo — 43, single and the co-author of "He's Just Not That Into You" — wanted to hear.

"It is a painful holiday," says Tuccillo, whose humorous 2004 best seller counseled women in dead-end relationships. "I'm looking up the phone number of a store, and I have to be reminded that I'm single!"

Lots of people hate Valentine's Day. Many are single. But even people in committed relationships can have a rotten time.

men are motivated by sex and women by fear...

2006-02-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

From an Anonymous Myspace Blog:

"i was having martinis on monday evening with this rather elegant, very sexy venture capitalist guy i met on the technology circuit of events during LA Technology Week. we were discussing all kinds of stuff...a first business but then being me, the conversation somehow ended up leading to sex and relationships. i know. huge shocker for all of you. so this man, i will dub him SVCG (for sexy venture capitalist guy for short) and i started talking about the inherent differences in how men and women approach sex.

first of all, i said, men are movtivated by sex. men leave the house in order to make money. the money they make is to impress women - to get sex. the buildings we see around us in cities around the world are monuments to men wanting to make a huge impression on women and show them how they can build really big important shit. and get laid. wars have been fought over women. still probably are. god knows we almost impeached a president over a piece of ass. a skanky one at that but still. we understand where men are coming from. no pun intended. it's the women that aren't so clear cut.

women are basically afraid of life. women are taught their entire lives, from an early age, that sexual aggressiveness is not only wrong but leads to bad things - pregnancy, or worse they will be left alone in life. most women are complete and utter sheep. they spend their entire fucking lives preparing for a relationship. to be saved. tell me what to do with my life, how to live, how i should wear my hair, how to think, who to be...why is it that there is an unbelievable amount of women's magazines that tell you verbatim what to wear, how to wear it, where to shop, what to eat, how to exercise, how to fuck and the list goes on and on. women are programmed to look outside themselves for the answers that are very basic about ourselves and especially our sexuality until they find their complete match and they can breathe easier. as if that is the answer. they work out, buy clothes, buy perfume and do all kinds of things - all in order to attract the highest caliber man they can find. and once they do find their supposed match made in heaven, they spend the remainder of their lives doing everything in their power to protect that relationship. out of fear of loss. of their relationship, of their family. of their status. and everything that defines them as a woman because they never bothered to establish any of those parameters as an individual on their own terms - alone and independent of a man.

the problem? they forgot the single most important thing. sex is about pleasuring your partner. and ladies? if you think for one second that skipping out on different sex acts because your partner loves you and thinks you are the hottest thing since sliced white bread - you are foolish, delusional and missing out on the best part of sex there is.

women, i have found, through experience and through hours of conversation with them and with men, are lazy when it comes to sex. they do not like or understand a great deal of sex. there is a sense of entitlement that many women have. especially some beautiful women. many feel they should just be pleased. the kissee syndrome. ladies, and i use this term loosely, do that and you are guaranteed to be left all by yourself for a very long time without any really intense, gratifying sex. sex is one of those things that the effort you put forth comes back to you ten fold. women need to be willing to work - at oral sex, at intercourse, at anything and everything that you both agree is appealing.

and to the women who read this and think - oh, she's not talking about me...when was the last time you gave a man a full body massage (without getting one in return)? how about bathing together? how about a blow job that lasted two hours? sex for six or seven hours? stop thinking about everything someone needs to do for you and perhaps re-focus your energies where it should be. because if the sex is bad, that's just a symptom of things to cum."

2006-02-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Love-shyness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Love shy)

The term love-shyness was used by psychologist Brian G. Gilmartin to describe a specific type of severe chronic shyness. According to his definition, published in Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatments, love-shy people find it difficult to be assertive in informal situations involving potential romantic or sexual partners. For example, a love-shy heterosexual male will have trouble initiating conversations with women. Dr. Gilmartin researched this phenomenon exclusively in heterosexual males.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_shy

Fertilization After 40

2006-02-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, Its Not Too Late Yet

“Vitro!” Was the first word out of “The Amazing Race” winner Uchenna’s mouth following being asked what his wife Joyce and him were planning to do with the money. Even after the couple overcame incredible odds to win the million dollar prize, an obstacle still stands in their path. During the course of the show it has been well documented that Uchenna, 40, and Joyce, 44,have unsuccessfully attempted to have an child. Luckily for them, there are products available on the market to assist them. These products include vitro, and other more common products such as More Sperm and Last Longer.

If you think that you need to be a millionaire to be able to access the newest fertilization products on the market, think again. Many people are exploring a new way to get what they need affordable and conveniently on the internet. For a lot of couples the internet has provided exactly what they need. There are sites out there that offer the purchase and delivery of Viagra directly to one’s door. All of this can be done at the click of a few buttons, however, if one is not careful those clicks could turnout to be costly and useless.

Now we’ve all seen the commercials for Viagra at this time and point, but did you know that Viagra may be the wrong product for you? Yes, there are a plethora of products on the market and Viagra is just one of them. The other lesser known products include More Sperm, and Last Longer. In order to avoid running out on the net and blindly ordering the first thing that comes up, one must do some research first. Ask yourself, do you have enough time in your schedule to sit down and read up on these products? You probably don’t, and if you do, you wouldn’t want to be bothered with that chore anyways. Instead of wasting all that time wouldn’t it be easier and more fun to just try the products you need out first? Doing this can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. Not every site will offer free tablet samples as they are expensive, however several sites are more than happy to.

The most common samples available are those for Last Longer and More Sperm. Last Longer is a product that is similar to Viagra but it only takes 20 minutes to enter the bloodstream whereas Viagra takes at least an hour. To put it simply, if your running your own “Amazing Race”, Last Longer is the product your looking for. More Sperm, is a formula which is geared more toward potency. Both products can be ordered without a prescription and up to 80% cheaper than Viagra on Generic Pharmacy websites.

Whether your a millionaire or an average Joe, giving birth to a child should be a realistic goal in your life. Just because you are later in life does not mean that all hope is lost. With the help of the internet and the latest enhancement products on the market, childbirth has never been more obtainable for couples over 40. What are you waiting for? The finish line has never been closer.