The power of entertainment goes beyond enhanced workout performance. According to Craig Garza, vice president ofmarketing for Cardio Theater, “Entertainment is as crucial today as a treadmill in most facilities.”

Enhancing entertainment in your fitness center may seem daunting given the wide range of options available, but don’t let the choices deter you. Each manufacturer attempts to address everything from a gym’s basic needs to the most sophisticated setup.

What’s more, you no longer have to be a national chain with a huge budget to outfit your facility.

There’s considerable potential for even a small investment in entertainment to reap a return in steady and expanding membership.

The new study, published in the Aug. 18, 1999, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) points to the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in the development of certain malignant breast tumors. EBV is a herpes virus most commonly known for causing mononucleosis, a mild illness that typically affects teenagers and young adults.

Scientists are finding increasing evidence that infections play an important role in cancer. Human papillomavirus, which causes genital warts, has long been known to increase a woman’s risk of cervical cancer. And earlier this month, English researchers found clues to support the hypothesis that exposure to infection heightens the risk of childhood leukemia.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women in industrialized countries. Established risk factors include family history of breast cancer, early onset of menstruation, late age of first full-term pregnancy, and post-menopausal obesity. Some scientists believe that EBV may one day make this list. In the latest study, French researchers from the Institute Gustav Roussy analyzed malignant tissue from 100 breast cancer patients. EBV was found in approximately half of these specimens. The virus was detected more often in the most aggressive tumors. And, in 4 out of 5 cases where the cancer had spread to patient’s lymph nodes, EBV was present.

To determine if the virus was present outside breast tumors, the researchers also examined healthy tissue near the tumors in 30 of the patients. EBV was detected in only 10 percent of these samples.

An editorial following the JNCI report notes that while previous studies corroborate the latest finding, at least five studies fail to support the association between breast cancer and EBV. One reason for the equivocal data may be the use of tests in some studies that were not sensitive enough to detect the virus.

“Although more data are needed, it seems likely at this time that EBV is frequently association with multiple types of … breast cancer,” wrote editorial authors Dr. Ian Magrath and Dr. Kishor Bhatia of the National Cancer Institute.

The association of EBV with cancer is not new. The virus was discovered 35 years ago in African Burkitt’s lymphoma and has since been linked to numerous other types of cancer. The French work adds to the growing body of evidence tying EBV to breast tumors.

“I think this is very intriguing,” said Dr. Martin Kast, a cancer expert at Loyola University. “It is another virus linked to human cancer.”

But Dr. John Morgan, Cancer Epidemiologist at the California Cancer Registry has reservations about the report. “The finding is interesting,” said Dr. Morgan, “but it needs to be confirmed before assuming that it’s important.”

According to Drs. Magrath and Bhatia, questions remain about whether EBV really causes breast cancer, or it simply infects tumor cells that already exist.

“The Epstein-Barr virus is common,” explained Dr. Morgan, in an interview with the American Council on Science and Health. “Incorporation of EBV into the DNA of malignant breast cancer may be a consequence of the unregulated cell growth of cancer, rather than a cause of the disease.”

The editorial writers suggest that if a causal relationship is established, an EBV vaccine might prove a novel way to prevent some breast cancers.

Yet Dr. Morgan emphasized that public health efforts should remain focused on the lifestyle factors that have already been identified to predict breast cancer risk. “Regardless of whether this finding turns out to be important, there may be a place for an EBV vaccine.” he said. “But we need to increase our efforts to identify viable interventions for breast cancer based on what we already know.”

In case you’re searching an easier and more affordable manner to order medications with no prescription, a tramadol online pharmacy may be the solution. The privacy, saving money, convenience are some of the elements to purchase pills at the online drugstores.

The best combination is much more HDL than LDL. There are instances when drugs such as generic Simvastatin are required to keep these in balance. People who are going to purchase Simvastatin have spoken about their needs with their doctors. A doctor may write a prescription for you to buy Simvastatin, if tests indicate that you would have a hard time maintaining a good balance of cholesterol on your own.

Familial Hypercholesterolemia: Cholesterol balance plays a major role in a large number of conditions. This particular condition causes high levels of LDL from birth, regardless of lifestyle choices that affect your cholesterol levels. It causes premature heart attacks that can prevent you from living a long and healthy life. Men who suffer from familial hypercholesterolemia are susceptible to suffer from a heart attack by the age of 40 to 50, while this age is between 50 and 60 for women. This is a genetic condition that is passed down from one of the parents to their child.

This gene, which is positioned on chromosome #19, is found in 1 in every 500 individuals. Heterozygote is the term for subjects who possess this abnormal genetic component. Some people inherit this gene from the mother and their father. These individuals are qualified as homozygous; it is possible they will suffer a heart attack by a very early age. The gene for familial hypercholesterolemia has a 50% chance of being passed on by a parent, so the chances of receiving the gene is quite likely.

Symptoms and Diagnosis: These symptoms can indicate familial hypercholesterolemia: High levels of LDL and excess cholesterol in general, history of heart attacks that runs in the family, chest pain (angina), corneal arcus (cholesterol around the cornea), xanthomas (cholesterol pooling below the skin), xanthelasmas (cholesterol in the eyelid), and high levels of LDL that can not be evened out.

Based on the physician’s recommendations, the person goes thru several tests. Having symptoms such as xantelasmas, xanthomas, or corneal arcus can be a strong indicator of the condition. The physician can determine familial hypercholesterolemia with the help of blood tests, studying the heart condition and by verifying his patient’s genetics.

Treatment Options: The goal of treating familial hypercholesterolemia is preventing atherosclerosis. This condition causes the openings of the arteries to narrow due to plaque buildup on the artery walls. Plaque is the name of the substance that collects and hardens in the blood vessels. The first stage of treating this is making changes to your diet, reducing the fat you consume to prevent you from worsening your already elevated cholesterol levels. A doctor may advise you to increase the amount of exercise and physical activity you engage in. A doctor may suggest a prescription to buy Simvastatin online or at a local pharmacy to help reduce the presence of LDL in the blood.

Technology, incorporated into club management systems, removes the burden of performing routine tasks, such as member check-in and verification, account maintenance, sales contracts, marketing, member billing and accounting. These tasks can now be relegated to a few mouse clicks, card swipes and key strokes.” On a more advanced note, Ivey adds that, “Technology can also alert a club manager about areas that need attention before they become critical, such pro shop sales.

It allows the club operator to focus on member relations, market planning, facility and equipment utilization, and future club expansion.”

Few clubs today operate without computer technology. The question, however, is whether your club is taking advantage of current technology to its fullest extent. Therefore, information to be compiled from the survey, according to Dinerman, will help club owners and managers to “get a better understanding of where they fit into the adoption curve for technology.” In other words, you can find out what other clubs are using, and how far ahead or behind you are compared to your competition.

P.R.O.Motion grew out of an earlier outreach program called the Aerobics Demo Team, a performance group whose basic aim was to promote the university’s aerobics program and entertain students. When recreation staff noticed they were making an impact with their program, they decided to modify their approach to reach kids at an earlier age, and to focus on promoting healthful lifestyle habits through improved self-esteem.

“Self-esteem is the key to wellness,” Ryan adds. “How we feel about ourselves influences the decisions we make in life. Also, it is important to understand our minds, as well as our bodies, in order to achieve total-body wellness.”

The P.R.O.Motion team, which visits elementary and middle schools in the Harrisonburg, Va., area, is comprised of 10 instructors who represent all shapes and sizes and who are examples of healthy living. A typical program begins with the team-designed P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E. self-esteem model.

The acronym stands for: Prioritize and set goals; Overcome opposition; Set boundaries by saying no; Instill a positive attitude; Take opportunities; Internally accept yourself; Value others; and Evaluate and follow through.

Since the program began, the recreation staff has been invited back to every school it has performed for, and has received 10 requests from local schools in the last year. In addition to promoting exercise and self-confidence, Ryan says the program has generated great publicity for the university’s new fitness center, while also helping kids get excited about higher education. That’s what we call nourishing both the mind and body!

I am struggling right now through one of the most difficult periods of my adult life, and it’s all because of a simple misstep I made in a parking lot, four months ago.

On May 7, I came out of a drugstore here in Austin and, while making my way through the parking lot to my car, I tripped over something or perhaps just laid one foot down wrong. I fell forward and instinctively crossed my arms over my chest to protect myself. I landed hard on my right elbow, and as bad luck would have it, ended up breaking a small but relatively important bone called the olecranon. I had to go to the emergency room, where I was told I really needed surgery to pin the bone in place.

That surgery was successful, but the surgical wound became infected. To make a long story short, I have been battling this infection ever since, and have undergone two additional surgeries on the area, called I and Ds, which stands for incision and drainage. Both times the infected tissue was cleaned out and removed, but the first I and D didn’t completely take care of the infection.

After the second I and D, my surgeon took a much more aggressive approach to treating the infection. This is where the real fun began. First, my wound was not sutured during surgery. It was left open and packed with an antibiotic dressing. For three weeks, I had the pleasure of going to wound care every day to have the wound cleaned and the dressing changed. Now I have graduated to just going every other day for the next three weeks — oh, joy!

At the same time, I’m wearing a “fanny pack” containing a battery-operated pump and a bag of antibiotic fluid that is administered intravenously 24 hours a day through a catheter that was installed in my chest during the most recent surgery. I get to change the antibiotic bag every day, too, as well as going to the clinic once a week to have the catheter site checked and the bandage changed.

The catheter is uncomfortable and the new routine wears me down. It’s hard to believe that all of this was caused by a simple misstep in a parking lot. The bone that was broken has long since healed; it’s just the infection that is causing such havoc. It has truly brought home to me the precarious state my health is in. My surgeon said that the break could have happened to anyone, but it’s my depressed immune system that is making it so hard for me to throw off this infection. And my immune system is depressed because of a number of drugs I’m taking just for my rheumatoid arthritis — drugs which, I have to add, are not exactly doing a bang-up job of controlling my disease even though they seem adequate at providing negative side effects.

If I sound a little bitter, I admit I am feeling that way right now. I think people who don’t experience a chronic illness may not fully realize how thoroughly such an illness affects a patient’s life. Those of us with RA can’t throw off the little things that would hardly affect a person with a normal, healthy constitution. If you have a friend or family member with a chronic condition, consider this the next time they have a cold or an injury that they just can’t shake off. They may need a little more of your sympathy and patience.

When designing classes, fitness professionals should be wary about closely modeling their programs after the Tae-Bo exercise videos. Rather, they should tailor classes for the average recreational exerciser. The reason is that Tae Bo is more of a martial-arts-based program. But “the reason people are taking these classes is primarily for the workout as opposed to learning … to defend or compete,” says Norris. Therefore, she advises program directors to focus on the purpose of fitness martial arts versus traditional martial arts. “The purpose is different, therefore, the practice must be modified,” Norris explains.

Michele Olson, associate professor of health and physical education at Auburn University, Montgomery, Ala., agrees that recreational martial-arts programs should be developed with fitness clientele in mind. “In the fitness center… martial arts movements simply serve as another vehicle for fitness development and should be modified appropriately,” says Olson.

She recommends using moderate music speed and pace, avoiding highly complex or repetitious activities, and teaching movement modifications such as low kicks. “Many fitness participants are highly fit in terms of their aerobic capacity,” explains Olson. “However, any new sport, fitness activity or novel movement takes time to acquire.”

Norris likens this process to the explosion of step a decade ago. “We started slowly, progressed gradually … increased our strength and skill as instructors, and brought our participants along at an appropriate pace.” As with any specialty class, there should be guidelines for speed, alignment and appropriate combinations. “Standards must be set … so there is continuity in education and consistency in the level of instruction that is acceptable,” says Norris. “Club managers are ultimately responsible for providing these minimum standards.”

More specifically, the basic exercise program produced similar changes in fat weight and lean (muscle) weight in all three age groups. As presented in Table 1, the younger adults lost 4.9 pounds of fat, the middle-aged adults lost 4.4 pounds of fat, and the older adults lost 4.1 pounds of fat. Likewise, the younger adults added 2.3 pounds of muscle, the middle-aged adults added 2.3 pounds of muscle, and the older adults added 2.4 pounds of muscle.

All three age groups also recorded significant reductions in resting blood pressure, with the older adults making the greatest improvement (6.2 mm Hg and 3.7 mm Hg diastolic). The participants’ lower blood pressure readings were probably related to both the exercise program itself, and the resultant body composition changes.

Another interesting finding was that the twice-a-week classes experienced about 90 percent as much body composition improvement as the three-day-a-week classes (2.0 percent vs. 2.2 percent). Over the eight-week exercise period, participants who trained Tuesdays and Thursdays lost 4.0 pounds of fat and gained 2.2 pounds of muscle, whereas those who trained Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays lost 4.6 pounds of fat and gained 2.5 pounds of muscle.

Based on these results, it appears that a basic program of endurance and strength exercise is effective for improving body composition and resting blood pressure in men and women between 20 and 80 years of age. That is, a two- or three-day-per-week exercise program based on the ACSM training guidelines works just as well for older adults as for younger adults.

But do previously sedentary adults accept and adhere to a basic exercise program with scheduled classes and personal instructors? Yes, based on our experience. In general, our participants make 85 percent of their scheduled classes, and 90 percent continue to exercise after completing the program. More than 95 percent of the participants rated the exercise program very high on a written questionnaire survey, indicating that previously inactive adults appreciate a carefully structured and supervised training environment. Apparently, having a specific time and place to exercise under the guidance of a knowledgeable instructor is motivational for men and women with little prior exercise experience.

“If you factor in the cost of equipment breaking down all the time that needs fixing, or even replacing, not maintaining your equipment can get very costly quick,” he says. By operating with a monthly service contract, Cunningham estimates his club saves about $25,000 a year in repair and replacement costs. “We’ve got treadmills in here that are five years old and in perfect condition,” he says. “That’s getting your money’s worth out of a machine.”

In terms of payment, most service companies invoice on a monthly basis, and allow anywhere from 15 to 30 days for payment. English reminds clubs that those who pay their bills on time end up receiving the best service.

Getting what you pay for. While saving money can be alluring in any financial investment, remember that more often than not, if a deal seems too good to be true, it is. “One of the most common mistakes I see in this industry is people falling victim to price cutting,” says Sportsmith’s Schupp. “Generally, the guys in the business who aren’t certified to work on the equipment can undercut those who are. There are roughly 200 service companies in the industry today — a lot are certified and a lot aren’t — and price cutting goes on.” Morgan agrees: “A lot of people are focused on finding the best deal, but to do that, you’ve got to be comparing apples to apples; a lot of companies out there just aren’t comparable.” A general rule of thumb, Schupp says, is that companies with factory-trained or authorized staff stay in business the longest.

Diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, she had had a double mastectomy and was in the midst of nine months of chemotherapy treatments. But the treatments prescribed to kill the cancer were taking such a serious toll on her body that she said she began to look like she was fighting a losing battle.

“I looked like my sister Annette, who was dying from breast cancer, and my mom, who’d already lost her fight against the disease,” recalled Parrinello, whose father died of brain cancer six weeks before her mother.

“I had dark circles under my eyes and my skin had lost its elasticity from the bloating and had a leathery, ashen, dry appearance,” she said. “No wonder my son used to put his fingers under my nose while I was sleeping to feel if I was breathing. I looked like I was dying. And I felt totally helpless. I knew I had to do something to make myself look like I was going to beat this — something to give us all some hope.”

She has. Nearly 10 years later, Parrinello, 42, a San Diego resident and former nurse, is the founder of Hope Aesthetics Cosmeceutical, Inc., a holistic skin care company. She’s also created The Hope For Others organization. Through this organization, she donates 10 percent of her company’s net sales toward healthcare, scholarships, housekeeping and babysitting services for cancer patients and their families.

Overcoming Roadblocks
What began as little botanical “this” mixed with a bit of fruit and vegetable “that” eventually turned into a successful company whose profits last year reached $1.4 million.

But it wasn’t easy. Once she discovered the right formula (after 92 attempts) and had the support of other cancer patients who tried it, she began to hit roadblocks.

“I wanted to take this further — to start a company. But none of the banks would loan me the money,” she said. “On paper I looked like a bad risk — I’d had breast cancer, I had a thick medical file and we were raising two sons on my husband’s teaching salary. But I just couldn’t give up. Having cancer — it’s a hard, hard time. You need to grieve, you need to cry and you need to feel the fear. And then you need to surround yourself with hope. This gave me hope — and I wanted to share it with others.”

Parrinello scraped the start-up funds together with the help of friends and family, and used the equity in their home to finance scientific double-blind testing on the cream. “I needed to see if it really was effective,” she said.

Then she secretly sold the diamond from her wedding ring to help support the family while she developed the company. In 1993, Hope Aesthetics was launched and “formula 93″ became BHW Hydrating Antioxidant Moisturizer. Her product line grew, and she said that she makes time to enjoy her success.

Moving Forward
“I celebrate life,” said Parrinello, who is cancer-free but suffers from congestive heart failure, a side effect of the chemotherapy. “After each chemotherapy treatment and after each blood test, I celebrated by planting a rosebush in memory of my mom, Rose. I celebrated that another round of treatment was over, the cancer was gone and I was moving forward. I planted a total of 18 rosebushes — each one a different color. They were so beautiful and smelled so good.

“I celebrate everything — my husband, my sons, everything I’ve achieved and the person I’ve become,” she said. “I guess that’s why I’m still here — God knows I’m not finished celebrating.”

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