The Style Blog

NEW YORK – Children who are overweight at age 6 to 7 years are at increased risk for having symptoms of asthma like shortness of breath and “twitchy” airways when they are 8 years old, results of a study conducted in the Netherlands show.

However, children who are overweight at a younger age but reach a normal weight by age 6 to 7 do not appear to have an increased risk for asthma symptoms, according to the study.

“These findings suggest that being overweight may affect a child’s development of asthma symptoms,” Dr. Salome Scholtens from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven told Reuters Health.

“However, if a previously overweight child develops a normal weight, then the asthma symptoms are less likely to persist. We propose that development of a normal weight might positively affect asthma symptoms in overweight children,” Scholtens added.

Each year until the age of 8, Scholtens and colleagues had the parents of 3756 children report their children’s weight and any episodes of wheezing or other breathing difficulties as well as the use of inhaled steroids. The researchers tested the children to see how sensitive their airways were to various inhaled allergens.

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Couples trying to conceive should have daily sex leading up to ovulation

LONDON – Having sex every day improves the quality of men’s sperm and is recommended for couples trying to conceive, according to new research.

Until now doctors have debated whether or not men should refrain from sex for a few days before attempting to conceive with their partner to improve the chance of pregnancy.

But a new study by Dr David Greening of Sydney IVF, an Australian center for infertility and in vitro fertilization treatment, suggests abstinence is not the right approach.

He studied 118 men with above-average sperm DNA damage and found the quality of their sperm increased significantly after they were told to ejaculate daily for seven days.

On average, their DNA fragmentation index — a measure of sperm damage — fell to 26 percent from 34 percent, Greening told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

Frequent sex does decrease semen volume but for most men this is not a problem.

“It seems safe to conclude that couples with relatively normal semen parameters should have sex daily for up to a week before the ovulation date,” he said in a statement.

“In the context of assisted reproduction, this simple treatment may assist in improving sperm quality and ultimately achieving a pregnancy.”

Greening said it was likely frequent ejaculation improved the quality of sperm by reducing the length of time they were exposed to potentially damaging molecules called reactive oxygen species in the testicular ducts.

Copyright 2009 Reuters.

The final table of the 2009 Main Event has been decided and nine men have been instantly transformed into millionaires as the newest incarnation of the November Nine.

Day 8 of the Main Event played out in a fast, frenetic fashion to a backdrop of rowdy railbirds loudly cheering on their respective heroes.

There was drama, bad beats and intrigue with every elimination ramping up the tension in the Amazon Room as the watershed moment drew closer and closer.

Finally, with ten players left, Jordan Smith, winner of a bracelet in the $2k No Limit Hold’em Event at this year’s Series, ran his aces into Darvin Moon’s flopped set and filled the unwanted November Nine bubble spot.

That left nine players still cradling the dream of Main Event glory and riches and each and every one will become celebrities for the immediate future.

Here are the men who will be blinking under the media spotlight over the next four months:

“With the cards I’m getting, it’s easy.”

Darvin Moon – 58,930,000

Darvin Moon will return to the Rio in four months holding a large chip lead and, incredibly, the million dollar minimum payout he receives will be his first live cash of note.

He is a recreational player who owns a small logging company in Maryland. Having played poker for three years, he won his Main Event ticket through a satellite at his local Casino, Wheeling Island in West Virginia.

By his own admission, Moon has been blessed with some fantastic cards in the run-up to the final table.

“With the cards I’m getting it’s easy,” said Moon. “If I don’t hit cards like the way I have been over the past few days, everyone at this table is a better player than I am”.

His amateur roots are a far cry from some of the experienced pros still left in contention but Moon has the stack to take down the title.

“We’ll see if I can do this,” he said. “I’ll be confident if I keep hitting cards like I have been this whole tournament.”

For more information, see Darvin Moon’s PokerListings bio-blog.

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Pretty girls and poker – they’re not mutually exclusive, but they’re also not something the typical person naturally associates.

There are more than a few women in the game, though, who are challenging that idea.

Vanessa Rousso turned up the heat recently at the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship and in the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Tiffany Michelle gained notoriety at the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event as the last woman standing. Now she, Erica Schoenberg and Evelyn Ng are scheduled to do a photo shoot for Knockout Magazine.

They’re successful, they’re hot, and now people outside the usual poker circle will get to see that poker is no longer just a backroom card game played by old men.

Schoenberg said she thinks it makes a huge difference that a magazine like Knockout would choose to use real female poker players for an issue rather than just hiring models and giving the photo shoot a poker theme.

“If guys want to just see hot girls, they can pick up a Maxim or even a Victoria’s Secret catalog, but this way they get to see and hear about real women in the game,” Schoenberg said.

“Not all that many young attractive women who play poker are willing to do something like this,” Michelle said.

But just getting more young female poker players out in the media could help draw more players to the game, including more women.

“Dealers have told me that more young women would be playing poker today if I’d made the final table at the WSOP,” Michelle said.

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We certainly didn’t mind that the Tony Hawk Ride board we played at E3 had a charcoal coloring, and that goes double for our feet. Apparently that sentiment isn’t shared by the game’s director Josh Tsui, who told GamesIndustry.biz that it’ll be launched in a “more consumer friendly… [and] iPod-like” white color, which in our minds all but guarantees someone out there’s gonna mistake this for a new version of the Wii balance board. Tsui’s not shy with praise either, calling the board “the most advanced peripheral on the market.” Ultimately, the color isn’t gonna matter to us, and with a board-compatible sequel rumored to already be in the works, there’s plenty of time to re-release the peripheral in all sorts of attractive palettes — that’d of course be very iPod-like.

Did anyone else think that Sony would have finally killed off the UMD movie for real by now? Guess again, suckers. The company just spilled some more details on that Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines PSP Entertainment Pack, and in addition to that sexy white PSP-3000 and 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, your $199 will get you an as-yet-unnamed feature film on UMD. Yes, even as Sony tip-toes into the future with the PSPgo, it’s still trying to peddle movies on a garbage proprietary format no one ever really wanted and that most studios have stopped supporting. Old habits die hard, we suppose. Video after the break.

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