When Does Flexible Start to Mean Harmful? 'Hot' Yoga Draws Fire

By LORRAINE KREAHLING

Published: March 30 2004 by the New York Times

Every day, in New York and Paris, Tokyo and Houston, students clad in little more than swimwear grab towels, bottled water and rubber mats and enter a very hot room. As the teacher calls out instructions, they sweat profusely, performing a sequence of 26 yoga postures, repeated in every 90-minute class.

Bikram or "hot" yoga took root in Los Angeles three decades ago, but the technique has spread far beyond coastal cool. The Bikram Yoga College of India in Los Angeles, named for its founder, Bikram (pronounced BEEK-rum) Choudhury, has 314 certified schools worldwide, with 12 studios in the New York area.

As more and more people take up Bikram to lose pounds and gain strength, however, medical professionals are expressing concerns about the demands of yoga contortions performed in extreme heat.

"Heat increases one's metabolic rate, and by warming you up, it allows you to stretch more," said Dr. Robert Gotlin, director of orthopedic and sports rehabilitation at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. "But once you stretch a muscle beyond 20 or 25 percent of its resting length, you begin to damage a muscle."

Each week, Dr. Gotlin said, he sees as many as five yoga-related injuries to the knees or the lower back. Postures that require extreme bending of the knees — squats and sitting backward on folded legs, for example — are the most likely to cause tears in knee cartilage. In Bikram yoga, students practice the "toe stand pose," a single-legged squat and the "fixed firm pose," sitting backward with bent knees.

"Basically, the knee is a piece of bone with two strings of muscle on the top and bottom, and you can only tighten those strings so much," Dr. Gotlin said. "The more you flex the knee under load, the more pressure is exerted on the kneecap."

Bikram advocates maintain that the immediate warmth and simple movements at the start of each class are safer than traditional yoga.

"The heat helps people work slowly and safely into the postures and makes injuries infrequent," said Jennifer Lobo, an owner of Bikram Yoga NYC.

But David Bauer, a physical therapist in New York who also teaches yoga, said the enthusiasm and competition among participants could contribute to injuries.

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All This Progress Is Killing Us, Bite by Bite

By GREGG EASTERBROOK

Published: March 14, 2004 by the New York Times

Your great-great grandparents would find it hard to believe the Boeing 747, but perhaps they'd have a harder time believing last week's news that obesity has become the second-leading cause of death in the United States. Too much food a menace instead of too little! A study released by the federal Centers for Disease Control ranked "poor diet and physical inactivity" as the cause of 400,000 United States deaths in 2000, trailing only fatalities from tobacco. Obesity, the C.D.C. said, now kills five times as many Americans as "microbial agents," that is, infectious disease.

Moon landings might seem less shocking to your great-great grandparents than abundance of food causing five times as many deaths as germs; OutKast might seem less bizarre to them than the House passing legislation last week to exempt restaurants from being sued for serving portions that are too large.

Your recent ancestors would further be stunned by the notion of plump poverty. A century ago, the poor were as lean as fence posts; worry about where to get the next meal was a constant companion for millions. Today, America's least well-off are so surrounded by double cheeseburgers, chicken buckets, extra-large pizzas and supersized fries that they are more likely to be overweight than the population as a whole.

But the expanding waistline is not only a problem of lower-income Americans who dine too often on fast food. Today, the typical American is overweight, according to the C.D.C., which estimates that 64 percent of American citizens are carrying too many pounds for their height. Obesity and sedentary living are rising so fast that their health consequences may soon supplant tobacco as the No. 1 preventable cause of death, the C.D.C. predicts. Rates of heart disease, stroke and many cancers are in decline, while life expectancy is increasing - but ever-rising readings on the bathroom scale may be canceling out what would otherwise be dramatic gains in public health.

O.K., it's hard to be opposed to food. But the epidemic of obesity epitomizes the unsettled character of progress in affluent Western society. Our lives are characterized by too much of a good thing - too much to eat, to buy, to watch and to do, excess at every turn. Sometimes achievement itself engenders the excess: today's agriculture creates so much food at such low cost that who can resist that extra helping?

Consider other examples in which society's success seems to be backfiring on our health or well-being.

PRODUCTIVITY Higher productivity is essential to rising living standards and to the declining prices of goods and services. But higher productivity may lead to fewer jobs.

Early in the postwar era, analysts fretted that automation would take over manufacturing, throwing everyone out of work. That fear went unrealized for a generation, in part because robots and computers weren't good at much. Today, near-automated manufacturing is becoming a reality. Newly built factories often require only a fraction of the work force of the plants they replace. Office technology, meanwhile, now allows a few to do what once required a whole hive of worker bees.

There may come a point when the gains from higher productivity pale before the job losses. But even if that point does not come, rapid technological change is instilling anxiety about future employment: anxiety that makes it hard to appreciate and enjoy what productivity creates.

TRAFFIC Cars are much better than they were a few decades ago - more comfortable, powerful and reliable. They are equipped with safety features like air bags and stuffed with CD players, satellite radios and talking navigation gizmos. Adjusted for consumers' rising buying power, the typical powerful new car costs less than one a generation ago.

But in part because cars are so desirable and affordable, roads are increasingly clogged with traffic. Today in the United States, there are 230 million cars and trucks in operation, and only 193 million licensed drivers - more vehicles than drivers! Studies by the Federal Highway Administration show that in the 30 largest cities, total time lost to traffic jams has almost quintupled since 1980.

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My Husband's Business

One Pill A Day Could Keep Food and Nicotine Cravings Away!

By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY

NEW ORLEANS — Researchers took aim Tuesday at two of the world's leading killers by unveiling a single pill that suppresses the powerful cravings that drive people to overeat and smoke.

Doctors don't view the drug, called rimonabant, as a Viagra-like lifestyle enhancer. Instead, they see it as a potential lifesaver that can reduce a constellation of risk factors for diabetes and heart disease.

"We saw this spectacular drop in waistlines and changes in many other risk factors that are beyond what you would ordinarily expect," said Jean-Pierre Despres, of Quebec Heart Institute at Laval Hospital Center in Quebec City. Despres presented one of two rimonabant studies released at the American College of Cardiology meeting here.

He found that the drug lowered levels of the dangerous blood fats called triglycerides and small dense LDL, the so-called "bad cholesterol," and C-reactive protein, a dangerous sign of artery inflammation. Rimonabant also improved the metabolic syndrome that signals imminent diabetes and heart disease and raised levels of HDL, which protect the heart.

For more information, go to USA TODAY.

Bare That Belly Button!

The "Knee-In" Firms Your Tummy In No Time Flat!

Sit on the floor and pull your knees to your chest while supporting yourself with your hands placed behind you. Then extend your body outward, only swinging your legs out as far as your back will allow without strain, and then pull your knees back in to your chest.

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Your Spiritual Health

Kenneth Copeland
Kenneth Copeland Minstries

"For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

Too often we ask God to fix the problems around us when what He really wants to do is solve the problem within us. I did that myself for years where my weight was concerned. I prayed and prayed for God to help me lose weight. Yet I experienced repeated failure. I lost literally hundreds of pounds, only to gain them right back again.

Finally one day, I made a firm decision. I told God, "I am not going one step further until I find out what to do about this!" Then I went on a fast, shut myself away from everyone, and determined to hear from God.

During that fast the Lord revealed the real source of my problem. He showed me that I wanted to lose weight, but I didn't want to permanently change my eating habits. I was like an alcoholic who wants to be able to drink constantly and not be affected by it. I wanted to eat nine times a day and still weigh 166 pounds!

Suddenly I realized God wasn't content simply to rid me of the extra pounds on the outside of me--He wanted to rid me of the sin of gluttony on the inside of me. So I repented of that sin right then and there. It was then that I realized just how hard it is for a man who drinks to face the fact that he's an alcoholic. It hurts to admit something like that.) Then, instead of asking God for deliverance from my weight problem, I asked Him for deliverance from my food problem.

Sure enough, He did it.

If your prayers don't seem to be changing the problems around you, maybe it's time to take a look inside. Maybe it's time to ask God to go to work on the heart of the matter.

Scripture Study: "Psalm 139:1-10, 23-24"

The Body Sculptress says, "Enough said."

Are You Over 40?

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