Women Lose Half Their Weight: How They Did It

At 25 years old and 288 pounds, Ashley Donahoo was depressed.

“I was unhappy with my job, I was unhappy with the direction my life was going, and I had a hard time enjoying the little things that my kids wanted to do,” the 27-year-old mother of two from Pace, Fla., said. “My health was failing. My doctor told me that he didn’t think I was going to make it to 30 if I kept on [this way]. … It kept getting worse and worse.”

Donahoo was concerned, but it was her faithful husband, David, who pushed her on a path to health, starting with a walk around the block.

“His heart was breaking for me,” she said. “And he saw how unhappy I was, and he came to me and said, ‘We’re going to go for a walk.’  And I was, like, ‘No, we’re not.’”

Her husband won that battle, and on the walk, she started thinking about her own choices and future.

“The realization hit me that I made this choice.  I made this choice to get where I am right now.  So I’m going to start making a different choice,” she said.   ”I put my health and myself on back burner, and I think … it had all caught up to me.”

Jumpstart Your Weight Loss: CLICK HERE to Ask a Celebrity Trainer a Question!

Like Donahoo, Caroline Jhingory reached a similar eye-opening realization about her weight.

“I looked in the mirror one day and just realized I didn’t recognize the person that was staring back at me,” said Jhingory, 32, of Washington, D.C.

Jhingory’s struggles with her weight began early. At age 8, she weighed 120 pounds. Taunted by her peers, Jhingory was enrolled in a medical weight loss program, but it didn’t work because she would sneak junk food like candy bars.

“I found a way to be a food hustler and get whatever food I wanted,” she said. “Not only did I spend two decades of my life morbidly obese. I spent two decades of my life being taunted and teased in every environment. I never went to prom. I never had dates. I couldn’t ride a roller coaster because the safety bar wouldn’t go over my stomach.”

Jhingory remained heavy until college, when she tipped the scales at 303 pounds and started feeling self-conscious in her new environment.

“I felt like I had a moment when all these difficult experiences were a huge pause button on my life. I finally said to myself, ‘I’m tired of this. I want to have a normal life.’”

Jhingory started walking everywhere. Then, she took up a daily cardio regimen to shed the weight, and she rid her pantry of tempting snack foods she once binged on. Now 149 pounds, she has reclaimed her shape and kept off the weight.

Jhingory’s amazing transformation, along with Donahoo’s and other weight-loss success stories, were spotlighted in the “Half Their Size” feature in the latest issue of People magazine.

RELATED: Is Being Overweight Really Bad For You?

Donahoo cut out the late-night binges that brought her down and, thanks to her strong support system, lost 137 pounds. She credited her weight loss success to tracking her food and exercise on livestrong.com and running. She has run two 5Ks.

Leah Fernandez of Atlanta found herself at 251 pounds after two pregnancies. The baby weight stuck and she tended to eat emotionally.

“I wanted the food,” she said. “It made me feel good, and so I ate it.”

But it was the motivation to be there for her children that helped her turn it all around.

“Thinking about going out to the park with my kids felt like work to me, you know?  And at some point I realized that’s ridiculous. Not only am I cheating myself but I’m cheating my kids of me,” she said.

Fernandez turned to Jenny Craig in March 2011 and hasn’t looked back. Since then, she has lost half her weight by staying active with her kids and incorporating walking into her lifestyle.

“I’m getting my groove back.  Leah’s getting her groove back,” she said.

RELATED: Apps to Help With Weight-Loss Resolutions

RELATED: 329 Pound-Weight-Loss Trio Share Their Secrets

READ MORE: 138 Pound Weight Loss Changes Woman’s Life

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Israeli-Palestinian clashes erupt in West Bank

TAMOUN, West Bank (AP) — An arrest raid by undercover Israeli soldiers disguised as vegetable vendors ignited rare clashes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, residents said, leaving at 10 Palestinians wounded.

Israeli army raids into Palestinian areas to seize activists and militants are fairly common. The raids are normally coordinated with Palestinian security forces, and suspects are usually apprehended without violence.

The clashes began early Tuesday after Israeli forces disguised as merchants in a vegetable truck arrested one man. Regular army forces then entered the town, prompting youths to hurl rocks to try to prevent more arrests.

Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as youths set tires and bins on fire to block the passage of military vehicles. In several hours of clashes, dozens of masked youths hid behind makeshift barriers, hurling rocks and firebombs at soldiers.

Faris Bisharat, a resident of Tamoun, said 10 men were wounded, some by live fire. Bisharat said the wanted men belong to Islamic Jihad, a violent group sworn to Israel’s destruction. It wasn’t clear how many men Israeli forces sought to arrest. There were no immediate details on how seriously the 10 were hurt.

The Israeli military said it arrested a “terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group.” It said two soldiers were injured during the raid.

The fighting, which broke out in several parts of the town of some 8,000 people, were a rare, angry response. It was also unusual for Israeli forces to use live fire toward Palestinian demonstrators. Israel says it uses live fire only in extremely dangerous situations.

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Your Snapchats aren’t safe: How to secretly save videos from Snapchat or Facebook’s ‘Poke’

Argue though its executives might, Snapchat is good for two things: sending photos and videos of yourself making stupid faces, and sending photos and videos of yourself naked. The latter, of course, is the more compelling function since that is exactly what the app was designed for. When users send pictures or videos, the recipient can only view them for a set amount of time before they “self-destruct.” Yes, a recipient can take a screenshot but the sender is automatically alerted when that occurs — then, as the saying goes, fool me once… As it turns out, however, Snapchat users (and users of “Poke,” Facebook’s (FB) Snapchat ripoff) can easily save photos and full-length videos received through the service without the sender ever knowing.

[More from BGR: Five tech resolutions for 2013]

As recently relayed by BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos, saving photos and videos from Snapchat or Poke is as easy as connecting a phone to a computer and opening a file browser. The file browser is free and the “trick” requires no jailbreak or any other kind of hack.

[More from BGR: Can Samsung survive without Android?]

Start by leaving the photos and videos you receive in Snapchat or Poke unopened; as soon as a file is viewed, the countdown to its deletion begins.

Then simply connect to a computer and open a free iPhone file explorer like i-FunBox. Open the “User Applications” folder, navigate to the “Snapchat” entry and voilà, all of the photos and videos you have received and not yet opened are available to be copied to your computer’s hard drive.

Then go back and view them normally in the app and the sender will be none the wiser.

The file path is a bit different for Facebook’s Poke app but the end result is the same.

This article was originally published by BGR

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ESPN’s Hannah Storm returns 3 weeks after accident

NEW YORK (AP) — ESPN anchor Hannah Storm returns to the air New Year’s Day, exactly three weeks after she was seriously burned in a propane gas grill accident at her home.

Storm suffered second-degree burns on her chest and hands, and first-degree burns to her face and neck. She lost her eyebrows and eyelashes, and roughly half her hair.

Storm will host ABC’s telecast of the 2013 Rose Parade on Tuesday. Her left hand will be bandaged and she said viewers might notice a difference in her hair texture where extensions have been added.

“I’m a little nervous about things I used to take for granted,” she said by phone this weekend from Pasadena, Calif. “Little things like putting on makeup and even turning pages on my script.”

The award-winning sportscaster and producer was preparing dinner outside her home in Connecticut on the night of Dec. 11 when she noticed the flame on the grill had gone out. She turned off the gas and when she reignited it “there was an explosion and a wall of fire came at me.”

“It was like you see in a movie, it happened in a split-second,” she said. “A neighbor said he thought a tree had fallen through the roof, it was that loud. It blew the doors off the grill.”

With her left hand, she tore off her burning shirt. She tried to use another part of her shirt to extinguish the flames that engulfed her head and chest, while yelling for help. Her 15-year-old daughter, Hannah, called 911 and a computer technician who was working in the house grabbed some ice as Storm tried to cool the burns.

Soon, police and rescue teams arrived at the house. Storm’s husband, NBC sportscaster Dan Hicks, also had returned home with another of the couple’s three daughters. As her mother was being treated, the younger Hannah calmly said something that, days later, her mom could laugh about.

“OK, Mommy, I’m going to do my homework now,” she said.

Storm was taken by ambulance to the Trauma and Burn Center at Westchester Medical Center and was treated for 24 hours.

“I didn’t see my face until the next day and you wonder how it’s going to look,” she said. “I was pretty shocked. But my overarching thought was I’ve covered events with military members who have been through a lot worse than me, and they’ve come through. I kept thinking, ‘I can do this. I’m fortunate.’”

Other than going to Christmas Eve Mass, Storm hadn’t been outside until her trip to California. ESPN reworked its anchor schedule while she was recovering, and NBC and the Golf Channel rearranged their staffing while Hicks attended to his wife.

Storm is set to host her fifth Rose Parade, with some changes. She’s left-handed, and taking notes is almost impossible. Dressing and showering are challenges, too.

Storm said that long before her accident, she’d been inspired by Iraq War veteran, actor and “Dancing With the Stars” winner J.R. Martinez, the grand marshal at last year’s parade. He was severely burned in a land mine accident while serving overseas.

One attraction of this year’s parade that she was eager to see — the Nurses’ Float, and she hoped to use that moment on air to thank everyone who had taken care of her.

Storm wants to anchor “SportsCenter” in Bristol, Conn., next Sunday. After that, the Notre Dame alum is ready to go in person to watch the No. 1 Irish play Alabama in the national championship game at Miami. She said the school reached out after hearing about her injuries and had been very supportive.

“More than anything, I feel gratitude,” she said. “Something like this really makes you appreciate everything you have, even the chance to wake up on New Year’s Day and do your job.”

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Could Trip to Mars Cause Alzheimer’s?

Space travel has always been portrayed as risky — no air or water, extreme temperatures — a place where even a small miscalculation can be fatal. It can also be hazardous to your brain health, particularly on a three-year-long mission to Mars, according to a study published this week in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

The eight-year long study, conducted at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory on New York’s Long Island, found that the cosmic radiation on such a mission could accelerate the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

NASA is working on sending astronauts to a passing asteroid in the 2020s, and talks of a trip to Mars in the 2030s. It would take three years, with current technology, to get there and back. Current spacecraft are not heavily shielded from the cosmic radiation crew members would encounter beyond Earth’s protective magnetic field.

Researchers used mice that were genetically engineered to be predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease. They exposed them to cosmic radiation that was simulated in the lab.

“Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts,” said Dr. M. Kerry O’Banion, senior author and professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The study team wanted to see if radiation had the potential to accelerate Alzheimer’s in those who were genetically vulnerable. Mouse models have been used extensively in this type of research and the rate at which they develop the disease is well understood.

Scientists have long worried about the potential dangers of working and living in deep space. Cosmic radiation beyond low Earth orbit, researchers say, could lead to cancer, cardiovascular disease, even cataracts.

Radiation exposure can cause acute effects such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue, skin injury and changes to white blood cell counts and the immune system, according to the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. Longer-term radiation effects include damage to the eyes, gastrointestinal system, lungs and central nervous system.

On Earth, humans are protected by the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field. Crew members on the International Space Station, at an altitude of 200 miles, are still within the magnetic sheath that surrounds us. The 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon between 1969 and 1972 were not protected, but the longest missions lasted less than two weeks.

Once out of low orbit, astronauts are exposed to showers of different radioactive particles. Though engineers say they can protect themselves from the radiation associated with solar flares, so far, they cannot block other forms of cosmic radiation.

The longer astronauts are in deep space, the greater the exposure to this low-level radiation.

This is the first such study to explore effects of radiation on the nervous system, a phenomenon known as neurodegeneration, according to the authors.

“The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized,” said O’Banion. “However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”

O’Banion has spent the last 20 years studying Alzheimer’s disease.

He and his fellow researchers studied a form of radiation from so-called high-mass, high-charged particles, which come in various forms and fly through space at high speeds. Some come from distant stars that have exploded.

At Brookhaven, where a portion of the research was conducted, particle accelerators were able to recreate some of the radioactive particles found in space.

“It is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them,” said O’Banion. “One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete.”

For the study, researchers used mice that had been engineered to have two human gene mutations associated with familial Alzheimer’s.

“Essentially, they were healthy mice with nasty genes,” said O’Banion. Under natural conditions, mice do not get the disease.

The mice were exposed to the radiation for several minutes. Six months later, researchers evaluated the exposure to see if it had any effect.

“A minute or two [of exposure] is like three years in human life,” O’Banion said. “It’s apples and oranges, a very different kind of exposure, but the total dose is equivalent to what an astronaut would receive [on a three-year Mars mission].”

Cosmic radiation is unlike anything on earth, according to O’Banion, similar only to what might be experienced in a nuclear accident.

“The big problem NASA faces is that shielding is not effective, and a spacecraft is not bulky enough to protect them over long periods of travel,” said O’Banion. “At least not now. In scenarios I have heard of sending people to Mars, they would then build an underground shelter on a long-term mission in order to protect them from radiation.”

While the research does not solve the problem of radiation in space or explain why humans develop Alzheimer’s disease, it is important, according to O’Banion.

“My own bias is this,” he said. “It’s just another example of how the environment can influence diseases. The mice had a genetic predisposition and you have added an environmental injury — an insult to their system. And now they show exacerbation of the disease.”

There may even be parallels with the development of the disease after brain injuries in football players, he said.

Jeff Chancellor, a scientist in radiation physics at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, said the Rochester team’s study is solid.

“I know most of the authors and they are very well respected, and I have full confidence in their results,” he said. . “The main benefit of their research is being able to further enhance the field and perhaps provide justification for more research.”

“Any time you identify a mechanism for how a disease or a condition is induced, you further the ability to mitigate it,” he said. “It provides more tools for the researchers and for M.D.s … There are great benefits to all these studies.”

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UK assumes presidency of G8 group

31 December 2012 Last updated at 22:18 ET

The UK is assuming its year-long presidency of the G8 group of nations.

The presidency – which rotates through the G8 members – means it will host the annual leaders’ summit and choose the global priorities that are discussed.

June’s summit is to be held at Lough Erne, in County Fermanagh, while topics discussed will include tax havens.

The G8 is made up countries who have, historically, been the richest in the world – France, the US, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada and the UK.

As prime minister of the presidency holding nation, David Cameron has said he wants to focus on combating trade protectionism, cracking down on tax havens and promoting greater government transparency.

These topics will be discussed in ministerial meetings ahead of the summit along with urgent issues like the crisis in Syria.

Although G8 summits are renowned for fine communiques, the group increasingly suffers from a credibility problem – some of the world’s largest economies like China, India and Brazil are not members, says BBC world affairs correspondent Emily Buchanan.

Our correspondent also adds that organisers will at least be hoping the June summit will be trouble-free.

The last time the UK was the host in 2005, in Gleneagles, more than 200,000 people marched against world poverty.

The proceedings were then overshadowed by the 7/7 bus and underground bombings in London.

Mr Cameron announced in November that the G8 summit would be held at the Lough Erne golf resort near Enniskillen.

It is the first time an event of this size has been held in Northern Ireland.

Speaking at the time, the prime minister said: “I want the world to see just what a fantastic place Northern Ireland is – a great place for business, a great place for investment, a place with an incredibly educated and trained workforce ready to work for international business.

BBC News – Business

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UPDATE 7-Tennis-Auckland Classic women’s singles round 1 results

Jan 1 (Infostrada Sports) – Results from the Auckland Classic Women’s Singles Round 1 matches on Tuesday

2-Julia Goerges (Germany) beat Anastasija Sevastova (Latvia) 6-3 6-4

Marina Erakovic (New Zealand) beat Stephanie Dubois (Canada) 6-2 6-1

1-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) beat Greta Arn (Hungary) 6-2 6-2

8-Mona Barthel (Germany) beat Grace Min (U.S.) 6-1 6-3

6-Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan) beat Lara Arruabarrena Vecino (Spain) 6-3 6-2

Romina Oprandi (Switzerland) beat Nudnida Luangnam (Thailand) 6-0 6-2

Heather Watson (Britain) beat 5-Sorana Cirstea (Romania) 6-3 (Cirstea retired)

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Olympics, elections and horsing around in odd 2012

LONDON (Reuters) – Presidential preening, golden Olympic gaffes, a royal windfall for a skydiving British queen on her diamond jubilee and the endless end of days marked the odd stories in 2012 which pranced across the news in Gangnam Style.

The year opened with a tale that flocks of magpies and bears had been spotted in mourning for North Korea‘s “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il who died in December 2011 and was succeeded by his 20-something son Kim Jong-un.

Winter weather was so cold in Brussels that the Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures.

There was slightly warming news about Mondays in Germany, where crematoriums are struggling to adapt to an increasingly obese population and a boom in extra-large coffins.

“We burn particularly large coffins on Monday mornings when the ovens are cold,” one crematorium said.

In March Polish media reported that kite surfer Jan Lisewski fought off repeated shark attacks and overcame thirst and exhaustion in a two-day battle of survival on the Red Sea with just his trusty knife as protection.

“I was stabbing them in the eyes, the nose and gills.”

In other animal news, dairy cows across the world mourned the loss of “Jocko”, the world’s third most-potent breeding bull and Yvonne the German cow who evaded helicopter searches and dodged hunters landed a film deal: “Cow on the Run”.

A Nepali man who was bitten by a cobra snake bit it back and killed the reptile after it attacked him in his rice paddy.

“I could have killed it with a stick but bit it with my teeth instead because I was angry,” Mohamed Salmo Miya said.

A scathing resignation letter of a Goldman Sachs executive published in the New York Times inspired a sheaf of online spoofs, including Star Wars villain Darth Vader.

“The Empire today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about remote strangulation. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore,” Vader wrote in a published letter.

Austerity in Europe saw a once-thriving Greek sex industry become the latest victim of the country’s debt crisis with Greeks spending less on erotic toys, pornography and lingerie.

But lust appeared to be in the rudest of health elsewhere.

Turkish emergency workers rescued an inflatable sex doll floating in the Black Sea and a German disc jockey vowed to press charges against a woman who locked him in her apartment and ravaged him for hours until he rang the police.

“She was sex mad and there was no way out of the flat,” Dieter S. told police.

@ROYALFETUS

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 60th year on the throne with Diamond Jubilee celebrations that saw a 1,000-ship rain-sodden flotilla sail down the River Thames, a massive party in front of Buckingham Palace, street parties across the country and a spoof incarnation of her majesty on Twitter.

“OK, fire up the Bentley. Let’s rock,” tweeted “Elizabeth Windsor“, the comic online alter ego of the British monarch in a typical tweet from the spoof Twitter account @Queen_UK, a virtual monarch with a razor-sharp wit and a penchant for gin.

And Twitter positively exploded with spoof royal accounts later in the year when Elizabeth’s grandson William and his wife Kate announced she was pregnant with a future monarch.

“I may not have bones yet, but I’m already more important than everyone reading this,” was the tweet from @RoyalFetus.

Leadership and change was a theme which ran through a year in which socialist Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Mimi the clown to become French president, Vladimir Putin was elected Russian president again and U.S. President Barack Obama won re-election over Republican Mitt Romney.

Amid the tight election race, Obama met a gaffe-prone Romney for an exchange at a charity dinner ahead of the November poll, where America’s first black president poked fun at Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood for lecturing an empty chair as if it were Obama during the Republican convention.

“Please take your seats,” Obama told the crowd, “or else Clint Eastwood will yell at them.”

“THE MODFATHER”

Sporting news was dominated by the London Olympics during the summer, where the opening ceremony included a vignette of Queen Elizabeth being escorted by James Bond before apparently skydiving into the Olympic stadium for her arrival.

“Good evening Mr. Bond,” was her only line.

Olympic embarrassments were few, but they began early with organizers forced into apologies for displaying the South Korean flag on a video screen for North Korea‘s women’s soccer team.

British cycling sensation Bradley “the Modfather” Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, sparking a craze among fans for cutout cardboard sideburns modeled on his own and shouting “here Wiggo” as he raced to Olympic gold.

London’s eccentric and loquacious Mayor Boris Johnson fell rather awkwardly silent when he got stuck dangling from a zip wire, waving two Union flags in drizzling rain.

Olympic chiefs urged youthful athletes to drink “sensibly”.

But there was anything but restraint for Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who declared an early night at one point only to be photographed later with three members of the Swedish women’s handball team. Early one Sunday morning Bolt also dazzled dancers at a London night club with a turn in the DJ booth.

“I am a legend,” Bolt shouted out to a packed dance floor from the decks with his arms raised in the air.

Towards the close of the year, tens of thousands of mystics, hippies and tourists celebrated in the shadow of ancient Maya pyramids in southeastern Mexico as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as the end of the world.

“It’s pure Hollywood,” said Luis Mis Rodriguez, 45, a Maya selling obsidian figurines and souvenirs.

Finally, a chubby, rapping singer with slicked-back hair and a tacky suit became the latest musical sensation to burst upon the world from South Korea, via a YouTube music video that has been seen more than a billion times.

Decked out in a bow tie and suit jackets varying from pink to baby blue, as well as a towel for one sequence set in a sauna, Psy busts funky moves based on horse-riding in venues ranging from playgrounds to subways.

The video by Psy has been emulated by everyone from Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei to students at Britain’s elite Eton College, gurning politicians, spotty teens and embarrassing dads worldwide.

“My goal in this music video was to look uncool until the end. I achieved it,” Psy told Reuters.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Mike Collett-White)

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La terapia prostática con protones no provoca menos efectos adversos

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – Un costoso tratamiento para el

cáncer de próstata, conocido como terapia con haz de protones,

provoca tantos efectos adversos como las radioterapias más

comunes y económicas.

“En el largo plazo, realmente no existen diferencias entre

los resultados de la terapia con protones y la radioterapia de

intensidad modulada (IMRT, por su sigla en inglés) en los

hombres con cáncer prostático”, dijo el autor principal del

estudio, el doctor James Yu, radiólogo y oncólogo de la Facultad

de Medicina de la Universidad de Yale.

Los defensores de la terapia con protones sostienen que el

haz de protones irradia directamente al tumor y, así, evita los

efectos adversos. La IMRT, que es más común, deja expuestos a la

radiación a tejidos sanos, lo que para los investigadores

aumentaría los efectos adversos y el riesgo de nuevos tumores.

Pero, en un año, los autores del nuevo estudio hallaron la

misma cantidad de efectos adversos en pacientes tratados con

ambos métodos.

El cáncer de próstata es el cáncer masculino más común; cada

año, causa 28.000 muertes en Estados Unidos. Aun así, muchos

hombres mueren por otras causas porque este cáncer avanza

lentamente. Los tratamientos incluyen la quimioterapia, la

hormonoterapia, la cirugía y la espera vigilada.

Aunque los investigadores aún debaten cuál de los dos

tratamientos (haz de protones e IMRT) son la mejor opción para

los pacientes que optan por la radioterapia, eso no impidió que

proliferaran los centros que ofrecen la terapia con protones. La

Asociación Nacional de Terapia con Protones estima que en

Estados Unidos existen 10 centros y ocho en desarrollo o

construcción.

Cada centro cuesta más de 125 millones de dólares y Medicare

reintegra el doble de eso a cambio de sus servicios.

En el estudio publicado en Journal of the National Cancer

Institute, los autores revisaron los reintegros de Medicare del

2008 y el 2009 debido a complicaciones asociadas con el

tratamiento en casi 28.000 hombres con cáncer de próstata desde

hacía un año. Sólo el 2 por ciento de esos pacientes había

recibido terapia con protones; el resto, IMRT.

A los seis meses, casi el 10 por ciento de los pacientes

tratados con IMRT y el 6 por ciento de aquellos tratados con haz

de protones tuvieron efectos adversos, como incontinencia,

sensación de quemazón al orinar o problemas de erección.

Y las diferencias desaparecieron al año del tratamiento,

cuando casi uno de cada cinco pacientes padecía efectos adversos

independientemente del tratamiento recibido.

El equipo de Yu determinó que la terapia con protones cuesta

dos veces más que la IMRT: 32.428 dólares por ronda, versus

18.575 dólares, algo que coincide con estudios previos.

“Ahora, son los defensores de la terapia con protones los

que deberían probar los beneficios”, dijo Yu.

Los autores se concentraron en los efectos adversos, no en

comparar la efectividad de los tratamientos, lo que para los

promotores del uso del haz de protones es una gran debilidad.

FUENTE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, online 14

de diciembre del 2012.

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Commissions banned on new sales

31 December 2012 Last updated at 07:37 ET

Financial advisers and sales staff can no longer be paid commissions by the firms whose policies they are selling.

New rules, aimed at eradicating the long-standing practice, are being imposed by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) from now.

The aim is to stop policies – such as private pensions and investments – being mis-sold by sales staff, motivated by commission payments.

Instead, customers must be quoted up-front fees, and be told about charges.

Sales staff or financial advisers will also have to state if they are really independent, or restricted to just selling the policies of particular financial groups.

The reforms form part of a series of changes in the financial services industry called the Retail Distribution Review, and which were first proposed by the FSA back in early 2010.

Linda Woodall at the FSA said: “The changes will improve customer confidence – we want people to feel that they are getting a service from their financial adviser that is relevant to their circumstances and in their best interests.

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“Start Quote

The danger here is that quality financial advice becomes something only for the wealthy”

End Quote Keith Tadhunter Independent Financial Adviser

“These changes are about making the cost of advice clearer, where else would you buy something without knowing in advance how much it costs?

“Customers will now know how much advice is costing them, the service that they are receiving and be reassured that their adviser is qualified.”

Mis-selling scandals

The changes should ensure that independent financial advisers no longer receive payment for their advice by taking a regular cut of their clients funds via commission payments, something the clients may not be aware of at all.

The new policy will apply to the sale of investments such as pensions, annuities and unit trusts, but not to some mortgages and insurance policies.

Alan Higham, an expert on annuities – a pension income for life – believes that there is also a loophole with sales of annuities.

He said that “limited pension advice” – which provides guidance, quotes and explains terms and accounts for about a third of annuity sales – is not covered by the new rules.

This is because the client has made the decision without recommended pension advice from an adviser. If anything is wrong with the choice, then it is the client’s responsibility, rather than the adviser’s.

Commission-driven sales are thought to have been at the heart of the huge mis-selling scandals of the past few decades, affecting the sale of endowment policies, personal pensions and most recently payment protection insurance (PPI).

Even apart from those scandals, the FSA estimated in 2010 that mis-selling in general was costing UK financial consumers about half a billion pounds a year.

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Suggested questions to IFAs

• How much will your advice cost me and how is this calculated?


• Can you explain the different ways I can pay for advice?


• Can you explain what products you can advise me on and any areas you cannot help me with?


• How often will you review my investments?


• Can you show me proof that you are qualified to give advice?

Source: Financial Services Authority

A recent survey for the FSA found that 17% of adults currently take advice from a professional financial adviser and another 32% would consider doing so.

But a third of the respondents thought, wrongly, that the advice was free and that they did not have to pay a charge.

‘Danger’

Financial advisers have said that some operators in their industry have given it a bad name. However, some argue that the change in the rules could create issues for those who may not actively seek financial products, such as a pension.

“The danger here is that quality financial advice becomes something only for the wealthy, when in reality, most people need it to some degree – as poor rates of saving across the population only go to show,” said Keith Tadhunter, an independent financial adviser at Future Financial in Bath.

But Martin Wheatley, the chief executive designate of the Financial Conduct Authority, said that – although there was a savings gap in the UK – people had not trusted financial services.

“This is part of getting trust back into finance,” he said.

He expected the industry to change, with many more options explained through websites for people looking to save or invest in the long-term.

The new policies will also stop, from the end of 2013, the practice of businesses such as fund supermarkets or online discount stockbrokers accepting payments from some of the investment funds whose policies they are selling.

This is also thought to lead to biased sales, which may not be in the best interests of private investors.

Part of these payments has sometimes found its way back to the personal investor in the form of a cash rebate, but they are also used to cross-subsidise the provision of other services, such as stock and shares Isas.

BBC News – Business

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