Women Who Don’t Smoke Face Greater Obesity Risk, Scottish Researchers Find

Women who have never smoked face a higher risk of being overweight or obese than those who light up, according to a study by Scottish researchers in today’s British Medical Journal.

The findings from the study of 3,613 Scottish women who were followed for 28 years suggest that higher smoking rates decades ago masked the true extent of obesity, the researchers wrote. Declines in tobacco use in industrialized countries since the early 1970s may help explain the increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese, they said.

The study also concluded that obesity was more prevalent in poorer women, who had higher death rates from related conditions, than in wealthier ones. Women in the study who avoided smoking and kept their weight in check had the lowest death rates, regardless of whether they were rich or poor.

“There is a general sense that if you live on the wrong side of the tracks, you are bound to be less healthy,” Laurence Gruer, the lead researcher and director of public health science for NHS Health Scotland in Glasgow, said in a telephone interview. “This shows that’s not necessarily the case.”

Nicotine, a stimulant found in tobacco, may eventually explain more about the relationship between smoking and obesity rates, Gruer said. Nicotine appears to suppress the appetite of some smokers and may play a role in why some people who quit smoking go on to gain weight, he said.


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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/women-who-don-t-smoke-face-greater-obesity-risk-scottish-researchers-find.html

Two-headed baby born in China

The babies were born by caesarean on Thursday at the Suining City Central Hospital in Sichuan. The twins weighed 9 pounds (4 kilograms) and measured 20 inches (51 centimetres), according to local press reports.

The parents, who are migrant farmers living outside of the southwestern city, did not learn of the abnormality until two days before the mother was due to give birth.

Two ultra sound scans in September and February failed to reveal the two heads because the technicians were viewing the single embryo in profile.

Doctors consider separating the babies, who have separate spines and esophaguses but share major organs, almost impossible.

"It is hard to say how they will survive in the future but we will try the best to keep them alive at the moment," said Pu Youhua, a doctor with Suining Hospital.

The pair have now been moved to a hospital in nearby Chongqing for further examination.

Read More

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20110510/sichuan-china-conjoined-twins-110510/

Man in New Mexico diagnosed with bubonic plague; first case of 'Black Death' in 2011

A 58-year-old man in New Mexico was recently treated for bubonic plague, the first case of the disease formerly known as "Black Death" to surface in 2011.

Health officials in Santa Fe said the unidentified man spent a week in the hospital after suffering high fever, intense pain in his stomach and groin and swollen lymph nodes.

He was treated and released, but officials would not say when.

The results of blood tests released Thursday confirmed the man had bubonic plague, officials said.

Doctors said the man was most likely bitten by a flea carrying the plague bacteria, the most common method of transmission to humans.

Rat-borne fleas can carry the bacterium, and humans can also catch the disease from contact with infected rodents or animals.

"He was probably bitten by a flea somewhere on his left leg," Department of Health veterinarian Paul Ettestad told the Santa Fe New Mexican.


Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/05/08/2011-05-08_man_in_new_mexico_diagnosed_with_bubonic_plague_first_case_of_black_death_in_201.html#ixzz1LpT6hRtA

Woman awakens from surgery speaking in foreign accent

Woman Gets British Accent After Surgery

As medical oddities go, this incident stands out: A lifelong resident of Oregon went to the dentist for surgery and awakened from sedation speaking in a British, or somewhat-British, accent.

The 56-year-old woman appeared Thursday on NBC’s "Today," answering questions in what this MSNBC story describes as “an odd mixture of Irish, Scottish and northern British, with perhaps a dash of Australian and South African for good measure.”

Some speculate that she may have foreign accent syndrome, a rare but real speech disorder. It’s most often caused by a stroke, but can also be caused by a blow to the head, brain hemorrhage or multiple sclerosis.

A person’s speech is still understandable, but the rhythm is unusual, according to a University of Texas at Dallas primer on the disorder. People may have trouble pronouncing consonant clusters or elongate their vowels.

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http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-foreign-accent-20110505,0,7374634.story

Last-minute exam stress can actually help students to form stronger memories

It runs counter to all the received wisdom about revision. But now scientists say cramming at the last minute could actually be better than spending months swotting up for exams.

According to the latest research, hormones produced under stress cause changes to our brain cells that can help memories to be stored more efficiently.

Stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline alter the way genes inside neurons function, researchers have discovered, enhancing their learning ability.

Professor Hans Reul, a neuroscientist at the University of Bristol, said that the findings suggest students' learning could actually be improved by studying when feeling the pressure of a deadline.

Cortisol and adrenaline appear to boost a mechanism known as epigenetic modification that 'reprograms' neural DNA, he said, increasing or decreasing the expression of certain genes.


Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1382936/Last-minute-exam-stress-actually-help-students-form-stronger-memories.html#ixzz1LGIzVdDj

Chernobyl impact felt 25 years later

Natalia Manzurova, 59, arrived in Chernobyl just nine days after the April 26, 1986, explosion at the nuclear power plant in Ukraine created a radiation cloud that stretched across Europe.

She says that at the time, she and other experts in the region had no idea how much radiation had been released in the nuclear disaster at reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Manzurova has been marking the 25th anniversary of the explosion with speaking engagements — including one in Washington earlier this month — aimed at raising awareness of the potential consequences of nuclear energy, which March’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan brought back to the forefront.

Manzurova, a nuclear engineer who was called to Chernobyl from her job in Ozersk, Russia, spent four and a half years studying the effect of the radiation on the environment in Chernobyl, and helping cleanup workers, or liquidators.

She says that she would work in the zone 20 days and then go home for 10, and that she experienced many side effects.

“I would get huge headaches and nose bleeds,” says Manzurova, who was later diagnosed with thyroid cancer she attributes to that experience.

How many illnesses resulted from radiation exposure at the Chernobyl cleanup are unclear.

Gregory Hartl, a World Health Organization spokesman, says 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been detected in the region affected by Chernobyl’s disaster

Hung-over surgeons more error-prone

Surgeons might want to steer clear of alcohol the night before operating, according to a new report that shows a hangover fuels errors during simulated surgery.

While there is no question about the immediate effects of alcohol on surgical skills, there aren't any rules for how much doctors can drink the day before going to the operating room.

"Historically, the medical profession has had a reputation for high rates of alcohol consumption," Anthony Gallagher, of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and colleagues write in the Archives of Surgery.

"It is likely that surgeons are unaware that next-day surgical performance may be compromised as a result of significant alcohol intake."

To measure the degree of that impairment, the researchers invited eight surgeons and 16 students out for a night on the town.

Half the students and all of the experts were encouraged to down as much booze as they wanted until they felt drunk. The rest of the students weren't allowed to touch any alcohol, but still went out for dinner.

The next day, the merrymakers, hung-over or not, went to the lab to perform a type of camera-guided surgery that uses a few small incisions instead of one big one -- so-called laparoscopy.

The surgery was done on a virtual reality system, not a real person. That turned out to be fortunate, because both the surgeons and those students who had been drunk did worse than when they were tested before the party.

At 9 AM, hung-over students made about 19 errors on average, while those who hadn't been drinking made only eight. This difference hadn't been seen before the night out, and faded over the day.

The surgeons also performed worse the day after their night out compared with before, with an increase in errors of about half. Yet only one of them had detectable blood alcohol levels.

For unclear reasons, the surgeons completed the surgery faster at 9 AM than they did before the party, but then became slower when tested at 1 PM.

Still, because they also made more errors and had trouble performing a type of heating used during surgery, this speediness didn't translate into a real improvement, the researchers note.

The take-home message?

"Abstinence from alcohol the night before operating may be a sensible consideration for practicing surgeons," the report urges.

SOURCE: bit.ly/9qX5ZA Archives of Surgery, April 18, 2011.

Alcohol + Energy Drinks = A Bad Combo

It’s one of the latest trends in drinking: mixing alcoholic beverages with energy drinks. Though research on the effects of combining the two is not extensive, a new study shows that choosing vodka and Red Bull over rum and Coke may lead to riskier behavior.

In the study, 56 college students between the ages of 21 and 33 were randomly assigned to one of four groups: one group drank alcohol, one group drank an energy drink, one group drank alcohol mixed with an energy drink, and the last group received a placebo drink. Researchers then observed the participants’ behavior using a task that measures how quickly a person can execute and suppress actions after drinking. The participants also reported their feelings of stimulation, sedation, impairment, and level of intoxication.

Cecile A. Marczinski, assistant professor of psychology at Northern Kentucky University and first author of the study, was quoted as saying, "Our study was designed to demonstrate that alcohol/energy drinks are pharmacologically distinct from alcohol alone and are adding to the risks of drinking."

While the study showed no difference in the level of impairment of people who drank alcohol/energy drinks compared to those who drank just alcohol, the study did demonstrate an enhanced feeling of stimulation in participants who drank mixed alcohol/energy drink beverages. This suggests drinking alcohol and energy drinks together may heighten the risks associated with drinking.

"We found that an energy drink alters the reaction of alcohol that a drinker experiences when compared to a drinker that consumed alcohol alone…," Marczinski said. "The consumer of the alcohol/energy drink felt more stimulated compared to an alcohol-alone consumer. Therefore, consumption of an energy drink combined with alcohol sets up a risky scenario for the drinker due to this enhanced feeling of stimulation and high impulsivity levels."

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http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=26786

World's oldest man dies in Montana at 114

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — Walter Breuning's earliest memories stretched back 111 years, before home entertainment came with a twist of the radio dial. They were of his grandfather's tales of killing Southerners in the Civil War. Breuning was 3 and horrified: "I thought that was a hell of a thing to say."

But the stories stuck, becoming the first building blocks into what would develop into a deceptively simple philosophy that Breuning, the world's oldest man at 114 before he died Thursday, credited to his longevity.

Here's the world's oldest man's secret to a long life:

— Embrace change, even when the change slaps you in the face. ("Every change is good.")

— Eat two meals a day ("That's all you need.")

— Work as long as you can ("That money's going to come in handy.")

— Help others ("The more you do for others, the better shape you're in.")

Then there's the hardest part. It's a lesson Breuning said he learned from his grandfather: Accept death.

"We're going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die," he said.

"Everybody says your mind is the most important thing about your body. Your mind and your body. You keep both busy, and by God you'll be here a long time," he said.

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsDmreRfJbw75ZdXEjbX_8MBmubQ?docId=b7fbd86a47864232bdfd35e8ef9b2299

Global stillbirths: 2.6 million a year, overlooked and often preventable

About 2.6 million babies are born dead each year, a largely ignored and silently grieved loss of life, about half of which could be prevented.

That’s the conclusion of a huge project unveiled Wednesday to enumerate stillbirths country by country and propose ways to reduce them.

Today, there are more stillbirths each year than deaths from AIDS or malaria combined. The stillbirth rate in sub-Saharan Africa is 10 times that of the industrialized world and equivalent to what existed in the United States in 1900. In many places, stillbirths aren’t reported to health authorities or counted as deaths.

“Stillbirth is a big problem, and it hasn’t been on the global agenda before. We hear a lot about ‘overlooked problems,’ but this is genuinely one,” said Joy E. Lawn, a physician who works in Cape Town, South Africa, and helped lead the effort that produced eight papers published online by the Lancet, a European medical journal.

Historically, the medical community has viewed stillbirth deaths as both less tragic and less preventable than deaths of mothers or children.

“I think what we’ve ignored in that argument is what the families think. The families don’t discount those losses,” she said.

About 98 percent of stillbirths — most commonly defined as death in the final trimester of gestation — occur in the developing world. Ten countries account for two-thirds of them, and two-thirds occur in rural families.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/global_stillbirths_26_million_a_year_overlooked_and_often_preventable/2011/04/13/AFb0yzYD_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

Dispose of those unwanted prescriptions

The Beach City, Brewster, Navarre and Wilmot police departments and the Drug Enforcement Administration will be collecting unwanted prescription drugs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, April 30, at the Brewster Fire Department at 110 E. Main St.

The service is free and anonymous, with no questions being asked.

This will give the public an opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by bringing the potentially dangerous, expired, unused and unwanted prescriptions to the fire station. This collection addresses a vital public safety and health issue. Medicines that are kept in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse and abuse.

According to information provided, studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends. It has been suggested that unwanted medicines can be flushed down the toilet or thrown into the trash, both posing potential safety and health hazards.

Last fall, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an ultimate user of controlled-substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized to accept and dispose of the drugs in a proper manner. The DEA is drafting regulations to implement the act.

In September 2010, Americans disposed of 242.000 pounds, or 121 tons, of prescription drugs at more than 4,000 sites operated by the DEA and 3,0000 state and law-enforcement partners.

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http://www.indeonline.com/news/x481364821/Dispose-of-those-unwanted-prescriptions

Mexicans protest drug war as more graves found

Thousands of Mexicans protested the country's raging drug war on Wednesday as dozens of bodies were found in graves near the country's border with the United States.

Demonstrators marched in cities across Mexico, holding signs condemning the wave of killing that has claimed more than 37,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and launched a military-led crackdown against drug cartels.

"We are fed up with this war that nobody asked for," said protester Leticia Ruiz in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, where some businesses have closed because of gunbattles in the streets and rampant extortion by cartel members.

Although recent estimates suggest the violence may have peaked last summer, Mexicans are jarred by daily news stories of beheadings and executions as cartels war for control of cocaine smuggling routes. Most cocaine consumed in the United States goes through Mexico.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday they discovered 59 bodies in a series of graves in the northern state of Tamaulipas, not far from a ranch where 72 Central and South Americans were executed late last year by drug gangs preying on migrants traveling north through Mexico.

Authorities said one grave held 43 bodies, with the rest of the bodies spread among seven other graves.

Investigators believe the recently discovered victims may have been abducted from a bus on March 25, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement.

'NO MORE MURDERS'

Protest organizers said more than 10,000 people participated in the nationwide marches, but numbers could not be confirmed.

The bloodletting has hurt Calderon's conservative party and strained relations with the United States, which is providing Calderon with equipment and intelligence to fight drug gangs.

In Mexico City, several thousand protesters held signs saying: "No more murders" as they filed into the city's central plaza. Smaller protests were held in New York and Barcelona.

Body counts published by Mexican media indicate the death toll has fallen for two consecutive quarters for the first time since Calderon began his campaign.

The tallies point to about 3,220 murders in the first three months of 2011, down from 3,690 in the last quarter of 2010. The government has yet to publish an official estimate.

Demonstrators also marched through the northern business capital of Monterrey. But the impetus for the national protests came from the weekend getaway city of Cuernavaca.

Read More

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/04/07/idINIndia-56175720110407

Daughter & Dad Reunite, Make Baby

It would have been a beautiful reunion story. Last year, Penny Lawrence, 28, set out to find her birth father whom she had never met. From her home in Ireland, she was able to track Garry Ryan, 46, down in Texas. They met, connected ... and then connected a little too much. She's now pregnant with his baby.

It is beyond disturbing and completely and utterly unfathomable to me that something like this could happen, but they act as if it's the most natural, beautiful thing in the world. They say they're in love and deny that it's incest. Instead they say they are victims of Genetic Sexual Attraction.

Chelsea sekely comments:

No! Who is to say they wont be attracted to the child also. How embarrassing and shameful to grow up in that hose hold as well.
Report this comment

Facebook comment from Jill Coury Benson

I think it is too weird and makes my stomach sick.....but....in the egyption times, royal brothers and sisters were seperated from each other when little and raised apart so they could be runited to marry each other and keep the blood lines pure. See where it got them???? A bunch of sickly kings..... Anthropolgy explains to us that when we grow up familiar with each other and in our family unit places we are too familiar with each other to have those initimate feelings...but growing up apart and maybe the two of them are

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http://thestir.cafemom.com/pregnancy/117968/daughter_dad_reunite_make_baby

Cyclops Baby Born in India Only Survives 1 Day

A baby boy with one eye in the center of his forehead and no nose was born in India last week. He survived only one day.

Doctors were shocked when they delivered the infant by cesarean section from the 34-year-old mother, Veena Chavan.

Dr. Ashok Anand, professor of gynecology at the hospital, told reporters, "The child must have possibly suffered from cyclopia."

A sonogram during Chavan's 32nd week of pregnancy revealed the baby was hydrocephalic, meaning water was accumulating on his brain. According to the doctor's report, medical staff wanted to perform an intrauterine shunting procedure but could not because of the advanced stage of her term.

Chavan not only grieved the loss of her son, but was upset that she did not even have an opportunity to see him.

"This was my third pregnancy. I lost my previous child while I was carrying. I was told that the baby had water in the brain but never had I expected the baby to be born with one eye and no nose," she told reporters.

Chavan's one surviving child is an 8-year-old daughter.

Surprisingly, this form of cyclopia occurs in roughly one in 250 embryos and is a rare form of holoprosencephaly, which affects how the front of the brain is formed during fetal development. With cyclopia, the eyes and nose don't form properly.

Such fetuses are often lost early in the pregnancy. Thus, despite the higher-than-expected odds, it's rarely seen. The cause is often the result of a genetic mutation, though alcoholic and diabetic mothers are at greater risk of carrying a cyclopic child.

In 2006, India saw another cyclopic baby born in the city of Chennai. The baby girl survived and was taken home by her parents. No recent reports offer any further information about her survival.

A year earlier, a one-eyed baby girl was born prematurely in Russia but died almost immediately after being delivered. Reports claimed her head, shoulders and back were covered with thick hair and a "small trunk" was growing above her eye.

Cases like these have been documented for hundreds of years but have surely occurred for thousands. The mythological Cyclops dates back to ancient Greece and may have been inspired by a cyclopic infant.

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http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/24/baby-with-1-eye-and-no-nose-born-in-india-survives-1-day/

Obesity and attending religious events linked, study finds

Warning: Spending too much time at church may be harmful to your health.

A new stuhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdy has found that young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age compared with those who don’t take part in any religious events.

“We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot of these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention,” said Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator and a fourth-year student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It’s possible that getting together once a week and associating good works and happiness with eating unhealthy foods could lead to the development of habits that are associated with greater body weight and obesity.”

The study tracked 2,433 young men and women for 18 years in Chicago, Minneapolis, Birmingham, Ala., and Oakland, Calif.

In the study, “frequent” religious participation meant attending at least one event per week. Most, but not all of the participants, were Christians — reflecting the dominant religion in the United States, Feinstein said.

Courtney Parker, the catering manager for the 20,000-member Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, said he’s not entirely surprised by the study’s results. Parker suspects there may be a historical connection between over-eating and going to church. In years gone by, so many things were taboo — but not eating, Parker said.

Years ago, “church services ran long,” Parker said. “So the first thing you do is go eat, and then you go to sleep.”

Parker said Apostolic has made a point in recent years of serving healthy food at church events. So you’re more likely to see baked fish or chicken, rather than pizza, on the menu.

Feinstein said the study’s results shouldn’t be a cause for alarm because previous studies have shown that regular churchgoers tend to smoke less, have better mental health and live longer than those who don’t go to church.

Read More

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4490719-460/obesity-and-attending-religious-events-linked-study-finds.html

Women Regret Lost Loves More Than Men, Study Finds

Frank Sinatra famously belted, “Regrets, I had a few ... too few to mention” -- but if they had to mention their greatest regret in life, women cited a lost love more than twice as often as men in a Northwestern University study.

The study conducted by a professor at the Kellogg School of Management showed 44 percent of women described a lost love as their biggest regret, compared to just 19 percent of men.

Men, at 24 percent, regretted work-oriented choices more than anything else.

“Past research on regrets focused on samples of college students, which made it difficult to glean insights into the wider population,” said Neal Roese, the researcher who, with a colleague, called 370 adult Americans during the study.

He said the study offers a more thorough look into the "psychology of regret to further understand how regret connects to life circumstances and its impact on decision making.”

The study also showed events that lead someone to inaction haunt people the longest.

Surely, there’s a Sinatra song for that one.

Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/23/study-woman-regret-lost-loves/#ixzz1HU41wP4l

New statistics show Americans living longer

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Life expectancy in the United States has reached an all-time high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

In 2009, life expectancy increased to 78.2 years, up from 78 years in 2008, it said.

For women, life expectancy was 80.6 years, up one-tenth of a year. The life expectancy for men rose to 75.7 years, an increase of two-tenths of a year.

Life expectancy for whites increased two-tenths of a year and stayed the same for blacks.

Suicide surpassed blood poisoning to become the 10th leading cause of death, the CDC said. Heart disease remained the top killer, although death rates dropped in that category and in nine of the other top 15 causes of death.

There were 2.4 million deaths in the United States in 2009, down 36,336 from the year before, the agency said.


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http://kgmi.com/New-statistics-show-Americans-living-longer/9419203

Premature baby died after doctors 'refused to help him'

Grief-stricken: Tracy Godwin whose baby boy Tom was 'left to die' in her arms after being born at 22 weeks because of a hospital policy not to resuscitate

A BABY died after medics refused to help him because he was born too early.

Tracy Godwin, 31, went into labour at 22 weeks but her son, Tom, was born alive.

She begged doctors to save the struggling baby but they refused because the hospital has a policy of not helping children under 24 weeks.

Tom, who was delivered last March, survived for 46 minutes before dying in his mother’s arms. An inquest has since been ordered.


The first-time mum, from Southend, Essex, said yesterday: “If he had been stillborn it would have been different, but he tried to live. We were begging them to do something for him.

“They gave me the Butterfly Room suite but never said it was for women who were going to lose their babies.”

A Southend Hospital spokesman apologised if Miss Godwin had not been told of her son’s survival chances and said it would welcome a chance to discuss it.

Read more:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/03/17/premature-baby-died-after-doctors-refused-to-help-him-115875-22994507/#ixzz1GpmoFidB

Take your dog for a walk

If you need motivation to work out you might consider getting a partner, but not a human.

A new study found dog owners gets more exercise by walking their dog and tend to be more active overall. It's good for you and it's good for your canine companion, especially considering nearly half of dogs are obese.


Walking the dog is a chore we don't skip at my house. We started walking Bella when she was just a puppy, taking advice that a walked dog is a better-behaved dog. Now, she will wait patiently, within reason, for her 20-30 minute walk. I suspect she's motivated by the treats she gets, but she's not overweight and we are healthier for it too.

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http://www.kwch.com/news/kwch-news-cjkh-take-your-dog-for-a-walk-20110315,0,6892788.story

Over 100 People Shave Their Heads for St. Baldrick's

On a sunny afternoon yesterday (Saturday, March 12) 115 people gathered at Amalfi's restaurant to make a “bald statement” for childhood cancer – they had their heads shaved.

Sixty-seven children and 48 adults - including four girls and three women - had their heads shaved in one of six chairs set up at the restaurant in the 100 block of Lawrenceville-Pennington Road as part of the fundraiser for St. Baldrick’s Foundation – an organization dedicated to “funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives.”

As of this morning, $102,906 had been raised – over $35,000 more than the original goal of $65,000.

Each shave took about three minutes, plus extra time for pictures. Thirteen volunteer barbers did the shaving.

The local St. Baldrick’s event was founded four years ago by Drs. Melissa and Mike McCue of Colonial Valley Chiropractic. Support has skyrocketed since that first year, during which a total of 24 people had their heads shaved. They raised $20,000 that year.

Interest was so great this year that organizers had to limit the list of “shavees,” and not accept walk-ins, in order to guarantee everyone’s head would get shaved within the eight hours allotted for the event.

Everyone’s story was unique. Aiden Robbins, a 6-year-old kindergartner at Makefield Elementary School in Yardley, Pa., collected $8,000 in honor of his friend Lauren Maziarz who died from cancer in October 2010 when she was just 5 years old.

While Aiden fell short of his original $1 million goal, and was nervous when the time came for his hair to be cut, he said he is “glad I did it!”

Jeff Berry, kindergarten teacher at Lawrenceville Elementary School, helped organize Team LES, which included 20 students and kindergarten assistant teacher Jacqueline Cleak.

Berry said he was “honored to be a part of it. When you are a teacher the kids look up to you. It shows the power you have and you want to channel that the right way.”

Team LES raised over $32,000 for St. Baldrick’s.

The largest crowds turned out when the women and girls had their heads shaved. Cleak, a cancer survivor, said “it is a very important cause. It is hard enough for an adult to go through this (when they have cancer).”

She said wants to raise enough money for a cure to be found. “I’m glad to do it,” she said.

Peggy Reed had two roles for the day. She was both a “shavee” and a barber. For her it was also personal. When she was just 4 years old she lost her 12-year-old brother to cancer.

“In the 1950s they didn’t have any interventions,” she noted.

She spent some time this week looking over old pictures and remembering her brother. She raised $458.75, including $72.75 from her grandchildren, who raided their cash can to support their grandmother.

It was a family event for many. Vicki Wengler, an 11-year-old fifth-grader at Lawrence Intermediate School, had her head shaved for the second year in a row. She was joined this year by her dad, John Wengler (who had his head shaved during the 2009 event).

John admitted his daughter was a bit nervous last year, but “afterwards she was beaming from the excitement and was so proud of herself.” She was not one bit nervous this year as she smiled through the entire event.

Her dad said she has about 20 hats that she plans to be modeling in the upcoming weeks. Together they raised $1,800. Vicki inspired Elizabeth Burke, 13, and Victoria Burke, 17, to also donate their hair.

Elizabeth and Victoria first donated their beautiful tresses to Locks of Love before having the rest of their hair tearfully shorn off in front of a large crowd. Prior to the shaving, both sisters’ hair went half-way down their backs.

Two years ago, Elizabeth, was treated for a blood disorder at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick. While she did not have cancer, she saw many sick children and wanted to do something. But there weren’t many volunteer opportunities for someone so young. So when her mother, Michelle Burke, told her about St. Baldrick’s she said “Sign me up” without hesitation.

Afterward yesterday, she proudly sported a button that read “Ask Me Why I’m Bald.”

Read More

http://lawrenceville.patch.com/articles/over-100-people-shave-their-heads-for-st-baldricks#photo-5239597