Don't Spank Your Kids, Midnight Meals, and Other Useful Health News

• Spanking your kids can have a lot of harmful side-effects later on - a study review looking at the relationship of spanking to sexual behavior has shown that "spanking and other corporal punishment is associated with an increased probability of verbally and physically coercing a dating partner to have sex; risky sex such as premarital sex without using a condom; and masochistic sex such as spanking during sex." It has been observed that 25 percent of those who were spanked frequently as kids grew up to become violent individuals who often hit their partners when angry. Here's another reason why spanking kids should be banned. In the Philippines, spanking is very common. Parents think it is the best way to punish mischievous children.
  
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• What's the truth about midnight meals? Do they really make you fatter? - eating a big meal just before bedtime have been shown to "elevate triglyceride levels in the blood for a period of time," which is an excellent formula to gain weight. The reasoning is simple. If you sleep, your body is not engaged in physical activity. As such, it stores the excess calories as unwanted fat.
  
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• Google's Medical Records - in the US, internet giant Google has signed deals with hospitals, pharmacies, and diagnostic laboratories in a move to help patients have more control over their personal medical records. The service will be password-protected and free of advertisements. Finally, an end to the difficult challenge of deciphering doctors' handwriting.
  
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• Prozac and other antidepressants don't work - counselling is better. I have long suspected this. In a remarkable meta-analysis of all available data on the antidepressant medications, including results from clinical trials that its manufacturers chose not to publish, it has been shown that antidepressants are almost equal in efficacy as placebo. Antidepressants examined were fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone). The authors concluded that "there is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective." Millions of people use antidepressants daily, and annual sales amount to billions of dollars. With the new finding, will they feel more miserable?
  
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• Pregnant Mothers Who Smoke - there is an alarming increase in the number of pregnant women who smoke in developing countries. This increases the risk of cancer and heart disease for the mothers and exposes both their born and unborn kids to unnecessary health problems later on.
  
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• The Female G Spot - Italian researhers say that the key location of the female structure responsible for multiple orgasms can be located with the use of an ultrasound. The researchers found that the G spot in the women they studied was made of relatively-thicker tissue and located between the vagina and urethra. Now, who would bother getting an ultrsound of her G spot? I've always believed that achieving superb sexual satisfaction for both women and men is an interplay of several factors. To isolate one anatomic structure as the end-all and be-all of sexual happiness is asking for instant gratification. Great sex, like love, is long and sustained, and savored for a lifetime.