Olivia Munn recently revealed that she wants a big family and wants to adopt as well.

She told FOX, “Ive always wanted to have a big family and Ive always wanted to adopt. Coming from a family of five, I think five is a good number. I dont know if I want to have five actual children coming out of my vagina, but adoption is important to me because theres so many children that need a home and need love.

She also admitted that her family situation at the get-go wasnt exactly ideal: “I grew up in a family where my stepfather wasnt a very nice guy, my first stepfather, because my second stepfather is great, but the first one wasnt a nice guy. And

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I get this question a lot:  How often do women deliver in their cars or at home because they couldn’t make it to the hospital in time?  The answer depends on where you live.  If you’re an American mother, these made-for-television, side-of-the-road deliveries don’t happen very often.  If you live in parts of the world where healthcare facilities and providers are few and far between, well, they happen to thousands of women every day.  

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 39,000 American babies are born outside of hospitals each year.  83% of those mothers planned on having a home or (out-of-hospital) birth. The other 1

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Today’s trendiest fitness classes—from aerial exercise to Qoya, Graces Somotomorphic Technique to the many barre class variations—all rely partly on dance to work your body. Community gym stables like Zumba and more exotic classes, like pole dancing, share dance at their core. And dance has been a popular element of exercise since at least the 1970s, when women across the U.S. flocked to Jazzercise and its ilk. But what about traditional, bare-bones dance classes—are they really effective as exercise?

I’ve just signed up for tap and ballet-jazz fusion classes at the local YWCA, so my interest isn’t entirely hypothetical. Can plain tap o

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Exciting news! Please join me in welcoming Healthcare-NOW!s new Director of Organizing, Vanessa Beck. Vanessa comes to us from Chicago where she was a founding member of Chicago Single-Payer Action Network and recently received a graduate degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago. Vanessa is joining the team in Philadelphia, PA and will work with our dedicated steering committee and membership across the country. I will be based out of New York City, and supporting Vanessa in her new role through the end of the year. Thanks for all you do! –Katie Robbins, National Organizer

Dear Healthcare-NOW! c

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High-tech is not necessarily better.

That point was reinforced by a study published yesterday by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. It found that computer-aided detection technology, intended to help radiologists interpret mammograms, is associated with more false-positive findings but doesnt help detect more cancers.

This study covers 1.6 million mammograms done at 90 facilities 25 of which adopted CAD, as the software is called between 1998 and 2006.

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Coconuts, commonly defined as the fruit from the coconut palm tree with the botanical name of cocos nucifera, are usually found in the coastal regions of South and South East Asia, the Pacific Islands, South America and the islands of Hawaii and Florida amongst others. Although the botanical name suggests the name nut bearing, coconuts are popular for the water the fruit possess along with the thick flesh that is usually found in matured coconuts. Coconut milk is also very popular as a culinary aid, and is used abundantly in the preparation of foods especially in the South East Asian regions.

Coconut water provides numerous advantages and is known as the cleanest liquid after water as it contains healthy organic compounds such as potassium, magnesium, calcium etc that are known to be good for overall health.

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New Canadian research suggests putting on weight could present potentially more serious problems for people of South Asian origin compared with other populations.

The findings may help explain why South Asians, Canada’s largest visible minority population, are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than white populations, even if they have similar body mass indexes.

Researchers discovered that South Asian people don’t have as much room under the skin as white people and therefore store more fat inside the abdomen and in organs, such as the liver or even the heart, which can create metabolic problems and increase the chances of developing Type 2 diabetes, stroke or cardiovascular disease.

“This means, that for the same level of BMI, South Asians are much more likely to develop diabetes or heart disease,” Arya Sharma, director of the Canadian Obesity Network, chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta and study co-author said in an e-mail.

But the study, published Thursday in the journal Public Library of Science ONE, also underscores how much remains unknown about why people who originate from the Indian subcontinent seem to be at greater risk for a host of health problems and the urgent need for more research.

“It’s the major health concern of South Asians globally as well as in Canada,” said Sonia Anand, lead author of the study and professor of medicine and epidemiology at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Burning questions centre on what role genes and the environment play in contributing to the increased health risks.

“It’s still kind of a big open question,” Dr. Anand said.

I

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