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LOS ANGELES – Women’s Health magazine has announced the winners of its second annual Sex Awards, including Doc Johnson and The Screaming O, both of which won last year.

Keith Caggiano, vice president of Bushman Products, the parent company of The Screaming O, said hewas thrilled to be recognized for The Screaming Octopus.

“The Screaming Octopus is a fun little product with a unique design unlike anything else on the market,”he said. “We are honored to be recognized by such a well-known publication as Women’s Health. Theyreally do their homework when it comes to these awards, and to be selected as one of the top productsfor women by women is a huge compliment.”

Chad Braverman, director of product development and licensing for Doc Johnson, said it was an honor tohave the Cocktails lube named “Best for a Naughty Nightcap.”

“Our Doc’s Cocktails brand of oral-play lubricants has been a huge retail success since its launch, andthis honor is a testament to the hard work and effort our research and development team puts into every product,” he said. “To have a top mainstream publication annually dedicate an entire feature to the worldof adult novelties says a lot about how far the industry has come, and we’re proud to be at the forefront ofthis movement.”

Among the first-time winners are Babeland, Condomania, Jimmyjane, Kama Sutra, OhMiBod and The Pleasure Chest.

Babeland’s Pink Kink Kit was named “Best for Tickle Torturing” in the “Make-up Sex” category. Marketing Coordinator Mae Schultz told ANB the kit’s overall attention to style has made it popular. “From its adorable packaging to the small white heart sewn onto the blindfolds, the Pink Kink Kit expresses a sense of fun in the bedroom the way a pair of heels or lingerie might,” she said. “Since it’s less expensive than other BDSM equipment, couples are less hesitant to try out different sensations and kinds of play that they might otherwise have not. It’s a perfect gift for friends or a partner who is curious about kink but a little shy getting started.”

The Pleasure Chest’s Rhinestone Glamour Cuffs also were recognized in the “Make-up Sex” category. David Ballow, national director of operations for The Pleasure Chest, told ANB the company is “tickled pink” about the award.

“We know that bringing a little sparkle into the bedroom is never a bad thing,” he said. “In fact, our

celebrity friends who have these cuffs fully agree. They’re the perfect beside accessory, or you can just hook them to your belt loop at a club and let ‘em know who’s in charge!”

Condomania’s “museum-quality” Art Condom line, which was released in August 2007, received the “Best for a One-Night-Stand” award in the “No-Strings Sex” category. Kevin Segall, director of marketing for Condomania, said he was honored by the recognition.

“Condomania has always strived to make safer sex more fun and accessible,” he said. “We are so pleased that popular artists like Coop, Robert Williams and Ron English are working with us to do just that.”

Kama Sutra won the “Best for Jet-Setters” award with its Strawberry Dreams Weekender Kit.

“We are glad that more health-oriented publications are recognizing the importance of sexual health in overall wellness,” Senior Vice President Beverly Pollington-Sirjani told ANB. “It is a trend that we expect to see continue. The Strawbery Dreams Weekender Kit is a great new addition to the Kama Sutra line, combining a best-selling kit with a best-selling flavor. We are not surprised that this item was chosen, as it has been selling exceptionally well.”

Other winners included the Boditalk Escort from OhMiBod, Little Ember candle set from Jimmyjane, Emerity OH! Warming Lubricant and Replens Intimate Options personal lubricant mousse.

Suki, founder and owner of OhMiBod shared her delight about the award when she told ANB, “We are excited to see that their reviewers really grasp the concept behind our Boditalk product line. We loved the clever name they came up with for our category “Long Distant Lova”. This month has been an especially good one for Boditalk escort.”

OhMiBod’s Boditalk Escort was also dubbed “The Sexiest Phone Accessory” in Maxim Magazine’s “Sexiest of Everything 2008” issue.

Visit the Women’s Health website for a complete list of winners.

Women’s Health, a sister publication to Men’s Health, is a leading consumer health and lifestyle magazine with a circulation of 450,000. It is published by Rodale.

The Screaming O is an ultimate Vibrating Ring, shop for all vibrating couples ring, reusable vibrating ring, vibrating tongue rings & more vibrating ring at very cheap price.

Be My Friend – www.myspace.com Nutrition by Natalie Nutrition and Your Mental Health What does nutrition have to do with mental health? You might be surprised to find out the truth behind what happens when a person has a nutritional deficiency. Nutritional deficiencies can cause all sorts of psychiatric symptoms including apathy, low energy, irritability, insomnia, low energy, agitation, fatigue, concentration problems, aches and pains, weight changes, including weight loss or weight gain. Sound a lot like the symptoms of depression? The truth is the average American diet of fast food is low in vital nutrition that you need for your body to function correctly. This isn’t to say that all depression is caused by bad nutrition but it’s certainly a contributing factor in many cases and poor nutrition will always make depression worse. Antidepressant drugs also do not correct nutritional problems. So if your depressed because of nutritional problems an antidepressant will only partially cover up the problem and you body still won’t function correctly. Please visit Natalie’s website at www.nutritionbynatalie.com To find out more about orthomolecular psychiatry visit, http This video was produced by Psychetruth www.myspace.com www.youtube.com www.livevideo.com ©Copyright 2007 Zoe Sofia. All Rights Reserved. This video maybe displayed in public, copied and redistributed for any strictly non-commercial use in its entire unedited form. Alteration or commercial use is strictly …

The human liver is one of the most important organs of the body. It is responsible for cleaning our internal organs of the entire gunk and bile that is deposited by a person on a regular basis. But conditions like Gilbert’s disease and other forms of liver disease makes our livers weak and prone to breaking down.

To understand better how the liver is affected by different kinds of diseases and the impact of these conditions to our body. Liver disease is a general term used in describing any kind of sickness affecting the liver. Many of theses conditions are accompanied by jaundice caused by the heightened levels of bilirubin in the system. The bilirubin is the product of the breakup of the hemoglobin of dead red blood cells; usually, the liver takes away bilirubin from the blood and excretes it through bile.

The following are some of the known conditions that are considered as liver diseases:

- Hepatitis. This is the inflammation of the liver. This caused mainly by different kinds of viruses, there are also times that it is caused by some poisons, even hereditary conditions.

- Cirrhosis. This is the formation of fibrous tissue in the liver, the fibrous tissue takes the place of dead liver cells.

- Haemochromatosis. This is a hereditary disease caused by too much iron in the body causing liver damage.

- Cancer of the liver. This is usually coming from other parts of the body that is also affected by cancer. Usually, when cancer cells metastasis, it reaches the liver and it starts spreading from there.

- Wilson’s disease. This condition is hereditary and copper deposits in the body cause it.

- Budd-Chiari syndrome. This is caused by the obstruction of the person’s hepatic vein.

- Gilbert’s syndrome. This is a genetic disorder of bilirubin metabolism, found in about 5 percent of the population.

- Glycogen storage disease type II. Here, the build-up of glycogen causes progressive tissue weakness (myopathy) throughout the body and affects various body tissues, particularly in the heart, skeletal muscles, liver and nervous system.

There are also many pediatric liver diseases, including biliary atresia, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, alagille syndrome, and progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis, to name but a few.

A number of liver function tests are available to test the proper function of the liver. These test for the presence of enzymes in blood that are normally most abundant in liver tissue, metabolites or products.

Symptoms of a diseased liver

There are a few external signs that we could include to determine a diseased liver, some of those external signs are a coated tongue, bad breath, skin rashes, itchy skin, excessive sweating, offensive body odor, dark circles under the eyes, red swollen and itchy eyes, acne rosacea, brownish spots and blemishes on the skin, flushed facial appearance or excessive facial blood vessels.

There are other symptoms to look out for and they include jaundice, dark urine, pale stool, bone loss, easy bleeding, itching, small, spider-like blood vessels visible in the skin, enlarged spleen, fluid in the abdominal cavity, chills, pain from the biliary tract or pancrea, and an enlarged gallbladder.

The improper digestion and absorption of fats may lead to symptoms that include indigestion, reflux, hemorrhoids, gall stones, intolerance to fatty foods, intolerance to alcohol, nausea and vomiting attacks, abdominal bloating, and constipation. Unfortunately, some liver diseases like Gilbert’s disease are known to share symptoms with other liver diseases. So it’s better to consult a professional.

Perhaps nothing has caused more of a stir in women’s health arena then all of the recent attention placed on natural and bioidentical hormones – plant based compounds that some believe can offer the menopause benefits of traditional hormone replacement therapy ( HRT) without any of the health risks – including breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.

Adding fuel to the speculative fires: Celebrities like Suzanne Somers and more recently, Oprah Winfrey, who have stepped into the spotlight to make a great case for bioidentical hormones – and in doing so encouraged a generation or more of women to give them a try.

Indeed, for these two Hollywood legends – and now many more regular gals – it’s clear the pot of gold at the end of the anti-aging rainbow is , indeed, a bucket of bioidentical hormones!

Certainly some experts – like Wulf Utian, MD, executive director of the North American Menopause Society – believe bioidentical hormones can easily be as risky as any form of HRT. “The claims for safety are entirely without merit”, he says.

But others, like New York physician Erika Schwartz, MD believe the opposite. ” When you give a supplement that is bioidentical to what the body produces, the body knows how to use it to the best possible advantage,” she says.

So where does the truth lie?

A New Side To The Story

While both traditional and “natural” doctors alike have come down on both sides of this treatment controversy, as a journalist who has covered – and followed – this issue in women’s health for more than 20 years, there is one more side of the treatment controversy I have yet to hear addressed or discussed by anyone: Namely, whether or not pumping up your body with any kind of reproductive hormones at a time when nature decides they should decline, can ever yield a positive result – even if those hormones come from Mother Nature herself?

Certainly, if we look to what science has to say about the killer diseases linked to hormone stimulation, it seems clear problems are inherent. For example, it’s a well known fact that women who have an early start to their menstrual cycle or continue to menstruate into their 50’s are at greater risk for estrogen –sensitive cancers – ostensibly because they spend more years under the influence of their own estrogen stimulation.

The same elevated risk profile applies to women who have never had children – ostensibly because being pregnant prevents ovulation, and all the estrogen-related ovarian stimulation that goes with it.

We also know that women who are overweight are at greater risk for estrogen-sensitive cancers –and doctors speculate that one reason is because fat cells produce a form of “endogenous” estrogen. The more fat cells you have, the more estrogen stimulation you experience throughout your lifetime – thus the greater your risk of some diseases.

And so the really big question for me is, once a woman reaches a certain number of years of estrogen stimulation – even her own, natural estrogen stimulation – can using hormone replace therapy of any kind, be it bioidentical or not – increase her risks of these diseases?

Moreover, could the difference between those who take hormones and suffer the consequences and those who don’t actually be the total number of years each woman was exposed to her own estrogen stimulation? And should this be a factor to consider when deciding whether or not hormone therapy of any kind is right for any one particular woman?

When you get right down to it the nitty gritty … we do not have these answers!

“We are, in many ways, in a no-data zone – bio identical hormones have not been specifically studied in a randomized trial on any wide spread level, and if you are to use that as a criteria, then it’s true that we don’t know if they are any better- or any worse – than synthetic hormones,” says Marcie Richardson, MD, Clinical instructor, Obstetrics and Gynecology at Harvard Medical School, and the director of the Menopause Consultation Service at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates.

Indeed, it’s important to remember that no so very long ago everyone thought traditional, synthetic HRT was the answer – until the Women’s Health Intiative (WHI) study proved otherwise.

And while bioidentical hormones have, indeed, undergone some testing, the reality is that it has been nowhere near the level of the WHI trials . More importantly, until that happens, can we really feel confidant about a treatment decision – no matter who is doling out the advice?

What DOES the Future Hold?

I’m hopeful that in the next 5 or even 10 years we DO NOT read that Suzanne Somers is facing yet another breast cancer – or that Oprah Winfrey has found herself facing this same – or worse – fate. I adore both of these women – and the thought of losing either one is a loss to great to even consider.

At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how many women’s lives might be lost because they blindly took the otherwise well-meaning advice of those who, while certain they have found their own fountain of youth , could in fact be drowning in the tidal wave of enthusiasm and
high hopes ?

All I’m saying here is that if you are suffering with symptoms of menopause – be it hot flashes and night sweats, mood swings or memory loss, or any of the other 101 things that can wrong during this wacky time of life – you owe it yourself to stop, think and consider what we know and don’t know and then consider all your options before making a treatment choice.

It could be the second thought that ultimately saves your life.

(This blog was condensed from the new women’s health book “The Hot Flash Solution ” by Colette Bouchez )

To read more about bioidentical hormones, and other natural treatment options for menopause symptoms visit wwwRedDressDiary.com - the Source for fabulous women over 40!

Game 4 between Masturskaters and Who Cares? during the summer roller hockey league for SPORTSNUTS of Pittsburgh. Game was tied at the end of regulation and no goals were scored during the 5 minute overtime. This is the first shootout we have had in our roller hockey league. Games are played at the Recreation & Sports Complex in Findlay Township (Leopold Lake) on Tuesday nights. Stats are also updated on a weekly basis.