Items Tagged With Womens Health

They put you down and expect you to pick them up, or drain the life right out of you for their own gain. With toxic friends like these, who needs enemies?

By Heather Hatfield
VitaDocs Feature

Elizabeth Roberts had a friend she'd known for 23 years. Roberts had grown up with this friend in a small town in Maine, and while longevity in a relationship often speaks to its strength, in her case, it was quite the opposite -- the older they got, the more the relationship turned toxic.

"She was always putting me down," says Roberts. "Whether it was out in the open and obvious, or a subtle jab, it was exhausting."

For Roberts, the friendship seemed OK, and she took the insults in stride.

"I would mention to my mother or another friend something she said to me, and their responses were always, 'What? She said that? Who says that?'" says Roberts. "And I would defend her. I would say, 'Oh, she doesn't mean it that way.' But she did, and I just overlooked it."

Whether it was the friend making a snide remark about Roberts short stature, or her weight, her clothes, or the guys she dated, their relationship was trademark toxic. Experts tell VitaDocs what a toxic friendship is made of, and how it can be saved -- if at all.

What Is Toxic?

"A friendship is between two peers," says Florence Isaacs, author of Toxic Friends/True Friends. "There has to be balance in a friendship for it to be healthy -- not one person whose needs get met and another whose needs are overlooked."

Friendships permeate our lives, having an impact on our careers, marriages, families, children, health, and even our retirement.

"Friendships are important everywhere, and they have positive things to contribute to all areas of your life," says Isaacs. "But that means they can also be toxic in any of these areas as well."

Isaacs explains that a toxic friendship is unsupportive, draining, unrewarding, stifling, unsatisfying, and often unequal.

"Toxic friends stress you out, use you, are unreliable, are overly demanding, and don't give anything back.”

While a toxic friend doesn't have to lay claim to all of these charming characteristics, they do seem to bring on their nasty behavior on a consistent basis, as opposed to those of us who just have a bad day once in a while and take it out on some of the people we care about the most -- our friends.

"The phrase 'toxic friend' is pop psychology," says Jenn Berman, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, Calif. "I would say it's someone who, after spending time with them, makes you feel bad about yourself instead of good; someone who tends to be critical of you -- sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes not so subtle; a friend who drains you emotionally, financially, or mentally, and they're not very good for you."

You cross the line from helping a friend in need to helping a friend who is always needy when that friend is abusive, explains Berman.

"If your friend is asking for support, that's very different from someone who constantly asks for support and is constantly mean and abusive," says Berman.

These signs tell you someone is less friend, more foe. And not surprisingly, it's women who are more likely to be toxic than men, according to Berman. So when your gal pal turns sour and stays that way, you need to start taking control of the relationship if there's any hope of saving it.

High-protein, low-carbohydrate diets have been widely promoted in recent years as an effective approach to losing weight. These diets generally recommend dieters receive 30% to 50% of their total calories from protein. By comparison, the American Heart Association, the National Cholesterol Education Program, and the American Cancer Society all recommend a diet in which a smaller percentage of calories are derived from protein (nutrients essential to the building, maintenance, and repair of tissues in the body).

The Atkins diet is an example of a high protein, low carbohydrate diet.

How Do These Diets Work?

By restricting carbohydrates drastically to a mere fraction of that found in the typical American diet, the body goes into a different metabolic state called ketosis, whereby it burns its own fat for fuel. Normally the body burns carbohydrates for fuel -- this is the main source of fuel for your brain, heart and many other organs. A person in ketosis is getting energy from ketones, little carbon fragments that are the fuel created by the breakdown of fat stores. When the body is in ketosis, you tend to feel less hungry, and thus you're likely to eat less than you might otherwise. However, ketosis can also cause health problems, such as kidney failure (see below).

As a result, your body changes from a carbohydrate-burning engine into a fat-burning engine. So instead of relying on the carbohydrate-rich items you might typically consume for energy, and leaving your fat stores just where they were before (alas, the hips, belly, and thighs), your fat stores become a primary energy source. The purported result is weight loss.

What Are the Health Risks Associated With High Protein, Low Carb Diets?

High protein diets can cause a number of health problems, including:

• Kidney failure. Consuming too much protein puts a strain on the kidneys, which can make a person susceptible to kidney disease.
• High cholesterol. It is well known that high protein diets (consisting of red meat, whole dairy products, and other high fat foods) are linked to high cholesterol. Studies have linked high cholesterol levels to an increased risk of developing heart disease, stroke and cancer.
• Osteoporosis and kidney stones. High protein diets have also been shown to cause people to excrete more calcium than normal through their urine. Over a prolonged period of time, this can increase a person's risk of osteoporosis and kidney stones.
• Cancer. One of the reasons high protein diets increase the risks of certain health problems is because of the avoidance of carbohydrate-containing foods and the vitamins, minerals, fiber and anti-oxidants they contain. It is therefore important to obtain your protein from a diet rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Not only are your needs for protein being met, but you are also helping to reduce your risk of developing cancer.
• Unhealthy metabolic state (ketosis). Low carb diets can cause your body to go into a dangerous metabolic state called ketosis since your body burns fat instead of glucose for energy. During ketosis, the body forms substances known as ketones, which can cause organs to fail and result in gout, kidney stones, or kidney failure. Ketones can also dull a person's appetite, cause nausea and bad breath. Ketosis can be prevented by eating at least 100 grams of carbohydrates a day.

Infidelity is a hot topic of conversation, but being faithful does have its merits.

By Martin F. Downs
VitaDocs Feature

Sexual infidelity is one of humanity's great obsessions, perhaps second only to violence. We abhor it, yet we want to hear all about it, and some can't resist it. It's what has kept Jerry Springer on TV for the past 14 years and Greek mythology alive in the retelling for the past 3,000.

In one story after another, mundane and epic, we are reminded of the emotional and social fallout of messing around. That's in addition to the scowls it gets from the world's biggest religions. Why, then, is monogamy so hard for so many?

Perhaps for humans, monogamy does not come naturally, and biology predisposes us to seek multiple sex partners. That's what zoologist David Barash, PhD, and psychiatrist Judith Lipton, MD, argue in their book, The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People. Virtually all animals, they say, are far from being 100% monogamous 100% of the time.

"The only completely, fatalistically monogamous animal we've been able to identify is a tapeworm found in the intestines of fish." That's because the male and female worms fuse together at the abdomen and never separate afterward.

Other animals, including humans, are motivated to ensure their reproductive success not only by picking the highest quality mate they can get but also by taking others on the side.

"The examples where monogamy is perceived to be the norm are generally facades when you actually do DNA testing and see who's sleeping with whom," Lipton says. She and Barash make a distinction between sexual fidelity and what they call "social monogamy." Even in animals that mate for life, like many birds do, DNA tests reveal that the offspring are often not related to the male of the pair.

That is the case with people, too. Lipton says she was once contacted by a Canadian hospital, where doctors were running genetic tests to find out children's risks for inherited diseases. In about 10% of the samples, the children were not genetically related to the supposed father.

But make no mistake: Lipton and Barash, who have been married to each other for 28 years, don't say that sexual fidelity is impossible or wrong because it is not natural, only that it takes some effort. "We human beings spend a large part of our lives learning to do unnatural things, like play the violin or type on a computer," Lipton says.

If fidelity is a matter of skill, then why are some talented and others terribly clumsy?

People who enter into long-term monogamous relationships, and who really keep their promises, "tend to be very healthy mentally," say’s Peter Kramer, MD. Kramer, a psychiatrist, is the host of The Infinite Mind on NPR and author of Listening to Prozac, Should You Leave? and most recently, Against Depression.