Do you like to ring in the New Year with an icy dip in the Atlantic?
Taking a 'polar bear plunge' is more than just a cold shock to the skin – it's a shock to your entire system.

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E-cig smokers can keep puffing.
An appeals court is saying the Food and Drug Administration cannot stop imports of electronic cigarettes.
The FDA wants to regulate e-cigarettes as a drug-device and last year ordered that a shipment could not enter the United States.

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Breakfast of champions? It turns out a morning meal of java and a donut, a favorite of office workers everywhere, could actually make you smarter.
The combo of caffeine and glucose revs up the brain, according to a study published in the journal "Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental," reported by MSNBC.com.

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Christmas isn't all joy to the world. In fact, it can be downright treacherous.
About 12,000 consumers are treated in hospital emergency departments nationwide due to holiday-related decorating incidents, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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Popping aspirin on a regular basis may cut your risk of dying from cancer.
People who took the over-the-counter drug for several years were 21% less likely to die of stomach, esophageal and lung cancers, according to a study in the journal Lancet.

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Weight Watchers has overhauled its points system. And not everyone is happy about it.
The new system's 'PointsPlus' values has stunned the many devoted members who have sworn by the old points method for weight loss since it was introduced 13 year ago.

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The very oldest men are still interested in sex but illness and a lack of opportunity may be holding them back, Australian researchers reported on Monday.
The "male" hormone testosterone was clearly linked with how often a man over 75 had sex, and doctors need to do more studies to see if hormone replacement therapy might benefit older men, the researchers said.

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Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin has cancer, her family announced Wednesday.
The music legend's relatives and sources close to her confirmed the sad news to Detroit's Fox 2 station and The Detroit News, adding they are deeply worried about the icon's health.

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Adult film star Derrick Burts is calling for condom use on porn sets.
The 24-year-old performer -- who is known as Derek Chambers in gay films and Cameron Reid in straight films -- has outed himself as the actor who tested positive for the HIV virus in October, causing two of the industry’s biggest production companies, Vivid Pictures and Wicked Entertainment, to shut down for almost a month.

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No one would look twice at the sight of Amanda Hurst breast-feeding her infant son, but watching her do the same for her 6-year-old is a different story.
Hurst, 29, of Hemingfield, England, currently breast feeds both her sons, 5-month-old William and 6-year-old Jonathan, she revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail.

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Attention guys: it might be time to switch to the iPad. The future of your children could depend on it.
The authors of a study that appeared in the journal Fertility and Sterility this month found that men who balanced a laptop on their nether regions could be putting their ability to reproduce at risk, because the computers heated their scrotums to unsafe temperatures.

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Wendy's
French fries with the skin on and sea salt are Wendy's latest attempt to attract customers with more natural recipes.

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Small wonder that kids are getting larger.
Preschoolers now see three fast-food commercials each day, according to research reported on Msnbc.com.
The TV commercials push the fat-laden cheeseburgers and fries, rather than singing the praises of healthier side dishes like apples.

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An assistant professor of medicine, and associate director of the Mount Sinai Hospital echocardiography laboratory, Dr. Lori Croft is a cardiologist who specializes in pregnancy and the heart.
Who's at risk
Although pregnancy causes no cardiac problems for the vast majority of women, certain groups of women have an ­elevated risk of heart complications during pregnancy.

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As director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Mount Sinai and the medical director of the New York Organ Donor Network, Michael J. Goldstein is a transplant surgeon whose vision is to increase patient access to transplantation through an innovative clinical style, as well as enhance the number and quality of life-saving organ donors. He oversees the clinical management of donors for the New York metro area and performs over 100 kidney transplants a year.

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