But I know one thing: Too many women die of breast cancer every year.

Now we have to hear so-called health experts tell women to wait until age 50 to get potentially life-saving mammograms? Those same experts are saying that self-examinations may be worthless.

The Boston Herald’s Margery Eagan got it best.

Statistically, it’s true that breast cancer rates skyrocket after age 50, but you don’t need to click this link to know that women under 50 get breast cancer. A 10-year-old girl got breast cancer this year in the US.

While we’re on the topic of numbers, we also know that children are going through puberty faster and faster over recent generations.

I understand that people are worried about false-positives among mammograms. It’s scary. It’s a science that we should be working to perfect, especially with today’s computer technology. But do you know what’s scarier? A dead mom. A dead wife.

Men will never have to experience a mammogram. We hear it’s unpleasant. We hear it can be painful. I understand it’s equal to 1,000 x-rays. I’m not saying every woman should be forced to undergo a test they don’t want, but if you’re a 35-year-old woman, and your mom died of breast cancer, you should be able to get any test you want, whenever you want, to ensure you don’t have to die, too.

It’s outrageous, and you shouldn’t be surprised when men are getting recommendations not to get their own “manly” cancer screenings before a certain age either.

Well, they came for the woman, and I’m not going to wait to let them come for me. Defaultly waiting until age 50 for a mammogram is awful advice that appears to be solely driven by money.

And it’s all working.

A study shows 26 percent fewer Massachusetts low-income Medicaid participants smoke since 2006.

Researchers also found that there were 12 percent fewer claims for adverse maternal birth complications.

“It is clear from these latest findings that the Commonwealth’s efforts to help people quit smoking is a sound investment,” said Executive Office of Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby.

“As the nation debates the future of its health care system, the national significance of this research cannot be understated,” said Robert J. Gould, PhD, President and CEO of Partnership for Prevention. “These findings demonstrate that prudent investments in preventive health today will have a dramatic and positive effect on our health care system tomorrow.”

Smoking is, of course, the number one cause of illness and death in the United States, according to experts. More than 8,000 Massachusetts residents die annually from the effects of smoking, and tobacco use is associated with $4.3 billion in excess health care costs in Massachusetts each year.

“These early findings offer great promise,” said Nancy Brown, National CEO of the American Heart Association.

The deal, reached with D.A.W. Inc, a subsidiary of Florida-based Nyer Medical Group,

Shares of the penny Nyer stock were up some 200 percent in after hours trading.

Eaton has stores in Dorchester, Brockton, Danvers, Peabody, Salem, Sherborn, Framingham, Southborough, Gloucester, Wellesley, Lynn, Westwood, Weston, Marblehead, Woburn and Newton.

Walgreens promised to keep on most of the Eaton employees.

“Today is a very special day for our Boston market,” said Dave White, Walgreens market vice president for Boston, in a statement yesterday. “Not only are we keeping most of the pharmacies open, but we also intend for eligible employees at all 12 locations to join our team.”

White said Eaton’s long-time customers will see the same familiar faces and level of service with the expanded Walgreens umbrella of products and services.

“We look forward to continuing Eaton’s 100-plus year tradition of quality pharmacy service in communities around the Boston area,” White said.

“I am confident that the best choice for our customers and employees is Walgreens,” said Mark Dumouchel, President of D.A.W and Nyer Medical Group

The acquisition is subject to certain terms and conditions, and is expected to close within the next 90 days, Walgreens said.

Walgreens is the nation’s largest drugstore chain, operating some 7,000 stories in all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The company did $63 billion in sales in fiscal year 2009.

Tumor growth is actually relatively common; however, most tumors are benign, and do not invasively grow further outward or take up residence in other locations. That process, known as metastasis, is the true killer in cancer, as the body becomes unable to fight off the multiple new tumors that begin to disrupt normal body function.

The ACS is now telling patients that we may be over-treating the less-threatening tumors, and in the process missing more-threatening cases.  Since advocating screening, the ACS acknowledges that cancer diagnoses have increased. However, for frequent screenings to actually prove beneficial to the public health, there should have been a corresponding decrease in cancer deaths. Instead, widespread screening has only led to an increase in the discovery and treatment of tumors that would have remained harmless and wouldn’t have required any intervention.

While screening has resulted in fewer late-stage cancer cases for colon and cervical cancers, unfortunately there’s no data to show that we’ve seen fewer deaths in breast and prostate cancers, and doctors are now worried that the public has been over-promised on the benefits of some cancer screens.

However, Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York told The Times that he’s worried that the message will confuse the public who will assume that all cancer screenings are unnecessary. “I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another ‘screening does not work’ headline. The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless,” he said.

For now, it will just take time for doctors and researchers to determine which tumors should be treated, and which, counter intuitively should be left alone. In the mean time, follow the advice of your doctor, whatever that might be.

(photo via)

We could probably file this under “Obvious Science,” but officals at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate Troy, NY have warned students that the sharing of cups during games of beer pong lead to the spread of disease, and especially of the spread of H1N1 this flu season. The same officials sent out a campus-wide email detailed a group of students who had all come down the virus after a weekend game.

Area schools are reporting many cases of the swine flu; RPI, a school of about 7,000 total students has reported 21 cases this semester so far.

(photo via)

The FDA warning comes after the government agency purchased and analyzed several products from the Internet that claimed to be “Tamiflu.”

“One of the orders, which arrived in an unmarked envelope with a postmark from India, consisted of unlabeled, white tablets taped between two pieces of paper. When analyzed by the FDA, the tablets were found to contain talc and acetaminophen, but none of the active ingredient oseltamivir,” the FDA said in a statement. The website was gone shortly after the FDA placed the order.

At the same time, the FDA also purchased four other products that arrived with various levels of Tamiflu, but were not approved for use in the US.

“Products that are offered for sale online with claims to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus must be carefully evaluated,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg. “Medicines purchased from websites operating outside the law put consumers at increased risk due to a higher potential that the products will be counterfeit, impure, contaminated, or have too little or too much of the active ingredient.”

Two prescription antiviral drugs are approved by the FDA to treat or prevent the H1N1 virus: Tamiflu and Relenza. Consumers can also visit FDA’s website for tips about how to protect themselves when buying medicines online.

While many of these discoveries are based on shoddy science, a recent study, which was actually rather elegant in design, has found that a lack of social interaction can lead to increased breast cancer tumor growth, indicating that social environment could play a role, along with environmental and genetic factors, in the determination of the severity of a cancer.

The study used genetically similar mice that are altered so that they develop mammary tumors. Mice were either housed alone or with other mice. The mice kept alone showed greater tumor growth than the mice housed together.

Scientifically, the researchers found higher stress hormone levels in the mice housed alone before there were even measurable changes in the tumor sizes. Even though the two groups of mice were genetically very similar, the stress hormones caused measurable changes in gene expression before there was even any indication that the tumors in the two groups were growing differently.

The researches point out hat they intend to focus further research on researching the specific cell types in which these genetic changes are occurring, and then targeting the pathways that connect the stress hormones to their detrimental effects rather than to suggest that cancer patients should maintain strong social contacts.

Either way, every new thing we learn about cancer is another tool in our arsenal to conquer the disease, and this is an interesting find that gives scientists a new avenue of research.

Image courtesy Flickr/Rick in Rio.

Micrograph showing HIV fusing with a cell membrane on entry. © 2002 by Bruce Alberts et al.

Scientists in Thailand have announced the first success, though limited, of its kind in the development of an HIV vaccine last night.

AIDS is a serious disease, as we’re sure you know. In 2007, AIDS killed approximately 2.1 million people — not exactly a small population. With million of new diagnoses each year, every major worldwide health organization has declared AIDS to be a pandemic.

Currently, the only medications available are highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens. Developed with a patient’s doctor, three or four drugs are prescribed in combination to be taken together, in which the drugs and dosing are optimized for each patient. Those without access to industrialized medicine are without the benefits of these drugs. So, the best bet we have to defeating HIV is to prevent infection from occurring in the first place.

A vaccine that prevents HIV from infecting health immune cells or from spreading beyond them is the ultimate goal of research programs, but to date, every one has failed. The most recent program even showed an increase in HIV infection in those who received the vaccine, leading to an early termination of the program. Many scientists have actually called for HIV vaccine programs to be called off entirely, assuming that none of them would ever show any promise.

The vaccine under development is a combination of two previous vaccines that did show any benefit when used singularly. However, used together, the vaccines were able to prevent about thirty percent of HIV infections over the placebo treatment, a result that surprised

The vaccine works by shuttling three genes that code for proteins on the HIV virus in side a different, benign virus in an attempt to get the body to start producing antibodies against the HIV proteins, priming the immune system to attack HIV upon entry.

Scientists were disappointed however to see that those who received the virus yet became infected did not show lower viral loads than those who did not receive the virus. Also, vaccines licensed by the FDA in the US usually show about an eighty percent efficacy rate, so it’s very doubtful that the vaccine will ever come to market.This is why scientists stress that the study is an important starting point for the further development and optimization of a better HIV vaccine.

Photo courtesty lanier67, Flickr.

The war on cigarettes has taken another step forward. The FDA has announced a ban on cigarettes, in effect starting today, that are “flavored” like any fruit, candy, or clove as part of the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Ninety percent of adult smokers started smoking when they were teenagers, so the FDA’s logic says that making cigarettes less appealing should keep more people form smoking. Likewise, 17 year old smokers are three times as likely as adult smokers to use flavored cigarettes.

The FDA has sent letters to tobacco industry officials explaining the law, and warning of stern penalties for those who continue to defy it.

“Youth are twice as likely to report seeing advertising for these flavored products as adults are,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a pediatrician and the FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner. “Marketing campaigns for products with sweet candy and fruit flavors can mislead young people into thinking that these products are less addictive and less harmful.”

The FDA is also looking into regulating menthol cigarettes as well as other flavored tobacco products.

This signifies a shift from last month when government officials were warning Americans that the swine flu vaccine could be delayed or require multiple dosing. Because the vaccine will likely only require a single dose, it is expeted that even more people will be able to receive the vaccine.

High-risk patients will be allowed to receive the H1N1 vaccine at the beginning of October, while it will be available to the general public by mid-October.

The vaccine for the general flu season is widely available now, and health officials are urging people not to wait to get it. The flu season has started earlier than usual this year, and has proven to be rather virulent, aso early and wide vaccination is the government’s first line of defense against the coming flu season.

When applying to sell a new drug in the US, companies must specify the intended use of the drug and at which dosages they will be sold. Pfizer ran afoul of drug law here by marketing the anti-inflammatory drug Bextra for off-label uses and at dosages the FDA refused to approve out of safety concerns.

Pfizer pulled Bextra from the market in 2005.

For this offense alone, Pfizer will pay a $1.195 billion fine, the single largest criminal fine ever served in the US for any matter, and forfeit another $105 million in revenue gathered from sales. “The size and seriousness of this resolution, including the huge criminal fine of $1.3 billion, reflect the seriousness and scope of Pfizer’s crimes,” said Mike Loucks, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

Pfizer will also pay a $1 billion civil penalty under the False Claims Act to the government for alleged kickbacks to health care providers in exchange for increased prescriptions for several drugs including Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, and Lyrica. This civil penalty is the largest fraud settlement against a pharmaceutical company ever.

A large portion of the settlement will pay directly back into health care systems, important at a time when Medicare is underfunded and health care reform are in the news every day.  “This historic settlement will return nearly $1 billion to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government insurance programs,” said Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, “securing their future for the Americans who depend on these programs.”Pfizer

Legitscript.com is the only Internet pharmacy verification organization in the United States identified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as adhering to its standards for certifying Internet pharmacies. KnujOn.com tracks Internet criminality and has succeeded in removing over 100,000 spam websites from the Internet.

The report, released by these companies on August 18, showed that around 80 percent of the search engine’s advertisements concerning online pharmacies reviewed by the researchers were not operating in compliance with United States federal laws. The report states the researchers were able to order and receive medication normally requiring a prescription without one — a clear violation of Drug Enforcement Administration regulation of potentially habit-forming medications. One site even imported the medications ordered from India, which is also in violation of United States Law.

The report also touches on Pharmacychecker.com, the pharmacy verification service used by Yahoo, Google and Microsoft to determine the legitimacy of pharmacies in ads they display. The researchers were able to obtain drugs without a prescription from an online pharmacy listed on and approved by Pharmacychecker.com. These drugs were also imported from India.

Yahoo’s current policy mandates that an online pharmacy advertised through the search engine be “based in” the United States or Canada; however, three sites in the study which were approved based on having Canadian pharmaceutical licenses actually shipped their medications from places like India, Singapore And Barbados. A fourth site, also approved in Canada, stated it could only fill prescriptions in Canada and to do so in other countries would be illegal.

It is important to note that these issues are far from isolated, as a previous report focused on Microsoft’s search engine Bing.com and the findings were similar. Also, the American Pharmacists Association, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and the National Association on Addiction and Substance Abuse have written Google, Microsoft and Yahoo informing them that they were profiting from online pharmacies acting unlawfully.

“We’re making this a public issue because it’s time for this to stop,” KnujOn President Garth Bruen said. “If the search engines continue to knowingly facilitate illegal prescription drug sales, then we’ll continue to issue these reports. Our reports stop when the problem is fixed.”

“Yahoo needs to require that its Internet pharmacy ads adhere to US laws and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy standards,” LegitScript President John Horton said. “These are the same safeguards that govern brick-and-mortar pharmacies used throughout the US everyday. Shouldn’t American Internet users be assured of the same safeguards online?”

If you are someone who gets his or her medications from an online pharmacy, you may be putting yourself and your family in danger. If this is the case, we suggest you look further into the companies from which you choose to procure your medications.

It makes sense how keyboards are so disgusting if you think about it. Our hands touch everything we come into contact with, and we handle our keyboards more on a daily basis than anything else. People often eat at their desks, and those crumbs are like little bacteria factories. All those crevices that are impossible to clean lead to uncontrolled bacterial growth, and often times, the spread of disease.

With back to school and the flu season approaching, not to mention the constant reminders how swine flu is going to kill us all, it’s important to arm yourself with the tools that can help you stay well. Cyber Clean is an anti-bacterial, gel-like membrane that molds and conforms itself to the shapes you press it into. In doing so it can clean and disinfect hard to reach places, like those spaces between your keys, behind air vents where dirt and dust particles can harbor germs, and all those ridges on your cell phones and electronics.

Cyber Clean is safe, non-toxic, biodegradable, and supposedly reusable up to 75 times, plus you can get the kids in on the fun too. Cyber Clean is available at most stores and drug stores, and retails for less than $10. We hope to get our hands on some soon and put it to the test in our lab and let you know how it holds up.

The AHA found that more than a fifth of us with “severe congenital heart disease don’t see a cardiologist,” citing a Canadian study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

A congenital heart defect can exist for your entire life and kill you without warning.

The risk of having a heart defect is 3-times more likely in families with a genetic history — parents pass it on to children.

The AHA specifically points out that while most Americans know about acquired heart disease — the kind you get from lifestyle, diet, etc. — most don’t know about congenital heart disease. That’s the kind you’re born with and can kill you even if you have the healthiest diet and exercise plan there is.

For more on this topic, check out the website of the American Heart Association.

Mr. Twomey became ill June 24.

A Portland, Maine native, he was a 2001 graduate of Cheverus High School. Mr. Twomey received a B.A. in communication arts from Gannon University in Erie, Pa., in 2005. He graduated from Emerson in 2006 with a master’s degree in political and organizational communications.

According to the college, Mr. Twomey had lived in Washington, D.C. since 2007 and was working as an operations coordinator for digital media services for the U.S. Federal Courts Office of Public Affairs since June 2008.

“There are those times in teaching when you are blessed with an exceptionally talented and humane and incredibly gifted student — that was my experience with David Twomey,” said J. Gregory Payne, Twomey’s former professor, in a statement released by Emerson. Mr. Twomey was Payne’s graduate assistant. “He lit up the room with his smile and compassion and love of politics and the promise of public diplomacy. He truly was one of the most gifted students I have ever encountered and left a lasting legacy in whatever he did and to those he touched in his all too-short-time with us.”

A funeral mass was said on Tuesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine.

“While this tragic loss may have been unexpected, sadly, sudden cardiac arrest is not uncommon,” said Bobby Khan, MD, chairman of the SCA Foundation Board of Directors, Fulbright Scholar, associate professor at Emory University and director of the Coronary Care Unit and Cardiovascular Research at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. “Sudden cardiac arrest can happen to men, women and children of all ages, and for many reasons. African Americans are at even higher risk.”

Sudden cardiac arrest is the sudden, unexpected loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. SCA usually results from an abnormal heart rhythm, often as a result of underlying heart conditions. Unfortunately for many people, the first symptom of these conditions is SCA, meaning about two-thirds of unexpected cardiac deaths will occur without prior indication of heart disease. Approximately 250,000 people die every year from SCA in the U.S. alone. In fact, more people die each year from SCA than from colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, auto accidents, AIDS, firearms, and house fires combined.

The Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Foundation is a national non-profit organization based in Pittsburgh. Its mission is to serve as an information clearinghouse and social marketing force focused on raising awareness about sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), and stimulating attitudinal and behavioral changes that will help save more lives. Initiatives include an online registry for SCA survivors, an online community for people affected by SCA, an awareness campaign for schools, and the “People Saving People” awards. The SCA Foundation maintains a national database of survivors and experts available to speak with the media. For more information, visit http://www.sca-aware.org/.

According to the National Headache Foundation, more than 21 million women suffer from migraines with 50 percent reporting that their headaches started before the age of 20. But when both parents share a history of migraines, there is a 70 percent chance that their children too will be plagued with this often debilitating chronic sickness.

Girls and boys have similar migraine patterns until the age of puberty, said Dr. Anna Foster of Children’s Hospital Boston. Then rate of migraine incidence is doubled, leaving adolescent girls with a 2:1 chance of developing migraines. The female sex hormone estrogen is being studied extensively within migraine research as the culprit of this difference between boys and girls. Yet, with today’s advances in biofeedback, therapy, and the myriad of drug trials for migraine sufferers out there, suffering from migraines doesn’t have to be as painful as many parents may remember.

Doctors have the additional advantage of utilizing moms and dads as additional resources, providing insight into the world that migraines sufferers live in. The National Headache Foundation has reported that since similar migraine experiences and patterns are being seen with mother and daughter migraine sufferers, mothers may be able to offer not only advice but have a much deeper understanding into their children’s “growing pains.”

The Foundation’s “Migraine Million” fundraiser this year seeks to address the often misunderstood effects on everyday life that migraines have. From medical bills to effects on relationships, awareness surrounding sufferers is important step on the way to educating the public as well as assuring those that do, they are not alone.

“Our goal is for one million of the nearly 30 million people with migraine to donate $1 each toward headache education and research,” said Suzanne Simons, executive director of the National Headache Foundation. So instead of giving mom a headache this year, show your support for her in a different way.

Whether, you acknowledge that laugh or nose, well, that’s up to you.

You can contribute by visiting the foundation’s website at headaches.org or by calling 888-NHF-5552. You can even have an acknowledgment of the donation that can be emailed to mom, or printed and included in a card.

The Globe, citing city public health officials, said that the results are not confirmed, but that two students came down with symptoms after returning from Ireland, where apparently a mumps outbreak has occurred.

All four students had been vaccinated against the disease, which is not 100 percent effective. The Globe says 10-20 percent of those vaccinated are still vulnerable to the disease.

A Simmons College study reveals that sugar-sweetened beverages increase a woman’s risk of heart disease. Regular consumption of beverages like soda and energy drinks puts women at a higher risk for coronary heart disease, according to research findings of nutrition professor Teresa Fung

Published in the April edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the study found “a significant positive association” between sugary beverages and risk of heart disease.

Women in the study who drank two more of the beverages each day had a 35 percent higher risk of heart disease than those who did not.

The study also found that women who drank sugar-sweetened beverages were fatter, engage in less physical activity, and ate fattier foods.

“We all know that drinking lots of sugary beverages is unhealthy,” said Fung. “This study looked specifically at how regular consumption of sugary beverages can lead to an increased risk of heart disease.”

The study included carbonated and non-carbonated drinks, natural and artificial flavors, and caffeinated or decaffeinated drinks.

Other studies show that consumption of these beverages has more than doubled in the last 30 years. Today, 9.2 percent of all liquids consumed by women are sugary drinks.

PVC is used in the construction of everything from pipes to pool toys, and is easy to spot (check any plastic product for a recycling symbol with the number the three in it). Companies like Microsoft and Mattel have abolished the use of PVC in their packaging for years now, but it’s still one of the most widely used plastics in North America.

The presence of PVC in toys has been of high concern for parents over the past several years. Parents very rarely check to see if toys they purchase for their children contain PVC, and therefore many children are unknowingly exposed to phthalates, which are used to soften PVC to make it more durable, when chewing on a toy. Though the exact effect is unknown, young people would be more prone to any sort of health issue caused by phthalates.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently begun cracking down on companies that irresponsibly handle PVC. In early December, the EPA and the Justice Department came to a $12 million settlement with Shintech Inc., the largest manufacturer of PVC in the U.S., and it’s subsidiary K-Bin Inc., demanding they clean up their facilities in Freeport, Texas after determining they violated the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Clean Water Act.

“It is imperative that business and industry do their part to minimize the possible harm their operations may cause to our environment,” said EPA Regional Administrator Richard E. Greene in the DOJ report. “This agreement will ensure corrective action is taken and provide added benefits to the environment through supplemental projects.”

The companies were fined $2.6 million and ordered to spend $4.8 million to decrease chlorofluorocarbon emissions and better hazardous waste management at their Texas plants. The remaining $4.7 million will be spent on supplemental environmental projects as well as renovations to ensure PVC emissions are reduced by 10,000 pounds, the DOJ reports.

The supplemental projects include funding the addition of at least 300 acres of wetlands and forest to the Austin Woods preserve, as well as aiding a new Houston recycling program that will help to ensure the proper disposal of appliances containing ozone-depleting refrigerant.

The EPA is committed to help reduce PVC emissions, while many companies are committed to lowering the usage of PVC in their products.

“It’s not something you want in a product,” said Greenpeace member Jack Desena. “In small doses the phthalates aren’t a big deal, we all come in contact with them on a regular basis. But the manufacturing, processing and disposal of polyvinyl chlorides is the real problem. When you process them they release so many toxins into the air.  It really rips apart the environment.”

And it counted as exercise.

The Movement Center of Boston offers instruction in this school of fitness, which is called gyrotonic. A collection of intricate wooden machines, called the pulley tower combination, unit-guide the body in a controlled series of movements tailored to a person’s individual needs and goals. The motions are familiar, lifting and lowering the legs or circling them like pedaling a bicycle. But the reasoning behind the motions was different. Where traditional training would focus on lifting as much weight as possible, the instructor, Lisa Pari, uses just enough resistance to balance legs in midair and isolate the muscles around joints.

According to fitness experts, that’s what New Year’s Resolutions are all about in 2009: switching it up and taking that tired fitness plan in a new direction.

Gyrotonic, originally invented by Juliu Horvath as a form of rehabilitation for injured dancers, has expanded to reach customers from elite athletes to 80 year olds who can’t swivel their spines to people who “just come because of the sense of wellbeing they get from the system,” said Pari. Its sister method, gyrokinesis, is performed on a mat and necessitates more strength and flexibility.

Movement Center owner and master trainer Kathy Van Patten said it took a couple of lessons for her to realize she needed to continue her gyrotonic practice. After studying under the system’s founder for years, she’s a true believer in its benefits, which are similar to those of swimming, tai chi, dance, yoga, and gymnastics.

“It’s growing by leaps and bounds, and it’s just a matter of time before it overtakes Pilates and yoga,” she said.

Whatever route people decide to take, a new exercise prescription seems to be the ticket to making lasting body transformations in 2009. And Mike Walsh, a certified personal trainer and manager of BodyScapes Fitness in Brookline, Mass., actually considers these frigid New England winters the perfect opportunity for Bostonians to make changes in their fitness programs.

“Use it as a chance to break away from your mode and to become a more well-rounded athlete,” he said. “Use these three months that are tougher weather to do something else.”

That might include trying yoga, he said, for people who usually run or bike outside. Or, for those who have never tried getting fitness instruction, the first of the year might be a good time to give a class or personal training a shot.