August 1st is National Girlfriends Day - Empowering Women To Live a Healthier Life

August 1st is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Girlfriends Day and is to celebrate female friendship and support. It is also used to highlight how we women can help each other stay safe and live a healthy life. So I'm sharing the infographic below with an outline of checkups women need make their health a priority throughout their lifetime.

All-Natural Ways to Protect Your Family’s Skin from Pool Chemicals

Via Flickr - by Jerald Jackson

You’re probably well aware of how much damage the sun can do to you and your family members’ skin. So, you’ve probably spent a fair amount of time thinking over which SPF will work best for each person.

But your summer skincare shouldn’t stop there. The chemicals in the pools you’ll swim in this season can also damage your skin. Here are a few all-natural ways to minimize the harm these chemicals can do:

Pregnant Women Taking Paracetamol Could Harm Their Baby Boys

Pregnant women have been warned that taking paracetamol could harm their unborn baby. The popular painkiller is believed to have lifelong effects on baby boys, raising their risk of everything from infertility to cancer.

Paracetamol is the most widely-used painkiller in the world. And as the only painkiller deemed safe in pregnancy, it is taken by most mothers-to-be. However several studies have suggested it interferes with the development of the male reproductive system while still in the womb.

Ondo Begins Spiritual Cleansing to Appease Gods For Epidemic - What Role Public Health?

A community of Ondo state is reported to have today begun the process of cleansing their land in a bid to appease the gods over a plague believed to have been brought to them by some persons who desecrated and stole from their shrine. The deadly illness that hit the community has killed at least 14 people so far.

The Ondo state commissioner for Information had earlier announced that the illness and sudden death is connected to an exhumed corpse. That the people who've died so far were those who had contact with the people who exhumed the corpse. But some people believe it is more than simply possible contact with pathogens in a decomposing body.

5 Reasons Why Women Live Longer Than Men

Towering roles imposed on women by society, as well as traditionally-defined roles, almost make being male more enviable than being female. Yet, the same woman who works twice as hard as the man is said to have a longer life span. In this edition, we take a look at some reasons women live longer than men.

Alzheimer's Test Brain Teaser - Find The Missing Letters and Numbers

Atala and I watched one of the Oscar award winning movies that had to deal with Alzheimer's Disease. Titled Still Alice, the film was about a language professor who develops an early onset form of the disease when she was just 50 and in her prime, family wise and in her career too. Expecting her first grandchild, her son about to graduate medical school, and touring the world as a top speaker in her field, it is a punch in the gut when Alzheimer's comes knocking.

The film got us thinking and talking of ways to keep the disease and other memory loss conditions at bay as one gets older. Not that there's really much one can do if it turns out to be genetic. But otherwise, brain teasers are encouraged, and I bring you one below. Try it out and tell me how you do...

Student Loses Sight in One Eye after SLAP by School Official

A 14 year old SS2 student of Bishop Philips Academy, a secondary school in Ibadan, Oyo State has reportedly developed a major eye condition requiring surgery after she was slapped by the secretary of the school principal. She narrated her sad story to the Sunday Tribute;

“On Thursday, January 29, students were having an Agriculture class, so those of us offering Food and Nutrition left the class and three of us went to stay in one of the rooms in the building.

Doctors Perform World's First Successful Penis Transplant In South Africa

The unnamed 21-year-old beneficiary of the transplant had to have his penis amputated three years ago after circumcision, and after his surgery last December, experts thought would take him two years to regain all function. However, it took just four months for this to occur resulting in the operation being declared an outstanding success.

According to Sky News, the surgery was five years in the planning at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital. The surgery has been attempted once before - but this is the first example of a successful long-term result. Experts estimate as many as 250 penis amputations take place every year across South Africa.

Bobbi Kristina Woken From Medically Induced Coma, Remains On Life Support

Doctors have decided to take Bobbi Kristina out of her medically-induced coma, however the 21-year-old will be kept on life support, along with her ventilator, People magazine reports. A family source told the magazine; “We’re hoping for a significant change soon but we know that it may not change anything.”

Whitney Houston’s daughter remains in a serious condition after being found unconscious in a bathtub at her home on January 31. Last week, she was given a tracheotomy.

Time to Take Bobbi Kristina Off Life Support - Doctors Tell Bobby Brown

This is just so sad! One can only imagine the pain Bobbi Kristina's father and the rest of their family and friends are going through while she remains unconscious. And now, according to TMZ, doctors have said there's nothing more they can do and it may be time to let her go.

The medics told Bobby Brown, who is her clesest relative, to prepare to say his final good-byes to his namesake daughter, 21-year-old Bobbi Kristina, and that it may be time to remove her from life support. The timing could not have been worse, as today is Bobby Brown's birthday.

Bobbi Kristina Moved To New Hospital, Was Never Married, Father Reveals

As Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown fights for her life, a lawyer for father Bobby Brown claims  the couple’s only daughter isn’t and has never been married to step brother Nick Gordon.

Last January the couple announced that they had gotten married, Bobbi Kristina posted photos of their ‘wedding rings’ on social media but their nuptials were never confirmed.

Author Roald Dahl Writes Emotional Letter Urging Parents To Vaccinate Children Against Measles

Roald Dahl is best known as the author of such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. The children's author lost his eldest daughter, Olivia, to measles in 1962, and two of his books are dedicated to her. In 1988, he wrote this letter to parents in the UK, urging them have their children vaccinated against measles.

With a measles outbreak currently growing in the United States, I think many parents need to read Roald Dahl and his personal experience with the disease. Such parents need to understand the seriousness of measles, the importance of immunization, and why refusing to vaccinate "out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear" is a dangerous path to thread. For theirs, and for other children too.

Val Kilmer Battles Throat Tumor But Refuses Treatment Because of Christian Science Beliefs?

Hollywood actor, Val Kilmer, 55, was rushed to the intensive-care unit of a Los Angeles hospital last week after he began bleeding from the throat. While he has accepted his hospital stay, Val Kilmer has denied rumors of a tumor in his throat. Now new reports are saying that the actor's family believes the actor is killing himself by not dealing with a serious tumor because of his religious beliefs in Christian Science.

Lindsay Lohan Released From Hospital After Chikungunya Virus Infection

Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan has been discharged from a London hospital where she was diagnosed with the rare, incurable Chikungunya virus which she is said to have picked up while holidaying in Bora Bora.

Lindsay was released from the hospital because her fever broke sufficiently, and her mom Dina is on her way to London to be with her. However, Lindsay's joint pain is reported to be still intense and doctors referred her to a specialist who treats the virus.

How 17-Year-Old Posed As OB/GYN Doctor – FOR A MONTH!

Police and officials at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, have released a statement on a 17-year-old who posed as a doctor, saying they agreed not to charge the teenager who is reported to have been ill and off his medication.

The black male teenage posing as a doctor at an OB/GYN office wearing a white lab coat was busted after a patient became suspicious. The patient alerted staff at the medical center that a juvenile dressed in a lab coat was inside an exam room.

Flu Vaccine Fails Newlywed Who Dies Just 4 Days After She Fell Sick

Katie McQuestion - a 26-year-old who only just had her wedding last September - is dead from the flu just 4 days after she began to feel sick. The worrying thing is that she got a flu shot to comply with hospital policy and had no underlying medical conditions. Still she caught the flu and developed a serious complication from it: sepsis. She died on Jan. 2.

ABC News reports that McQuestion complained she didn't feel well on a mother-daughter trip to a dress shop on Dec. 29, said her mother, who asked not to be named. The following day, McQuestion was sent home sick from work. Her mother said she picked up a prescription for her on New Year's Eve.

'Ghost Boy' Martin Pistorius Awakes From 12 Years Virtual Coma - Mother Said 'I Hope You Die'

Martin Pistorius became a virtual 'vegetable' after falling into an unexplained coma when he was just 12 years old. He awoke after 12 years describing how he heard everything that was said, including his mother saying; "I hope you die." He survived and was the first guest on NPR's new radio show about human behavior, Invisibilia.

Martin describes his coma as being trapped inside a weakened, helpless body, unable to speak or move, but with his brain active. Because of his age, he had only children's programs to keep him company most of the time. He says it was his burning desire to get away from Barney, the always happy, dancing, purple dinosaur - whom he hated - that gave him the impetus to find a way to communicate.

Drinking 3 Litres of Water Daily Made This Woman Look 10 Years Younger

Sarah Smith says she was encouraged to start drinking 3 litres of water daily after reading a recent survey suggesting that at least one in five women in the UK consumes less than the recommended daily intake of water.

She decided to do it for an initial 28 days as an experiment to see if any changes happened. So she took before and after photos and the difference is clear. Do you think just drinking a lot of water can cause this much change? Sarah insists so.

Baby With Hole In The Heart Cut 40 Times With Hot Knife To Cure Her Of Pnemonia

A two-month-old Indian baby girl was branded with a hot knife by a local healer attempting to cure her pneumonia. Unknown to the healer, the little baby had a hole in the heart.

Shivani Seheriya had caught the life-threatening infection last month and in desperation, her poverty-stricken mother turned to her village tantric, a traditional therapist used in rural India, for help. He then burnt the child's abdomen with the hot knife over 40 times, convinced it would cure her illness.

President Obama Presents Special Edition of the Colbert Report - Video

Yesterday, President Obama took over Stephen Colbert's job as presenter on The Word, which the president jokingly renamed, The Decree while making several quips about Obamacare.

President Barack Obama taped the interview for "The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert" at Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., December 8, 2014. Below is the video and excerpts from the interview via White House website: