A recent health story sounds like the stuff of nightmares.

According to reports, three people have died this summer due to a brain-eating amoeba (Naegleria fowleri) that resides at the bottom of lakes and ponds, entering people’s bodies through the nostrils and killing them.

Two of the deaths occurred after swimming in infested water, while one was an isolated case of exposure to contaminated tap water.

The deaths, which all occurred in different states, have caused widespread concern about the safety of swimming or water sports during the summer.

While I’m not trying to promote mass hysteria here, I don’t think the concern is entirely unreasonable.

This long, hot summer has been especially welcoming for amoeba, which thrive in hot, stagnant, shallow water.

The high temperatures, naturally, have gone a long way in both heating up and shrinking the size of lakes and ponds.

While the amoebae do not affect everyone who enters the water, the consequences for those that it does are nearly always fatal. The amoeba gets up the nose, burrows up into the skull and destroys brain tissue.

The infected person will exhibit signs and symptoms of meningitis, such as fever, headache and stiff neck, before falling into a coma and eventually dying.

There is no need for mass alarm as the condition is very rare. Presently, there have only been 120 reported cases in the United States since the amoeba was identified in 1960.

However, at the same time, only one person has ever survived, so I don’t think it hurts to exercise some caution.

While all bodies of freshwater have the potential of being infested, I especially recommend avoiding shallow water that has been thoroughly heated by the sun, all the way down to the bottom. Amoebae are less likely to be found in deeper water where you can feel that the temperature at the bottom is cooler than the top.

Also, make sure to plug your nose when jumping or diving into water and avoid excess splashing. These simple measures can all decrease the likelihood of amoebae entering the body.

Want to improve your sports performance?  Sleep in, advise researchers.

A new study shows that sleeping for longer periods of time is beneficial to athletic performance, reaction time, vigor, fatigue and mood in college athletes.

The researchers say that college basketball players who slept for an extra 111 minutes (nearly 2 hours) each night showed significant improvements in speed and shooting accuracy.  The participants also reported improved overall ratings of physical and mental well-being during practices and games.

“It was interesting to note that sleep extension significantly improved different measures of physical performance in basketball from shooting percentages to sprinting times,” said lead author Cheri D. Mah, MS, researcher at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory in Stanford, California, noting the diverse benefits longer periods of sleep was associated with.

According to Mah, an athlete’s nightly sleep requirement should be considered integral to attaining peak performance in all levels of sports. She offered the following tips to help athletes improve their performance by maximizing their sleep:

-Prioritize sleep as a part of your regular training regimen.

-Extend nightly sleep for several weeks to reduce your sleep debt before competition.

-Maintain a low sleep debt by obtaining a sufficient amount of nightly sleep (seven to nine hours for adults, nine or more hours for teens and young adults).

-Keep a regular sleep-wake schedule, going to bed and waking up at the same times every day.

-Take brief 20-30 minute naps to obtain additional sleep during the day, especially if drowsy.

Mah has also observed similar benefits of sleep extension in other sports such as football, tennis, and swimming.

The study was published in the journal SLEEP.

It’s usually about this time when parents start to hear those dreaded words that inevitably come each summer. “I’m bored!” rings through houses across America and parents’ wells of ideas begin to run dry. The excitement of summer has started to wear off, play date pals are away on vacation, and our little swimmers are a bit water-logged. Though a loose daily schedule seems to provide endless opportunities for fun, parents everywhere are looking for quick and easy ways to break the monotony of summer. Here are a few “out of the box” ideas for keeping your children intrigued this summer.

*Call your local pet shelter and ask about volunteer opportunities. This may include a weekly trip to the shelter, handing out fliers for a pet rescue organization, or feeding the animals. Shelters likely have clear rules on who can volunteer and in what capacity, so check with them first before springing the idea on your children. If they don’t allow children to volunteer, bring your child to drop off bags of food or new toys for the animals. Seeing how much work it takes to care for a pet could also cure the constant requests for a puppy!

*Have a donation stand instead of a lemonade stand. Set up three jars for three different charities and generous neighbors can drop their donation in the jar of their choice. After your collection, have your children write a letter to accompany the donation when you send it off to the charity. They can also hang a “thank you” sign outside the house after the collections are completed.

*Have a family cook-off! Have each of your children choose a recipe to make. Invite family members or neighbors over for a taste and have them cast votes. Instead of first, second, and third place, which can surely hurt feelings, have categories such as most unique recipe, best presentation, and sweetest treat. Be sure to have a prize for each participant. Your local dollar store is a great place to pick up ribbons or small toys.

Remember, the key to keeping your children happily occupied is to provide a variety of activities. The activities don’t have to be grand trips or expensive outings. There are plenty of simple, cost-effective ways to spice up your routine summer days. Check back on Thursday for more ideas!

One recent survey of Americans on body image found that more than half of all men and women would rather lose their job than gain an extra seventy-five pounds. And nearly 20 percent of the population would give up, or consider giving up, 20 IQ points to have the perfect body.

Obviously, weight and the way we are perceived is an important factor in our daily lives. It’s not surprising then that dieting is on the minds of so many people these days, particularly as people get on in their forties, when the metabolism begins to slow and the pounds begin to add up. So which diet is best? I’ll tell you.

First, let’s look at some of the big blockbuster diets that have appeared over the past decade or so—the South Beach Diet, the Atkins Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, and so on. Each one of these diets has simply incorporated a different method of teaching you about nutrition in order to get you to lose weight. Each one gives you something to focus on, a behavior to motivate you, which is great because, after all, to lose weight you have to change your thinking.

But if you look at the fundamentals, the underlying theme of each diet is calories. Whether you do Atkins, South Beach, or Dr. Phil, it’s really all about calories.

When reviewed carefully, most diets are really nothing more than low-calorie nutrition plans disguised by clever marketing gimmicks. Scientific-sounding “facts” and hocus-pocus “research” are just ornaments on the diet tree. Diet-plan marketers go to great lengths to explain how their diet can work for everyone, or claim that it is carbohydrate intake or fat intake—or whatever the bad intake of the day is—that’s the culprit.

However, the bottom line is that the only way to lose weight is to have a caloric deficit, which occurs only when you burn more calories than you consume.

The average American today consumes 300 more calories per day today than did the average American of 30 years ago. Today’s average American also burns 260 fewer calories each day due to increased automation, technology, and sedentary occupations. Put those numbers together, and it becomes rather obvious why America’s waistline is growing at an alarming rate.

Check Your BMI

The BMI can tell you if you are underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. Adults 20 years old and older can calculate their BMI with this formula:

BMI = your weight/pds divided by height/in x height/in x 703

You are UNDERWEIGHT, if your BMI is below 18.5.

You are of NORMAL WEIGHT, if your BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.

You are OVERWEIGHT, if your BMI is between 25.0 and 29.9.

You are OBESE, if your BMI is 30.0 or more.

So here is Dr. Manny’s Freedom Diet. If you really want to lose weight, you have to do two things: eat fewer calories and burn more calories. This is not an optional “either/or” plan but an “and” plan. Of course, the calories you eat should be healthy calories. That’s all. Eat less. Exercise more. It really is that simple.

Fight obesity. Spread the word.

Exercise

People spend an enormous amount of time trying to find the perfect exercise, and while they’re doing that, their clock is ticking. Any physical activity is great, though the best kinds of exercise for you are those like walking, swimming, running, hiking, and skiing—all of which have a “global” impact on your body and mind.

Most important, you should stick to the exercise of your choice and do it regularly. If you adhere to those two principles, you’re going to burn calories, feel better, improve your metabolism, and benefit your health.

Any activity you do during the day—from climbing stairs, to housecleaning, to watching TV—will, of course, burn calories. But those activities don’t provide the necessary continuity, and I think the essence of getting into shape and having a good metabolism has to do with a continuity of exercise.

In other words, it’s better to burn 120 calories a day, seven days a week, doing your favorite exercise, for example, than to burn 800 calories doing the housework once a week. It’s the exercise regimen that has an impact on your health, not necessarily the intensity.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Estimated number of calories burned per minute based on an individual weighing about 150 pounds:

Sitting: 1

Talking on phone: 1

Sleeping: 1

Driving: 2

Housework: 3

Cooking: 3

Washing dishes: 3

Stretching: 4

Sex (active): 5

Walking (3 mph): 5

Calisthenics (moderate): 5

Ballroom dancing (fast): 6

Gardening: 6

Swimming (moderate): 7

Aerobics (low impact): 7

Hiking: 7

Jogging: 8

Stair step machine: 8

Bicycling (12 to 14 mph): 10

Basketball (full court): 12

Running (10 mph): 20

To easily calculate how many calories you burn in a day, go to www.healthstatus.com and click on “Calculators” then “Calories Burned.”

It is also very important to drink adequate amounts of fluid when you exercise. You need to drink about a half cup of water for every fifteen minutes of vigorous exercise. People think that muscle cramps during exercise are caused by a shortage of electrolytes, but that’s not true. You get muscle cramps because of water loss and dehydration. Drink that water!

Patients who have knee replacement surgery are still active 20 years later, according to WebMD.

Researchers conducted a survey of 128 patients to determine the long-term success of knee replacements and found that, despite age-related declines, most patients were able to keep up fairly active lifestyles.

“If you have a good knee replacement and are blessed with good health, you have an excellent chance of walking as much as you want and doing activities such as swimming, golfing, and riding a bike, into your 80s,” researcher John B. Meding, MD, said.

The results surprised Meding, who hadn’t expected former patients’ activity levels to be so high.

Seventy percent of the sample could walk at least five blocks, half believed their walking capabilities were unlimited, and all but one could climb stairs – though some did rely on the assistance of rails.

On average, 581,000 knee replacements are done every year in the U.S., according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.  The surgeries are usually performed after the knee is significantly damaged by arthritis or injury.

Click here to read more from WebMD.