Kate Mulgrew on Aging in Hollywood: ‘I Let My Vanity Go’

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Kate Mulgrew is brilliant on Orange is the New Black, as Galina “Red” Reznikov. From her character’s extremely memorable introduction in the first season as the inmate-cook who serves Piper, the show’s protagonist, a bloody tampon sandwich, to her showdown with second-season baddie Vee, it’s clear that Red is a powerful force among the inmates: she’s scary, but she’s also beloved. And it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Mulgrew in this complex role.

In her new memoir Born With Teeth ($18, amazon.com), Mulgrew explains this is a very welcome change in her long career as an actress.

RELATED: Here’s Téa Leoni’s Refreshing Take on Aging and the “Pressure to Be ‘Doable’”

“I’ll be 60 this month,” she told People. “For most of my life I was very pretty and played the heroine. You’re really boxed in when you’re pretty. They don’t see anything else.”

Mulgrew famously played Captain Kathryn Janeway for six years on Star Trek: Voyager, and said that fans of her former role likely wouldn’t recognize her if they tune in for OITNB.

“I let my vanity go,” Mulgrew said. “What you’re saying is, ‘That’s Kate Mulgrew? But she used to be pretty, [now she’s] this big, fierce fat-looking woman who runs the kitchen.’ So that’s what I get to be now.”

But don’t be mistaken—Mulgrew prefers it that way. “I just have such great joy now.”

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She says that the mere existence of a character like Red is part of a larger shift in Hollywood, telling the Los Angeles Times, “I’m working for a genius by the name of Jenji Kohan, and she’s created 50 parts for women. Cindy Holland is running Netflix. These are unconventional, unorthodox, exceedingly bright and ferociously independent women. I think the day is coming where we will be wanted; not just accepted but wanted as the stripped-down, compelling women that we are.”

“Without our plastic surgery, without our bulimia, without our makeup and without 8 million men wanting to go to bed with us, we will be charismatic in and of ourselves,” Mulgrew continued. “That is coming now, but it has taken quite awhile.”

What still hasn’t caught up, she says, is that many women in Hollywood (and elsewhere) are fighting for  equal pay, which Mulgrew described to People as “absurd.”

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“I should’ve been paid every cent [Patrick] Stewart was paid,” she said about her Star Trek co-star. “Not to mention the three and a half hours I spent in makeup and hair, and somebody fooling around with my bosoms and somebody fooling around with my shoes.”

The increased attention will hopefully make unfair pay a thing of the past, just like the notion that actresses of a certain age should disappear. “I think it’s changing now,” Mulgrew said. “Because female roles in TV are golden now. This whole game is shifting.”

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5 Things You Didn’t Know Dry Shampoo Could Do

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Turns out your beloved oil-absorber and volume-booster can be a lifesaver for more than just bad hair days. Find out what else that bottle hiding under your bathroom sink can do for you.

Fight grease stains

Most dry shampoos are made with some sort of starch (that’s what absorbs the oil in your hair). Try spraying a little on grease stains to help soak up excess oil before dabbing on soap and water.

RELATED: 10 Reasons We Love Dry Shampoo

Lock bobby pins in place

Spritz the inside of each pin with dry shampoo before securing in your hair to prevent sliding. The gritty texture adheres, creating a better grip on your strands.

Tame unruly brows

Coat your index finger in dry shampoo, then use it to gently coax unruly brows into place. That boosts the brows’ thickness a bit, too.

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Dry clammy palms

Apply a shot of dry shampoo to your palms and rub them together to nix perspiration. And yes, it can moonlight as deodorant if you’re really in a bind.

Refresh sweaty shoes

Spray the inside of your running shoes post-workout to let your dry shampoo work its de-greasing (and de-stinking) magic. Let the formula absorb for a few hours, and your sneaks will be coming up roses—well, almost.

RELATED: Cutting Back on Shampoo? 15 Things You Should Know

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Cat Health Problem Might Be Linked to Flame Retardants

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Flame retardants might be linked to a common health problem in pet cats, a new study from Sweden says.

Researchers found that cats with hyperthyroidism had high levels of certain flame retardants, which suggests a possible link.

More than 10 percent of older cats develop hyperthyroidism, which can cause symptoms such as weight loss, hyperactivity, aggression and vomiting, noted Jessica Norrgran, of Stockholm University, and colleagues.

The findings were recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Opponents have long sought a ban on some flame retardants because of their potential harmful effects on people, especially infants and young children, according to a journal news release.

Flame retardants are used in products such as plastics and furniture. The chemicals can accumulate in dust that ends up on cat’s fur. The cats ingest the chemicals when they lick themselves during grooming, the researchers explained.

The researchers tested blood samples from pet cats in Sweden, including 37 with hyperthyroidism and 23 with normal thyroid function. The cats with hyperthyroidism had elevated levels of flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).

The findings don’t prove that PBDEs cause hyperthyroidism in cats, but suggest an association, according to the study authors.

More information

The National Resources Defense Council has more about flame retardants.

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Unsupervised Home Births on the Rise: Study

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Home births without a midwife or doctor present — which have been linked to increased risk of infant death and disease — have jumped 79 percent in the United States in recent years, researchers report.

The actual number of unsupervised births is small, with about 5,000 reported in 2007 and more than 8,800 reported in 2012, said study author Dr. Amos Grunebaum, director of obstetrics at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

But, “I would call that [increase] concerning,” added Grunebaum, who is also a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. “Unattended home births are usually associated with adverse outcomes.”

His team is to present its findings at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ annual meeting, to be held May 2-6 in San Francisco. Research presented at medical meetings is viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

For the study, the researchers turned to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database on birth certificates. They defined unsupervised home births as those not attended by a physician, midwife or other doctor.

From 2007 to 2012, more than 24 million births occurred in the United States. Of those, about 141,000 were home births. And about 30 percent of the home births were unsupervised.

The increase in unsupervised home births was higher in women who had already had other children (82 percent), compared with women who were having their first child (65 percent).

But one expert said the study was flawed because it did not take into account all the reasons why a birth might be unsupervised.

“The study is incomplete in that it doesn’t answer why there was an increase in unattended birth,” said Dr. Paul Burcher, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and bioethics at Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y. He speculated that it could reflect an increase in the so-called “free birth” movement, in which prospective parents choose unassisted home births.

Another possibility is that some of the births were attended by midwives in states that do not allow them, he said, so the parents had to sign the birth certificates.

“You can’t capture what’s going on with home births with birth-certificate data,” Burcher said, because some unsupervised births may not have been planned. For instance, a baby may have arrived too fast for the mother to get to the hospital, he added.

Grunebaum said the researchers have no data on which women actually chose unsupervised deliveries. “But we are concerned” about the trend, he said. Risks of unsupervised home births include newborn death and other complications, he added.

Guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) state that hospital and birthing center births are safer. Women who still choose to plan a home birth should be generally healthy, not carrying twins or other multiples, and meet other criteria, ACOG recommends, and should seek assistance from midwives or physicians.

“I would not recommend home birth,” Grunebaum added. “I don’t think it’s safe.”

Women who want less intervention and a more home-like setting can request that at the hospital, he said, where emergency personnel and equipment are available if needed.

More information

To learn more about certified professional midwives, visit U.S. National Association of Certified Professional Midwives.

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Can Statins Help Lower Lung Cancer Death Risk?

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Taking the cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins for a year before getting a diagnosis of lung cancer was associated with a 12 percent lower risk of dying from that cancer, new research suggests.

The researchers from Northern Ireland also found indications that those who had a minimum of 12 statin prescriptions filled after being diagnosed with lung cancer saw their lung cancer death risk drop by as much as 19 percent.

But, study lead author Chris Cardwell stressed that the degree of the association seen between statin use and a lower risk for lung cancer death was “relatively small.”

And while the study found an association between statin use and a lower risk of lung cancer death, it wasn’t designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Cardwell said there are any number of other differences between patients who take statins and patients who don’t that might explain the fatality risk drop, rather than statin use itself.

However, Cardwell added that if the study’s findings are confirmed, they would build on prior lab and animal research indicating that statins — and in particular, simvastatin — may have “potential anticancer effects.” Such effects, he noted, could include curbing cancer cell growth and spread, while promoting cancer cell death.

Cardwell is with the Institute of Clinical Sciences Block B and Cancer Epidemiology and Health Services Research Group at Queen’s University in Belfast.

The study findings are published in the May issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Statins are considered a safe and effective way to lower LDL — the so-called bad type of cholesterol, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

To explore whether or not statins have any impact on lung cancer progression, the study authors reviewed British cancer registry data. They looked at roughly 14,000 British lung cancer patients diagnosed between 1998 and 2009.

About 13,000 who used statins before being diagnosed with lung cancer were included in the study. And approximately 3,600 patients who took statins following their diagnosis were included in the analysis.

Overall, statin use was linked to an 11 percent reduced risk of dying from lung cancer compared with non-use, the study authors reported.

The researchers also found that the statin drug simvastatin (Zocor) was associated with about a 20 percent lower risk of lung cancer death, regardless of how much had been taken after diagnosis.

“Further research is required,” Cardwell stressed, noting that it would be premature at this point to recommend taking statins to prevent lung cancer death. He also said the study didn’t explore whether the impact of statins might differ between those with a past or current history of smoking and those without.

Dr. Norman Edelman, a senior medical advisor for the American Lung Association, said the findings are new and interesting, if not completely surprising.

“Statins have been researched for years and it’s quite clear that they have all kinds of properties in addition to lowering cholesterol and bad lipids [blood fats],” he said.

“But I don’t believe anybody has identified this specific relationship to lung cancer deaths before,” Edelman said. “So, it’s exciting because if it turns out to be true, we can start doing studies to see if statins can actually prevent lung cancer altogether.”

Edelman added that the study authors “point out that there may be co-variables at work here, such as people who take statins perhaps smoke differently than those who don’t. We don’t yet know. And obviously more research is needed. But it’s very exciting.”

The study was funded by the Health and Social Care Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency of Northern Ireland.

More information

There’s more on statins at the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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What These Blind Women Can Teach Us About Feeling Beautiful

We recently stumbled upon another feel-good video from Dove’s Choose Beautiful campaign. This time they interviewed three Swedish women for their take on what it means to be beautiful. They happen to be blind. How do they judge beauty if they can’t see their reflection? Prepare to be moved.

“For a long period after I became blind, I automatically checked myself in the mirror,” says Anna Bergholtz, who has been blind for 13 years. “And it took a very long time before I stopped doing that. Now, I think that is one of the things I like about not seeing.”

“Beauty is more of a feeling to me,” she says.

Each woman explains when they’ve felt most beautiful, including Ida Ostlund who has been visually impaired since birth. Her take: “When it feels as if I’m in the right place, doing the right things—meaningful things—I automatically feel beautiful.”

“It comes from within. If you radiate warmth, humility, and love, then you’re beautiful to me,” explains Naomi Allback, who lost her sight 15 years ago.

Amen to that.

RELATED: Watch What Happens When Women Choose Between Doors Marked ‘Average’ and ‘Beautiful’

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ADHD Tied to Higher Risk of Eating Disorder in Kids and Teens

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have an increased risk of a certain type of eating disorder, according to a new study.

The eating disorder is called loss of control eating syndrome (LOC-ES). As the name implies, people with this disorder sometimes can’t stop eating, even if they want to, according to the researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore.

Their study included 79 children between the ages of 8 and 14. The kids were assessed for ADHD and the eating disorder. Those with ADHD were 12 times more likely to have the eating disorder than those without ADHD, the study revealed.

Among overweight and obese children, those with LOC-ES were seven times more likely to have ADHD than those without the eating disorder.

Also, children who scored higher on tests of impulsivity were more likely to have the eating disorder, whether or not they had ADHD, according to the study.

Children with both ADHD and LOC-ES may have a more severe form of ADHD marked by more impulsive behavior that shows up strongly in their eating habits, said study leader Dr. Shauna Reinblatt in a Hopkins news release. She is an assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at the university’s School of Medicine.

Or it may be that children with both ADHD and LOC-ES have a shared underlying risk factor, such as a genetic predisposition to impulsivity, she added.

Further research is needed to learn more about the connection between the two disorders, but doctors should screen for both ADHD and eating disorders, according to Reinblatt.

“Our findings underscore the need for developing new treatment strategies that could help target disinhibited eating in kids who have both ADHD and LOC-ES,” she said.

The study was published recently in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has more about ADHD.

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Mars-Bound Astronauts May Face Danger From Cosmic Rays

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Bad news for anyone hoping to travel to Mars: New research in rodents suggests that exposure to cosmic rays may impair the brain functioning of astronauts on missions to the red planet.

Researchers discovered that exposure to highly energetic charged particles — similar to those in the galactic cosmic rays that astronauts encounter on extended spaceflights — hurt the central nervous system and cause thinking problems in lab animals.

“This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two- to three-year round trip to Mars,” said Charles Limoli, a professor of radiation oncology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine.

“Performance decrements, memory deficits and loss of awareness and focus during spaceflight may affect mission-critical activities, and exposure to these particles may have long-term adverse consequences to cognition throughout life,” Limoli said in a university news release.

The researchers reached their conclusion by studying rodents exposed to charged particles at a NASA lab. The exposure led to inflammation in the brain and disrupted brain signaling, they said. As a result, the rodents performed worse on tasks requiring learning and memory.

Limoli, working on behalf of NASA’s Human Research Program, is among those investigating how space radiation affects astronauts. Learning how to mitigate those effects is essential to further space exploration, scientists say.

According to Limoli, travelers to Mars would face more trouble than those who work on the International Space Station because they’d face more galactic cosmic rays outside the protective magnetosphere of the Earth.

Spacecraft could be developed with better shielding, although there’s no way to fully escape the cosmic rays, he said. Drug treatments that are under development also might help, he noted.

The study appears in the May 1 issue of Science Advances.

More information

For more about the health effects of space travel, visit the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

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Fitness May Help Lower Odds for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A lifetime of vigorous exercise may lower the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a form of cancer that affects the lymph nodes, according to a new study.

Activities that significantly increase breathing and heart rate appear to have the most benefit, the researchers said.

“We know that being physically active reduces the risk of colon cancer and breast cancer, and also leads to a range of other physical and mental health benefits,” study author Terry Boyle, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research.

“Our findings suggest that people who do vigorous physical activity may also have a lower risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” Boyle added.

While this study found an association between intense physical activity and a reduced risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, it wasn’t designed to prove that exercise was the sole reason for the risk reduction.

“Currently, there isn’t enough research on this topic to be able to confidently say that being physically active reduces the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” said Boyle, who added that his team plans on researching this link further.

The study was published May 1 in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

The study included information on more than 800 people of varying ages with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Almost two-thirds of the study patients were men. The investigators compared these patients to more than 800 age- and gender-matched people without non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The participants answered questions about their overall health and lifestyle, including their level of physical activity. Specifically, they were asked to record the average number of days each week and the average number of hours each day they exercised. They were also asked whether that exercise was mild, moderate or vigorous. This was repeated for each decade of their life.

The study found that those who engaged in the most intense physical activities throughout their life had up to a 30 percent lower risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma compared to people who exercised less. The age of the participants didn’t affect the overall benefit of the intense activity, the study authors said.

“In this case-control study, we found that the most physically active participants had a lower risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma than the least active participants. We found that vigorous-intensity physical activity in particular, such as activities that increase breathing and heart rates to a high level, was the most effective at lowering risk,” said Boyle.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

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Nipple-Sparing Mastectomy as Good as Full Breast Removal: Study

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Women with early stage breast cancer who chose to preserve the nipple during a mastectomy had similar survival or recurrence rates to women who underwent full breast removal, a new study found.

“Nipple-sparing surgery is oncologically safe in carefully selected women with early stage breast cancer,” said Dr. Lucy De La Cruz, a researcher at the University of Miami. She was scheduled to present her findings Thursday at the American Society of Breast Surgeons annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla.

Studies presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

In nipple-sparing surgery, the nipple and the darkened area around the nipple — the areola — are left in place. The breast tissue is taken from underneath the nipple area, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Although the nipple area is preserved, blood flow and nerves are affected. That means the nipple usually has little to no feeling, and it’s possible the appearance of the nipple may be affected, the ACS noted.

For the new study, De La Cruz pooled the findings of 19 previously published studies, an approach known as a meta-analysis. The studies included more than 5,000 patients.

De La Cruz compared outcomes in women who had nipple-sparing surgery to those who had full breast removal. De La Cruz looked at the two approaches in terms of how often the cancer came back, including how often it recurred at the nipple area, and survival. The nipple-sparing procedure was as safe as a standard full breast removal for all of these measures, the review found.

Six of the studies that compared overall survival between nipple-sparing and non-nipple-sparing surgery even found a 2.5 percent increased chance of survival in women who had the nipple-sparing procedure.

Dr. Irene Wapnir, chief of breast surgery and professor of surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, said, “This review of the published literature is certainly reassuring about the safety of nipple-sparing mastectomy in patients who are appropriately selected.”

But not all women are candidates for the nipple-sparing surgery, which has been performed in the United States for about 15 years, according to Wapnir. For instance, if the breast cancer is too close to the nipple area, the nipple-sparing surgery may not be possible.

Use of the procedure has increased markedly in the past 10 years, Wapnir said.

However, it’s still not a common procedure, with less than 5 percent of U.S. doctors offering the procedure, said Dr. Julie Margenthaler, a surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University in St. Louis.

The nipple-sparing operation is more challenging than a full mastectomy, Margenthaler said. Costs are similar, however, as is insurance reimbursement, she said.

Women need to be warned that nipple sensation will likely be dramatically altered, Wapnir said, especially in response to sexual arousal.

However, the nipple-sparing surgery does give a more natural look after reconstruction than other techniques, she said.

More information

To learn more about nipple-sparing surgery, visit Stony Brook School of Medicine.

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Hey Girl, You Should Keep A Dream Journal

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While (your dream boyfriend) Ryan Gosling was directing his first film, the fantasy thriller Lost River, he asked his actors to do a funny thing: Write down their dreams and share them on set.

“You know, you chum the waters and see what you can get,” Gosling explained in an interview with The Creators Project. “I know that sounds kooky, but [a dream is] like a symbol to represent a lot of things, and it gives you shorthand.”

Gosling is on to something: Studies suggest that our dreams may help us process emotions and even problem-solve after lights out. Recording the details of your nocturnal imaginings can help you gain insight, says Dierdre Barrett, PhD, a clinical assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School.

In her book The Committee of Sleep ($16, amazon.com), Barrett recounts how some of the world’s most creative people—from Salvador Dali to Stephen King, and Beethoven to Ghandi—have used revelations from the dream world to inform their work.

RELATED: 12 Ways We Sabotage Our Mental Health

The key to keeping a journal, she says, is writing just after you wake: “Almost half of dream content is lost as soon as you get distracted,” she explains, so before you even get out of bed, “lie there, replay the dream, then write it down.” Keep a journal and pen on your nightstand, or download an app to your phone and keep it nearby.

Her research indicates that dreams can be especially helpful for people who are struggling with grief. In a landmark study from 1988, she looked at the dreams of college students who had recently lost a loved one and found that during the early stages of mourning, their dreams tended to be quite upsetting. “The deceased came back to life and died again, or even beckoned the survivor to join them.” But after a few months, the dreams became a source of comfort to the students, featuring warm goodbyes, for example, or advice from the loved one.

A similar shift can happen for people who are having repetitive nightmares after a distressing experience,  Barrett says. She calls the turning point a “mastery dream.” “It starts out like the nightmare, reenacting the real-life trauma, and then instead someone rescues them, or they fight off the attacker, or the threat shrinks down to nothing and blows away.” Rewriting the end of their story in their mind has a healing effect that carries over into the daylight, explains Barrett, who explores this phenomenon in an earlier book Trauma and Dreams ($34, amazon.com).

RELATED: 9 Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

There is also evidence that dreams help us learn. In a 2010 study published in Current Biology, subjects were asked to navigate a virtual maze, then try again after napping or relaxing for 90 minutes. On the second go, subjects who had slept and dreamed about the maze during the break performed substantially better than everyone else.

Whether you’re seeking the solution to a puzzle at work, a creative breakthrough, or an emotional epiphany, writing out your dreams can’t hurt, and you may even want to go a step further to tap their power. Dr. Barrett recommends a technique called dream incubation, which means planting a seed in your mind for the dream you wish to have before you drift off.

“For example, people having grief dreams or post-traumatic [nightmares] can tell themselves as they’re falling asleep that they’d like to have a different [experience] that night: A beautiful visit from their loved one, or a resolution to their traumatic event,” she explains. It may take some time and practice, but the strategy should work for any topic you want to reconsider in your sleep, says Dr. Barrett—from everyday problems to life-altering decisions.

Or maybe you’re just in need of a sweet dream—perhaps a visit from Ryan Gosling? Incubation could work for that, too.

Photo: Giphy

RELATED: 7 Bedtime Behaviors That Will Help You Sleep

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