Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings April 2014, Volume 27, Number 2

But all who received the womb have their own ovaries and can make eggs. Before the operation they had some eggs removed to create embryos through in vitro fertilization. The embryos were then frozen, and physicians plan to transfer them into the new wombs, allowing the women to carry their own biologic children. WOMAN TO BIRTH GRANDCHILD A 58-year-old Utah woman is set to give birth very soon to her ﬁrst grandchild (5). She is serving as a gestational surrogate for her daughter and son-in-law after the couple struggled with fertility problems. The 32-year-old daughter has had about a dozen miscarriages, with the longest pregnancy lasting only 10 weeks. After she looked unsuccessfully for a surrogate, her mother volunteered. The baby girl was due in February 2014. This is not the ﬁrst such incident. In 2012, a 53-year-old Iowa woman gave birth to her twin granddaughters, and in the same year a 49-year-old woman in Maine gave birth to her grandson. INSOMNIA AIDS According to a piece by Jennifer Alsever in The Wall Street Journal, Americans spent just over $32 billion in 2012 on sleeprelated aids (6). According to an August 2013 study by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8.6 million people in the US reported taking medications before going to sleep. Falling asleep and staying asleep through the night is a constant struggle for many. Alsever described using an iPhone sleep app and a CD set based on audio brain research. There was also an MP3 download. The Brainwave Music System was a 6-CD set created by Jeﬀrey Thompson, director of the Center for Neuroacoustic Research in Carlsbad, California. The CDs use music embedded with tones to make sleep come faster. The music apparently sounded somewhat dreamlike with low humming and piano melodies. Alsever tried two 30-minute sleep tracks and a 30-minute relaxation track. She played the relaxation track in the background while she performed regular activities before bedtime such as brushing her teeth, and she played the sleep CD at bedtime. She indicated that she fell asleep quickly and felt refreshed in the morning. She also hired a relaxation coach who had taught corporate workshops and yoga and meditation classes. The bedtime packet cost $50 and included a custom recording of relaxing music with voice relaxation instructions and help with the development of a “sleep ritual.” The American Institute of Stress in Fort Worth, Texas, oﬀers referrals to stress-management professionals who can oﬀer advice on how to wind down. The relaxation coach inquired about nightly habits, such as TV viewing and worry level at bedtime, and also preferences on relaxation sounds, such as wind chimes, Tibetan singing bowls, or seashore sounds. She advised to stop cleaning the house or working on the computer at night. The coach suggested creating a bedtime routine that brings down the level of activity, such as gentle stretching and a nighttime bath. The 27-minute relaxa tion track includes the relaxation coach’s soft steady voice over the sound of Tibetan singing bowl music. The coach advised squeezing and relaxing 170 muscles, moving up from one’s legs to one’s eyes. Alsever indicated that she fell asleep 10 minutes into the track. She also tried the SleepEasily MP3 package, a program by a Denver behavioral consultant. The ﬁve tracks didn’t work well for Alsever. The download came with a 38-page PDF of instructions including how to use the ear plugs. On the sleep track the instructor advised thinking about calming your jaw muscles and opening your throat for an inner sleep breathe. In the 21-minute track, the instructors’ words got slower and slower when talking about imagining sounds of seashells and lullabies. Alsever also tested an iPhone and iPad app called “ABCs of Better Sleep” created by a British hypnotherapist. The app included tips on better sleep and a 23-minute hypnosis session for deep sleep. In a 12-minute practice session, the hypnotist explained what the ABCs of the program are: “A” stands for “Are my eyelids so relaxed that I couldn’t open them if I tried?”; “B” stands for “breath” instructions—to take a deep breath, hold it, and then release it using every muscle; and “C” stands for “the sea,” in which one imagines ﬂoating underwater. The app included a 23-minute audio clip with the main hypnosis session played in bed. Alsever fell asleep at the end of it and felt great the next day. The hypnotist indicated that once it was used for a week, the hypnosis session would no longer be needed. OBESITY RATE In the US the obesity rate appears to be leveling oﬀ, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (7). The percentage of adults in the USA who were obese (body mass index ≥30 kg/m²) in 2008 through 2012 was about 35%. In 1960, it was 13% and in 1980, 15%. Thus presently in the US, about 80 million adults are overweight by at least 35 pounds (BMI ≥30). The prevalence of obesity increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. DECREASING CALORIES BY FOOD COMPANIES Sixteen companies, including General Mills, Campbell’s Soup, ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods, Kellogg, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Hershey, pledged to cut 1 trillion calories by 2012 and 1.5 trillion calories by 2015 in their products (8). A study sponsored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation evaluated the progress toward that goal and found that between 2007 and 2012, the companies had reduced their products’ calories by the equivalent of 78 calories per person per day. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which works to improve the nation’s health, hired researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to count the calories in almost every packaged item in the grocery store. To do that, the researchers used the store-based scanner data of hundreds of thousands of foods, commercial databases, and nutritional-facts panels to calculate the calories the companies were selling. The investigators indicated that the companies have exceeded their own goals by a wide margin. As a consequence, many products now come in lower-calorie versions, are baked instead of fried, or are sold in miniature as well as larger versions. Smaller servings— 100-calorie packs of popular snacks, for example—and smaller Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings Volume 27, Number 2

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