Saint Lucia to host health and wellness retreat | St. Lucia News Online

St. Lucia Tourist Board - Monday, April 29th, 2013 at 5:05 AM

From November 1-3, 2013, the idyllic setting of Saint Lucia is once again host to a roster of renowned health, fitness and wellness experts during the third Annual Health & Wellness Retreat: ?Elevate Yourself.?

Noted experts include Cat Cora, the only female Iron Chef winner, and Gabrielle Bernstein, featured on Oprah?s Super Soul Sunday as a next generation thought leader, who join premier yoga practitioner John Schumacher and Dr. John Douillard, a leading natural health and Ayurveda teacher, along with island-based experts in exercise, weight loss and Tai Chi.

During the three-day retreat this group of experts will provide nutritional, wellness, health, relaxation and beauty advice, tips and hands-on experiences through beachside clinics, healthy cooking demonstrations, wellness seminars and sunrise mediations.

Priced at US $595 per person, the weekend includes daily spa treatments, classes, receptions and transportation from select hotels. A day rate of $200 per person is also available, and a number of the island?s top hotels are offering discounted rates starting at $75 per night.? For hotel rates, a complete schedule and more information, visit www.stlucianow.com/hw.

?Saint Lucia has a reputation as a tranquil, rejuvenating and even spiritual destination, with a number of resorts widely recognized for their world-class spa and wellness programs,? said Louis Lewis, director of tourism for the Saint Lucia Tourist Board. ?Our reputation as a sporting destination is growing as well, and the Health & Wellness Retreat the first weekend of November is the beginning of a month-long focus on Saint Lucia as an active vacation leader.?

Rounding out Health & Wellness month, Saint Lucia will host its first international triathlon, November 22-23, challenging participants to swim, bike and run picturesque Pigeon Island.? Triathlon organizer Human Race is the largest and most diverse mass participation events company in the United Kingdom hosting over 55 events each year. Human Race Director John Lunt organized the amazing Olympic Triathlon at London 2012. For more information on the Saint Lucia Triathlon, visit www.tristlucia.com.

?Retreat to ?Lift the Senses?

With time built-in for relaxation and island exploration, the Health & Wellness Retreat will take place in locales across Saint Lucia, from Pigeon Island National Park near the capital of Castries to the natural mud baths of Sulphur Springs in the southwestern town of Soufriere, near the UNESCO World Heritage Pitons.

The diverse program will be led by renowned experts in the wellness field including:

? Cat Cora, known for being the first and only female iron chef on Food Network?s ?Iron Chef America? and best-selling author, will lead healthy cooking demonstrations and host the seminar entitled ?Elevating your Living.?

? Gabrielle Bernstein, New York Times bestselling author of ?May Cause Miracles,? motivational speaker, life coach, and founder of HerFuture.com, a social networking and mentoring website for women, will lead seminars on ?Living a Miraculous Life? as well as morning meditation.

? John Schumacher, founder and director of Unity Woods Yoga Center and one of only 13 certified advanced lyengar yoga teachers in the U.S., will lead daily yoga sessions on the basic postures and breathing exercises that energize and center the body.

? Dr. John Douillard D.C., physician, writer, professor and chiropractor specializing in sports medicine, will lead seminars on Ayurvedic, a holistic system of medicine originating in India aiming to provide guidance on achieving healthy lifestyles.

? Dani Devaux, creator of Blood, Sweat and Tears fitness program, will lead multiple sunset beach boot camps based on her high intensity interval training program, designed for all fitness levels.

Each day retreat guests will find a choice of seminars, activities such as guided Rain Forest hikes, beachside Tai Chi and Yoga, and healthy cooking demonstrations led by the experts, as well as the opportunity to indulge in the natural therapeutic benefits of Soufriere?s mineral and mud baths.

For more information about the island of Saint Lucia call 1-800-456-3984, or visit www.saintlucianow.com or become a fan at www.facebook.com/SaintLuciaTouristBoard

This article was posted in its entirety as received by stlucianewsonline.com. This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical error within press releases and commentaries. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of stlucianewsonline.com, its sponsors or advertisers.

Source: http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/saint-lucia-to-host-health-and-wellness-retreat/

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Over 1,000 women sue Nuvaring maker over blood clots

A NuvaRing contraceptive. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty)Rachel Lietzke Payne started using Nuvaring in 2008, when she was a 20-year-old college student. The contraceptive device appealed to her because it was easy to use. Birth control pills have to be taken every day, but Nuvaring, which came onto the market in 2001, is inserted into the vagina and removed each month?and is just as effective at preventing pregnancy.

One Monday in October of 2010, more than a year after she first began using the vaginal ring, Payne met her father for a standing lunch date at Buffalo Wild Wings in Casselberry, north of where they lived in Orlando. When she and her dad walked out of the restaurant, Payne suddenly fell ill and spat up quarter-size chunks of blood onto the cement.

Payne was rushed to the hospital, where she spent 10 days being pumped with anti-coagulants to thin her blood. She was diagnosed as having developed a blood clot in her lung, a condition that could have been fatal. ?It took them a while to figure out that it was blood clots because I was 22 at the time,? said Payne, who is now a married 25-year-old aspiring air traffic controller with a toddler son. She was also a non-smoker, fit, and had no family history of blood clots, all potential risk factors.

But the doctors landed on what they believed might have caused the clotting: the Nuvaring.

Payne is now one of more than 1,000 women suing Merck & Co?the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the birth control?in a federal district court in Missouri. They allege that the company?s device caused them to suffer blood clots?in a few cases, fatal ones?the risks of which they say they were inadequately warned about.

The suits are the latest in a pricey legal backlash over a variety of hormonal contraceptives that have come to the market in the past 10 years. Thousands of women sued over the Ortho Evra patch, citing studies that showed a higher blood clot risk compared to traditional birth control pills, costing Ortho McNeil, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, millions of dollars. And as of 2012, more than 10,000 suits had been filed against Bayer, the makers of Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills, which has set aside more than $1.5 billion to settle claims against them.

Roger Denton, the lead counsel for the multi-district litigation against Nuvaring in Missouri, said he thinks the case could be as lucrative for his clients as Bayer?s litigation over Yaz and Yasmin. (Bayer has settled for an average of $216,000 with each plaintiff in that case.)

Hormonal contraceptives inhibit ovulation by releasing a combination of estrogen and progestin. While earlier iterations of progestin have shown only a slight increase in blood clot risk, recent studies have shown that newer forms of progestin?called third- and fourth-generation progestins, which were developed in the 1990s and 2000s?are associated with higher rates of blood clotting among women who take them compared to second-generation iterations of the hormone.

In fact, more than a dozen studies conducted over more than a decade have shown that women taking contraceptives containing a third-generation progestin?such as that used in Nuvaring and some birth control pills?have a 1.4 to 4 times higher risk of developing blood clots than women on contraceptives containing second-generation progestin.

The studies include a recent one funded by the FDA that tracked the health records of more than 835,000 women. It found that those who used the vaginal ring were more likely to experience venous thrombosis than women who took oral contraceptives. But the researchers warned that the finding is ?new and raises concern,? and ?needs to be replicated in other studies.?

A handful of other studies, however, have shown no increased risk. Overall, the risk is still very low, with only around six to 10 out of 10,000 women developing blood clots over a year.

The plaintiffs in the Nuvaring case allege it's not just the hormone in the device that caused their blood clots, but also the delivery system. Unlike other forms of birth control, Nuvaring dispenses hormones directly into the bloodstream, which the plaintiffs' expert witness argues could cause "spikes" of hormones that make women more susceptible to blood clots. There's currently no large study that backs up that claim.

Some experts, however, warn the results of the studies are being overblown by the media and trial lawyers, and may be scaring women away from effective birth control. More than 20 international researchers published an open letter in the Journal of Family Health and Reproductive Planning earlier this month saying the media and attorneys are creating a ?scare? that is not based on adequate research and could create more harm than good. They argue that large database studies, such as the one funded by the FDA, can be inaccurate because they don?t take into account all the confounding variables, such as obesity, that could affect blood clotting.

The letter notes that third- and fourth-generation hormonal contraceptives overall contain a very low risk of blood clots, and that more studies are needed before that risk can be determined. Overall, it notes, about four to six additional women out of every 10,000 on the newer forms of birth control would suffer a blood clot compared to women taking the older form of birth control. The risk of blood clotting goes up dramatically for pregnant women: 29 per 10,000 pregnant women develop a blood clot, meaning that the risks of unintended pregnancy are far greater than that of any hormonal birth control on the market.

The plaintiffs in the Nuvaring case say Merck did not adequately test or label the Nuvaring product to warn of these risks. Merck has disputed this, saying the company is confident its product is safe, and that it followed U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for its packaging.

The company was awarded a judicial victory last week, when a judge in New Jersey threw out seven separate suits against Nuvaring, saying the plaintiffs did not prove that Nuvaring was the cause of their blood clots. New Jersey courts have tougher standards for suing an FDA-approved product than the federal court system, however, where some of the more than 1,000 suits face trial beginning in October.

?We are confident the company has provided appropriate and timely information about Nuvaring to consumers and the medical, scientific and regulatory communities,? Lainie Keller, a spokeswoman for Merck, said in a statement. ?We remain confident in the efficacy and safety profile of Nuvaring, and will continue to always act in the best interest of patients.?

But Denton, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said he?s sure his cases in the district court won?t be dismissed.

?That?s what all these drug companies say,? Denton said. ?'It?s good enough for the FDA, that?s the end of the story.? But under our law that doesn?t matter. The jury decides.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/more-1-000-suits-against-nuvaring-trial-fall-103903135.html

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