By PATRICIA MONTEMURRI and ZLATI MEYER-Free Press Staff Writers First, it was shoes. Then, it was liquids. And now, it’s full-body scanners — able to see through clothes — that stand between air travelers and the wild blue yonder. On the eve of the big Thanksgiving travel holiday, a backlash is brewing against enhanced airport security screenings. Some Web sites are urging travelers to refuse to go through the full-body scanners Wednesday and instead undergo the pat-downs, which take longer and could bog down lines on one of the year’s busiest travel days. Detroit Metro...

Chinese women are drinking collagen to gain “skin as soft as a baby’s”. Age may be respected in China, but wrinkles are definitely not – fighting the process is a boom industry. According to Euromonitor, the Chinese skincare sector was worth £3.3 billion ($5.3 billion) in 2007, while cosmetic surgery raked in an estimated £1.5 billion last year and is thought to be growing at around 20 per cent a year. Now women have added a new weapon to their armoury of facelifts and Botox injections: collagen. Most associate it with lip injections and the resultant trout pouts, but...

“Curvy women can ditch the diet – after scientists found that a woman’s body shape is all down to her genes”, reported the Daily Express. This large genetics study pooled data from 61 studies involving almost 200,000 people. It identified 14 areas of DNA likely to contain genes that affect waist-to-hip ratio, one of which was already known. A major strength is that it pooled the data from such a large number of people, thereby enabling the detection of areas that have only a small effect on waist-to-hip ratio. These genetic areas have only a small effect on waist-to-hip ratio, accounting...

By Beatrice Fantoni, Montreal Gazette MONTREAL – Although a Montreal nightclub is distancing itself from an invitation on its Facebook page that specified “NO FAT GIRLS ALLOWED!!!!!!!!!!” people familiar with the local party scene say clubs regularly -if not so overtly -discriminate based on looks. “Everybody knows. (Clubs) are selective,” said Stefano Apostolakos, owner of SMAN Productions, a Montreal promotions company. A nightclub that wants to attract a certain kind of crowd will never openly turn people away based on weight, he said, but if people don’t...

Have you ever been in the family room minding your own business when your 15-year-old sister lets out a bloodcurdling scream from the upstairs bathroom? The scream is so piercing that you wonder if Freddie Krueger is in the house. Then, seconds later, your sister runs into her bedroom proclaiming her life is over because she found a huge zit on her cheek! Your skin does lots of things to keep you healthy. It keeps germs out, it sweats to help you cool off and it produces oils that keep you smooth and soft on the outside. To accomplish this, your skin contains different types of glands that lie...

By Marianne Betts 18-year-old mum having plastic surgery – Tummy tuck, boob job in Malaysia – Wants to feel her age again AUSTRALIAN women as young as 18 are taking overseas cosmetic-surgery holidays to “reclaim” their youth. Single mother Ambah Young, 18, will head to Malaysia in a fortnight to have a tummy tuck, a boob job and a “designer” vagina procedure. But the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery has raised concerns about the appropriateness of such procedures on someone so young, along with the added risks of having them done overseas. Ms Young,...

MOISTURISERS can reduce wrinkles by more than half, a skin expert has claimed. According to Dr Greg Hillebrand, the ageing process means a 28-year-old woman who uses face cream will have 22 per cent more lines by the time she reaches 36. But if she doesn’t uses moisturiser, she will have 52 per cent more wrinkles. Hillebrand said the quality of the skin’s outer layer “can profoundly affect the rate at which expression or temporary lines will turn into persistent wrinkles”. He added: “It stands to reason that women, and probably men, can dramatically delay the age...

A new kind of chocolate that apparently slows the ageing process and keeps wrinkles at bay has been unveiled by the world’s largest chocolatier. By Heidi Blake Acticoa is packed with natural antioxidants which can protect the skin from damage by harmful free radicals. Studies have shown that just 20g a day of the chocolate could help prevent wrinkles by hydrating the skin and improving elasticity. The health-boosting bars, drinks and buttons were invented by chocolatiers at Barry Callebaut, whose 7,500 strong workforce in 26 countries make £3 billion worth of chocolate each year, supplying...

It’s long been said that pretty women are hard on men’s hearts — country musicians can attest to that. But a new study says one-on-one contact with an attractive female might also be harmful to men’s health, raising stress hormones to dangerously high levels. And when men are in the presence of a beautiful stranger they view as “out of their league,” the risks are even higher, with cortisol levels rising so high that heart attacks and strokes become real possibilities, the Spanish researchers found. “This is another case of hard science proving the obvious,”...

By Katherine Faulkner For years it has driven women to despair – no matter how much they exercise or skin products they buy. Now, however, scientists have developed a cream that they say can banish cellulite for ever. Demand is already rocketing for the revolutionary product that works by tapping in to the skin’s DNA. It is said to permanently remove the ‘orange peel’ effect of cellulite by manipulating the genes in tissues under the skin – and should even work for older women or those for whom cellulite is a genetic condition. Read more…