Posted Oct. 31, 2008 – The economic crisis is enough to scare the boo out of Halloween. It can also trigger sleeplessness and feelings of worry and dread . With all the news about mortgage foreclosures, stagnant house sales and evaporating jobs, it’s no wonder that more people are finding it harder to sleep. Now might be the time to destress and focus on what really matters.If there were ever a time to strengthen one’s spirituality, it’s now, experts say. Faith has gotten many people through crises before, and I’m sure it still works. There are some other everyday tools you can use, too. “Try to keep things in perspective,” says Dr. Barbara Brown, a Washington, D.C., psychologist.

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Both were part of a Susan G. Komen for the Cure mission.
Posted Oct. 30, 2008 - Actress Gabrielle Union and Malaak Rock, wife of actor-comedian Chris Rock, said their trip to Ghana as part of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s mission, was transformative. According to Komen reps, the trip was designed to help reduce the rate of breast cancer among women in the African country. Both women, who do a bunch of work in the States to help young African American women understand their risk for breast cancer, are to be commended for reaching out to Ghana’s cancer surviors, who are often chastised for having the disease.

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Posted Oct. 27, 2008 – Halloween’s fast approaching, and you’re being tempted to stock your treat bowls with all sorts of sweet. Hold up! There are other ways to do Halloween, that are healthy, but still keep it hot. There are all sorts of ways to sneak in a little bit of health by adding nuts, fruits and pumpkin to muffins and packaged treats. In fact, you don’t have to give out eatables at all. You can find eight Healthy Halloween alternatives at BET.com/Body & Soul. And, don’t forget to add a little more fun to the holiday by roasting the pumpkin seeds with your young goblins and either coloring them or spicing them up with your favorite flavors.

Celebrities talk about their experiences with breast cancerCelebrities such as Queen Latifah, Halle Berry and Nas are all speaking out about breast cancer. Black women don’t get breast cancer more often than Whites, but when they do they die from it more often, health experts say. At BET.com, actors, singers and other news makers share their experiences with the deadly disease. See what they have to say at BET.com/Body & Soul.     

 Posted Oct. 22, 2008 – Staph infection, which I mentioned earlier is increasingly becoming a problem nationwide among young athletes and fitness enthusiasts, has most likely ruined the promising career of a popular University of North Carolina-Asheville basketball player – the nation’s tallest b-baller Kenny George. The young 7-foot-9, 375-pound center who received acclaim for his size and play last season, had part of his right foot amputated due to a rare staph infection. The senior from Chicago, who last year lead the nation in blocked shots per game, had at least two surgeries and other procedures after his right foot became infected at a summer camp for big men in Las Vegas. But the surgery that disabled him also saved his life, doctors say.

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Share your story here about how HIV/AIDS has affected your life.

Posted Oct. 16, 2008 – She’s not pregnant. She’s not faking. And she’s not splitting with longtime boyfriend Jermaine Dupri. There is a legitimate reason why Janet Jackson got sick, was hospitalized and had to cancel part of her tour. Jackson has been suffering from a rare kind of migraine – vestibular migraine – that are linked to vertigo, says her manager. So, now, maybe, the whisper campaign can stop.

Jackson got sick in Canada last month and was taken to hospital.  She called off several performances last month because she was experiencing a rare form of severe headaches called vestibular migraines – or migraine-associated vertigo – according to “Access Hollywood.” The severe headaches can cause dizziness and loss of balance.

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Posted Oct. 15, 2008 – While we applaud the effort the Bush administration has made to fight HIV/AIDS abroad, what all HIV/AIDS fighters here at home wonder:  what will the next president do about the domestic crisis? Right now, America spends $10 billion a year to fight AIDS in Africa, Asia and other countries. Only 10 percent of that figure goes to fight AIDS in the United States, where the disease largely affects African Americans. “When we give money to developing countries to fight AIDS, we demand they have a national strategy. And yet we don’t have a national AIDS strategy in this country,” said Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute. Well, CBS News put the question of how best to handle the domestic HIV/AIDs crisis to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain and got some very different answers.  

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Posted Oct. 9, 2008 – Domestic violence strikes Black women three times as much as Whites. That alarming figure was revealed by the Violence Policy Center, a national non-profit organization that does research on violence in the United States. You might find it interesting that those figures have compelled celebrities, particularly male celebrities like T.I., to do something to curb the violence.

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Posted Oct. 7, 2008 – With the presidential campaign coming to a heated end, it’s hard to tell fact from fiction. And yet, we all want to make the best choice for our health and the health of our families. Well, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has taken some of the guesswork out of that decision. The foundation has developed tools that allow you to size up your candidate, issue-by-issue: where he stands on everything from his overall over all health care proposals to coverage of the uninsured to SCHIP children’s health insurance. So, if you’re interested in being a more informed voter and finding out for yourself where presidential candidates Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) stand on issues you care about, go to Health08.org, make your own comparisons then make your choice based on the issues instead of emotion.