When asked to rate their own health, women, on average, consistently report being in worse health than men do, and a new study from researchers in Spain says this is because women have a higher rate of chronic diseases — contradicting a previous theory that women's lower self-rated health is simply a reporting bias.

"In general practice, there has been this idea that women over-report health problems, or are more likely to say they are ill or pay attention to their symptoms than men," said first author of the study Davide Malmusi, of the Public Health Agency of Barcelona. "We wanted to test whether their differences in self-reported health could in fact be explained by the difference in the prevalence of chronic conditions."

The new findings were published Dec. 16 in the European Journal of Public Health.

Self-reporting health

Malmusi and colleagues across Spain gathered data from Spain's 2006 National Health Survey, which included data from face-to-face interviews with more than 29,000 people on their health. About half of the study participants were between the ages of 16 and 44; the other half was older.

The survey included the question, "Over the last 12 months, would you say your overall health has been very good, good, fair, poor, or very poor?" as well as a question on whether health problems had limited people's activities over the previous six months.

Of the women interviewed, 38.8 percent rated their health as poor or very poor, and 25.7 percent reported chronic limitation of activity. Of the men in the study, only 27 percent had poor self-rated health, and 19.3 percent reported chronic limitation of activity.

But when the researchers matched up the number of chronic conditions each person had with his or her health rating, the gender difference disappeared. Having a higher number of chronic conditions correlated with poorer self-rated health to the same degree in both genders. 

For men and women with the same conditions, or the same number of conditions, women were no more likely to claim poorer health.

"There's been a longstanding debate about whether women's self-reported health is a reporting bias or not," said sociologist Ellen Annandale of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who was uninvolved in the new work. "Some researchers argue that women might over-report health problems, and men might under-report. This study supports wider research that women's poorer self-reported health reflects underlying chronic health problems."

The root of chronic health problems

What the new study doesn't answer, Annandale said, is why women have a higher rate of chronic health problems. The data did reveal that women's higher rate of chronic problems can be most strongly attributed to five chronic disorders: arthritis, mental disorders, neck pain, headaches and back pain. But further research will be needed to explain why.

Malmusi said it is likely a mix of biological and social factors.

"Gender influences that way that people are treated and diagnosed in health systems," Annandale said. "It influences the kind of health conditions that men and women suffer from, the way people relate to their own bodies, and what kind of access to health care they have."

Understanding gender differences in health can help scientists and doctors find ways to better treat patients, she said.

 "Women generally live longer than men, but in many countries that gap in life expectancy has been decreasing over time. One of the reasons for that is thought to be that men's health is improving, but women's is not."

Pass it on:  The fact that women generally rank their health poorer than men do correlates to a higher rate of chronic health problems, not a higher likelihood to complain about their health or pay attention to symptoms.

This story was provided by MyHealth_MHND. Find us on Facebook.



Holding Their Liquor Makes Women Much Sicker than Men 5 Reasons Being a Woman Is Good for Your Health 11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths

There’s something in the air in Hollywood — and it’s not the smog.

Following in the footsteps of other famous couples, Michael Jordan proposed to his girlfriend of three years, Cuban model Yvette Prieto.

This will be the NBA legend’s second marriage, following his $168 million divorce from wife Juanita Vanoy.

Country singer Wynona Judd also announced her engagement to musician Cactus Moser. This will be her third marriage.

Crooner John Legend and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Chrissy Teigen got engaged on Christmas day, as did actorВ Matthew McConaughey and longtime girlfriend Camilla Alves.

Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler also reportedly got engaged over the holiday weekend to Erin Brady.

Back in November, actress Anne Hathaway was spotted wearing a sparkler on her ring finger from boyfriend Adam Schulman around Thanksgiving.

Who’s turn is it on New Year’s Eve?

Follow Taylor on Twitter

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is considering transferring to Afghan custody a senior Taliban official suspected of major human rights abuses as part of a long-shot bid to improve the prospects of a peace deal in Afghanistan, Reuters has learned.

The potential hand-over of Mohammed Fazl, a 'high-risk detainee' held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison since early 2002, has set off alarms on Capitol Hill and among some U.S. intelligence officials.

As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan's minority Shi'ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.

According to U.S. military documents made public by WikiLeaks, he was also on the scene of a November 2001 prison riot that killed CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, the first American who died in combat in the Afghan war. There is no evidence, however, that Fazl played any direct role in Spann's death.

Senior U.S. officials have said their 10-month-long effort to set up substantive negotiations between the weak government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban has reached a make-or-break moment. Reuters reported earlier this month that they are proposing an exchange of "confidence-building measures," including the transfer of five detainees from Guantanamo and the establishment of a Taliban office outside of Afghanistan.

Now Reuters has learned from U.S. government sources the identity of one of the five detainees in question.

The detainees, the officials emphasized, would not be set free, but remain in some sort of further custody. It is unclear precisely what conditions they would be held under.

In response to inquiries by Reuters, a senior administration official said that the release of Fazl and four other Taliban members had been requested by the Afghan government and Taliban representatives as far back as 2005.

The debate surrounding the White House's consideration of high-profile prisoners such as Fazl illustrates the delicate course it must tread both at home and abroad as it seeks to move the nascent peace process ahead.

One U.S. intelligence official said there had been intense bipartisan opposition in Congress to the proposed transfer.

"I can tell you that the hair on the back of my neck went up when they walked in with this a month ago, and there's been very, very strong letters fired off to the administration," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The senior administration official confirmed that the White House has received letters from lawmakers on the issue. "We will not characterize classified Congressional correspondence, but what is clear is the President's order to us to continue to discuss these important matters with Congress," the official said.

Even supporters of a controversial deal with the Taliban - a fundamentalist group that refers to Americans as infidels and which is still killing U.S., NATO and Afghan soldiers on the battlefield - say the odds of striking an accord are slim.

Critics of Obama's peace initiative remain deeply skeptical of the Taliban's willingness to negotiate, given that the West's intent to pull out most troops after 2014 could give insurgents a chance to reclaim lost territory or push the weak Kabul government toward collapse.

The politically charged nature of the initiative was on display this month when the Karzai government angrily recalled its ambassador from Doha and complained Kabul was being cut out of U.S.-led efforts to establish a Taliban office in Qatar.

U.S. officials appear to have smoothed things over with Karzai since then. Karzai's High Peace Council is signaling it would accept a liaison office for the Taliban office in Qatar - but also warning foreign powers that they cannot keep the Afghan government on the margins.

The detainee transfer may be even more politically explosive for the White House. In discussing the proposal, U.S. officials have stressed the move would be a 'national decision' made in consultation with the U.S. Congress.

Obama is expected to soon sign into law a defense authorization bill whose provisions would broaden the military's power over terrorist detainees and require the Pentagon to certify in most cases that certain security conditions will be met before Guantanamo prisoners can be sent home.


The mere idea of such a transfer is already raising hackles on Capitol Hill, where one key senator last week cautioned the administration against negotiating with "terrorists."


Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said such detainees would "likely continue to pose a threat to the United States" even once they were transferred.


POTENTIAL MAELSTROM


In February, the Afghan High Peace Council named a half-dozen it wanted released as a goodwill gesture. The list included Fazl; senior Taliban military commander Noorullah Noori; former deputy intelligence minister Abdul Haq Wasiq; and Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former interior minister.


All but Khairkhwa were sent to Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, according to the military documents, meaning they were among the first prisoners sent there.


Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and White House official, said Fazl was alleged to have been involved in 'very ugly' violence against Shi'ites, including members of the Hazara ethnic minority, beginning in the late 1990s, and the deaths of Iranian diplomats and journalists at the Iranian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998.


Michael Semple, a former UN official with more than two decades of experience in Afghanistan, said Fazl commanded thousands of Taliban soldiers at a time when its army carried out massacres of Shi'ites. "If you're head of an army that carries out a massacre, even if you're not actually there, you are implicated by virtue of command and control responsibility," he said.


He added: "However it does not serve the interests of justice selectively to hold Taliban to account, while so many other figures accused of past crimes are happily reintegrated in Kabul."


Some U.S. military documents - select documents have been released, others were leaked - indicate that Fazl denied being a senior Taliban official and says he only commanded 50 or 60 men. But the overall picture of his role is unclear from the documents which have become public.


Richard Kammen is an Indiana lawyer who has nominally represented Fazl; the detainee did not want an attorney.


"Based upon the public information with which I'm familiar, it would appear his role in things back in 2001 has been significantly exaggerated by the government," Kammen said.


According to the documents, Fazl and Noori surrendered to Abdul Rashid Dostum, now Afghanistan's army chief of staff but at the time a powerful warlord battling against the Taliban, in northern Afghanistan in November 2001.


While the men were being held at the historic Qala-i-Jani fortress in Mazar-i-Sharif, Taliban prisoners revolted against their captors from the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban coalition.


"Dostum brought (Fazl and Noori) to the bunker to ask the prisoners to surrender; detainee and (Noori) refused," the detainee assessment from a 2008 document read.


Spann, a one-time Marine captain who was sent to Afghanistan as a CIA operative in the fall of 2001, was trying to locate al Qaeda operatives at the Mazar fortress among a large group of Taliban soldiers who had surrendered, according to the CIA and media reports at the time. When the Taliban prisoners began to riot - many of them were apparently armed - Spann was surrounded and killed. After a bloody, multi-day battle his body was later found booby-trapped.


Even a loose association between Fazl and Spann's death - despite the fact there is nothing to suggest he was directly involved - is likely to increase the temperature of the debate in Washington.


What could be problematic for some Afghans is Fazl's identification with the killing of civilians in central and northern Afghanistan.


"The composition and timing of any release has got to pay attention to Northern Alliance concerns," Semple said.


Buy-in from supporters of that alliance - and from those wary of a resurgent Taliban - will be key in making a peace deal stick, if one can be had.


Despite the congressional concerns that released Taliban will return to the battlefield, Semple said it was unlikely even prisoners like Fazl - who truly was a significant military figure for the Taliban - would alter that equation.


"These people are not going to make a real contribution to the Taliban war effort even if they are able to go over to Quetta and rejoin the fight. It's not risky in battlefield terms; it's only risky in U.S. political terms."


(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, Patrick Worsnip and Jane Sutton; editing by Claudia Parsons)

MADRID – Spain's new conservative government is set to unveil its first austerity measures later Friday as it tries to reassure markets that it has a plan to get a grip on its public finances at the same time as kickstarting an economy saddled with sky-high unemployment.
With much of the country on holiday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party was presiding over a Cabinet meeting that will approve the first in what is expected to be a painful series of spending freezes or cuts and other reforms over the next few months.
Rajoy's Popular Party won a sweeping victory in Nov. 20 elections over the Socialists and his government took power only last week. All the ministers have been named but many other senior positions have not even been filled yet.
Like other troubled governments in Europe, Rajoy faces the delicate task of a deficit reduction measures in a country whose economy is expected to sink back into recession. The jobless rate is a staggering 21.5 percent, the highest rate of all 17 countries that use the euro.
Rajoy has said time and time again he is determined to meet Spain's commitment to cut its budget deficit to 4.4 percent of GDP in 2012.
Last week, he said that if the outgoing government's deficit forecast of 6 percent for 2011 was correct — and he stressed it might be off — the new government would have to achieve euro16.5 billion ($22 billion) in deficit reduction in 2012.
Fears over Spain's public finances and a banking sector heavily exposed to a real estate bubble that burst in 2008 have caused Spain's borrowing costs to soar amid fears it could end up suffering the same fate as bailed out Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Spanish media say that just about the only good news expected to come out of Friday's Cabinet meeting is a small cost of living increase for pensioners. In May 2010, then Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero slapped the freeze on under growing international pressure, just as the Greek debt crisis was heating up. The pressure on Spain included a call from President Barack Obama.
The rest of the measures expected Friday will apparently be an early taste of the bitter medicine to come — a freeze on civil servant wages hiring in most areas, except security forces.
And ministries will be told to tighten their belts, again.
As no budget for 2012 has yet been passed, Rajoy's Cabinet is expected to extend the 2011 spending blueprint into the first quarter of next year as it waits to get final figures on the economy. A full-blown 2012 budget is expected in late March.
On Friday, ministries will reportedly be told how much of the money they originally had earmarked for 2011 they must now refrain from spending.

The current generation of gaming consoles have gone above and beyond being just devices to play video games. They have become entertainment systems in their own right, that can play DVDs (and blu-rays in the case of the PPS3), stream content online, and even act as media servers.

So if you were among the lucky few that Santa left a shiny new PS3 for under the tree, but you’re still trying to get the hang of it, we cobbled together a few tips to transform your console from a gaming system into so much more.

Below we’ve provided a few suggestions for how to get the most out of your Sony PS3.

(We’d also like to note that you if you have an HDTV we recommend using an HDMI cable to connect to your TV, which is sold separately. You can use the composite hook-up but it won’t have the same picture quality.)

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PlayStation Network and Store
To get the most out of your PS3, the best place to start is at the PlayStation Store (PSN). So the first thing you’ll need to do is to set up a PSN account so that you can access the store online.

For the most part, all you need is an e-mail address to access the basic package. Purchases can be made using a credit card or pre-paid PSN cards that are available in brick-and-mortar stores, and the content includes full-length games, movies, TV shows, and much more, including original content.

Unlike Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, the PlayStation Network is free to use. The friends list and features within aren’t as robust, but it is serviceable, and you can enjoy online gaming at no additional cost. There is, however, the PlayStation Plus premium service, which will run you a reasonable $49.99 per year.

Included with that, you gain access to services that those using the free service can’t get. From time to time, Plus will feature a game at an extremely discounted price, or even for free. Game demos will be available for free, as will some additional game content. Certain other services become available, like the ability to save game data to a cloud service, and early access to select beta testing opportunities for upcoming games. Included with each Plus service is a free subscription to the online magazine, Qore, which focuses on the gaming industry in general, and Sony products specifically. For those that plan to use the system often, the Plus service is worth your consideration.

Games

As mentioned there are tons of gaming options in the store. Get fun mini-games like Pixel Junk’s Monsters or Stardust HD. There’s also DLC for purchase, like map packs for current games like Battlefield 3.

Sony has also been putting full PS3 games intp the store. Not all of them are new releases, but older titles like the original Assassin’s Creed, inFamous, and BioShock are available for purchase. For long time gamers that are looking to delve into nostalgia, or gamers on a budget looking to expand their personal gaming history, Sony also offers dozens of PlayStation One and PlayStation Two games at respectable prices.

Personalize your PS3

Using the store, players can download new themes and wallpapers that add your own unique touch to the system. Themes change the background image and icons on the XMB bar and offer your system a bit of aesthetic personalization. If you’re a little more on the creative side, you can create your own theme and upload it to the system. You will need the PS3 custom theme toolbox first though, which is available on the PlayStation website.

Movies and more

Using the store you can rent movies and TV shows that are produced under the Sony label along with any other companies that they have deals with, mostly though its Sony movies. You can also buy them outright in SD or HD quality at varying prices. The selection is huge, and the playback is top notch.

PlayStation Home

The PS Home both is and isn’t part of the store. What it is, is a virtual world that you can play in with an avatar. The avatar gets his or her own digital apartment that players can use to store game props, posters, and furniture to customize your avatar’s look and lifestyle. Inside of Home, there are tons of areas to explore that relate to games or companies like the EA Sports Bar, the Uncharted room, or the inFamous city streets. Playable games are scattered throughout Home, and Sony does big events that let users win avatar items or even early access to demos and games.


We should note that Home does take up a significant amount of memory on the PS3, and it does slow-down from time to time, so an Ethernet connection instead of the built-in wi-fi may be worth considering.


Find your friends


Of course, the PlayStation also allows for online gaming, both with and without the Plus subscription. A friend’s list will come in handy for this. If you know you’re friends’ PSN screen names, make sure to add them to your list, which can be found on the far right of the XMB menu. Once you’ve added your friends, you can chat with them, or join in any game like Little Big Planet 2 or Modern Warfare 3 that features online play.


Entertainment
Movies and TV


To get the most entertainment out of your PS3, we recommend downloading the Netflix and Hulu Plus apps. Yes, you do need to have paid accounts (assuming you don’t already have an  existing account) with these companies for the the services to work, but it’s worth it to get the latest movies and TV shows streamed right to your console. Plus, once you have an account the service will work on any computer you log in to.


Even if going online isn’t your thing, the PS3 is an ideal device for a home entertainment system, thanks to the built in blu-ray player. The most recent update to the player allows for 3D blu-ray playback (as long as your TV is compatible), so that alone makes the PS3 a good purchase for home theater fans.


Sports


Sports fans will love the options available to them with the PS3. MLB.tv, NFL Sunday Ticket, and NHL Gamecenter are all available on the system. All three apps stream live games (from a list you can choose from), show highlights, and have archives of past games. They also provide the latest scores, stats and schedules. While the apps are free to download, the services are not free—prices vary based on service. Still, if you’re a fan and were considering purchasing these packs on your cable service, these are must haves.


Music


Briefly, we’ll note that music can be put on to the PS3 in a variety of ways, including directly loading songs on to the system, using the Music Unlimited app (paid subscription required), or setting up the PS3 as a media center.


Move


If you didn’t get a PlayStation Move with your system, you can always go grab a bundle for about $100 that ccomes with a PlayStation Eye and the Move controller. The Move adds motion gaming that is similar to the Nintendo Wii. Some of the better games on the system for the Move include Dead Space: Extraction and the Time Crisis games. It’s up to you if motion gaming is something that you want or not.


Media Server
One really nice feature about the PlayStation 3 is that you can turn it into a media server. This means that you can stream movies, music, TV shows, and other similar files from your home PC (or Mac) to the console (see the link above for details on how to set it up).


You’ll need to do some set-up on the computer side of things as well as the PS3 to get this working, but once it’s done you can play almost any movie or music file that you have on your PC on your PS3. It’s great for home movies, photos, and any other digital content that you want to see on your TV.


For tips on how to set up the PS3 as a media center check out our advice for PC and Mac.


Parental Controls
We do want to mention that while you can access tons of great content with the various apps and store options, you might not want everyone in your family accessing some of that content.


The PS3 comes with parental controls that you can set up from the system options menu – this is on the far left of the XMB menu. You can rate what types of content that you children can access. For some this system is a bit confusing because Sony used a number system. You can find what the numbers mean in the manual, but as a brief guide here’s what they mean for games:


0 – ESRB RP – Rating Pending


2 – ESRB EC – Early Childhood


3 – ESRB E – Everyone


4 – ESRB 10 – Everyone 10+


5 – ESRB T – Teen


9 – ESRB M – Mature


10 – ESRB AO – Adults Only


If, however, this seems to confusing you can always set up separate accounts that are password protected with specific parental controls for the youth account.


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This article was originally posted on Digital Trends






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