NEWSWEEK: Media Lead Sheet/December 10, 2007 Issue (on newsstands Monday, De...( COVER: HEALTH FOR LIFE. Fertilit...)

COVER: HEALTH FOR LIFE. "Fertility & Diet" (p. 54). The latest chapter of Newsweek's "Health For Life" series focuses on the newest research on how foods impact the odds of getting pregnant. Harvard University researchers Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Walter C. Willett, M.D., and Patrick J. Skerrett, authors of the new book "The Fertility Diet," break down the roles diet, exercise and weight control play in conception and weigh in on their surprising findings. Some of the keys to their diet plan include eating slowly digested carbohydrates such as brown rice, dark breads, beans, vegetables and whole fruits; adding in unsaturated fats while taking out trans fats, and getting more protein from plants and less from animals. They also found that a daily serving or two of whole milk and foods made from whole milk-full-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, and even ice cream-offer some protection against ovulatory infertility. The Fertility Diet also stresses the importance of exercising and maintaining a Body Mass Index between 20 and 24.
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"A Changing Portrait of DNA" (p. 63). General Editor Mary Carmichael reports on some of the latest insights into the complex machinery of genetics and life itself. For years scientists have known that certain genes can be turned on and off by chemical switches, but only recently have they begun to understand that these switches are a crucial link between the DNA and the outside world. Researchers once saw the order of the base pairs in DNA as a sort of unchanging blueprint. Researchers now know that chemical switches are responsible for directing almost all of the body's fundamental functions. As much as the genes themselves, they are the biological builders that make us who we are. '/>"/>