Iqua Beat Gadgets & Gear

Voice guided personal trainer

Bluetooth Hi-fi stereo headset and application for iPhone

Smith I/O Photochromic Snow Goggles

$235, www.rei.com

Check out these health and fitness finds

Swimsense Performance Monitor

$169.99, www.finisinc.com

Iqua Beat is a high-performance stereo headset and iPhone app that helps you go further, train smarter and get better results. The Bluetooth headset tracks your heart rate, distance and calorie consumption, giving you real-time audio feedback on how you’re doing. Your stats are synced right to the Iqua Beat iPhone app, where you can plan and share workouts with your friends online.

These helmet-compatible goggles with CarbonicX scratch- and fog-resistant lenses also automatically adjust their tint darkness according to visible light levels. Three-layer face foam offers a dense base to reduce hot spots, a plush middle layer for comfort and a soft fleece top layer to ensure a tight seal while managing moisture.

Iqua Beat

Key Features

$179, www.iqua.com

App for planning, sharing and managing your workouts

Voice guidance – get real time workout information

Monitor real-time heart rate from your ear

Calculate your steps with build-in pedometer

Measure your real-time calorie consumption

Patented earbud design

Listen to more than music with this Bluetooth stereo headset. Iqua Beat calculates your heart rate, steps, distance, route and speed, and provides audio feedback. Your stats are then sent to the corresponding iPhone app, where you can also track your progress toward your fitness goals.

Handsfree call support

Touch ring control – Volume, Play/Pause and Next/Prev track changing

Armband to carry your iPhone during your workout

TRX HOME Suspension Training Kit

$199.95, www.trxtraining.com

This nylon suspension system uses your own body weight to build strength, balance, flexibility and core stability. The HOME kit includes a “Get Started” guide, a TRX door anchor for indoor training, a TRX suspension anchor for outdoor training and a mesh carry bag to take your suspension straps anywhere you like.

This waterproof monitor, worn on the wrist like a watch, uses accelerometers and other technology to identify your swim style and track your pace times, distance, stroke count and calories burned.

PURE Safe-Shell

Bottle

$24.95, www.pureglassbottle.com

PURE glass bottles are a BPA-free way to up your daily water intake. The tough borosilicate bottles are coated externally with an impact-resistant material that keeps shards contained if the bottle breaks. Plus the wide-mouthed bottles accommodate plenty of ice or fruit wedges to make drinking bottled water a bit more fun.

Enter for a chance to win a PURE Safe-Shell Bottle. See page 4 for details.

Just Dance 4

$39.96, www.amazon.com

Groove until you sweat to more than 40 popular songs with Just Dance 4, available for Wii, Wii U, PlayStation 3 with PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 with Kinect. Challenge friends in Battle Mode or use the Just Sweat mode for personalized workout programs with a calorie counter.

Personalized Yoga Mat

$79, www.yogamatic.com

Make your mat your own with these custom mats from Yogamatic. Choose from more than 200 designs or upload a picture and create your own.

Kinetic Road Machine

Fluid Bike Trainer

$349, www.rei.com

Stay out of the cold and keep your miles up with this bike trainer. The trainer allows you to simulate outdoor riding, including sprints, intervals and long cruises. Resistance adjusts automatically as you change speeds and the large roller reduces tire wear.

Virtual Active Workout Videos

$7.96 each, www.vafitness.com

Download a running, hiking or cycling video from Virtual Active and enjoy scenery from all over the world while you work out at home or at the gym. The company offers both guided workouts with instruction from a professional trainer and basic workouts that allow you to set your own pace. The videos are also available as DVDs or in series sets.

LifeProof Fre iPhone Case

$79.99, www.lifeproof.com

Has your phone ever hit the concrete while you were on a bike ride or been ripped from your headphones and fallen off the treadmill during a run? The Lifeproof Fre case offers waterproof (2 meters, 30 minutes), shock-proof (drop impacts from up to 2 meters), dirt-proof and snow-proof protection for your iPhone.

Nightlife LSD Lite Jacket III

$85, www.brooksrunning.com

No one will be able to miss you in this lightweight jacket. In addition to the bright color and reflective details to assist nighttime visibility, the jacket is windproof and water-resistant to help you stay warm. It also has double-back ventilation, an easy-cinch hood and the ability to pack up into its own pocket.

Dog-E-Glow Leash

$25.99, www.dogeglow.com

Keep your furry friend safe during nighttime walks with this LED dog leash. The 6-foot leash has a replaceable battery with a life of 150 hours. The company also offers an NCAA college collection so your pup can share your team pride.

Eat Well, Eat Happy: 100 Ways to Enjoy the Healthy Foods You Love

By Charity Ferreira

Chef Ferreira guides the athome cook through a journey exploring simple cooking with whole foods in this book of reci pes, which is studded with gor geous photos and asides about nutrientfilled “superfoods.”

How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America

By Otis Webb Brawley, M.D. Brawley, chief

medical officer of the American Cancer Society, explores the current state of health care in the U.S., delving into the racial, socio-economic, political and scientific factors that drive the way patients are treated.

PubMed.gov www.pubmed.gov

This site from the National Center for Biotechnology Information allows you to search 22 million citations from a variety of science journals and online books. Though the site doesn’t include the full text of the articles, it’s a great jumping-off point for researching any number of health concerns.

RealAge www.realage.com

RealAge purports to calculate your scientific “age” based on your family history and how healthful – or unhealthful – your habits are. The RealAge test was designed by a team of doctors and scientists, including Dr. Michael F. Roizen, chief wellness officer of the Cleveland Clinic. Once you learn your RealAge, the site offers up helpful suggestions of what to change to become “younger.” developed melanoma, in contrast with two other groups, which had less than a quarter of the mice develop the cancer. Researchers theorize the increased risk may correlate with pheomelanin synthesis or reactive oxygen species created by pheomelanin.

Cancer drug effectively fights MS symptoms

Redheads’ skin cancer risk may be genetic

Fair-skinned, red-headed people may be at higher risk for skin cancer – with or without sun exposure, a recent study published in the journal Nature indicates.

Having red hair is associated with a variation in the gene for melacornin 1 receptor MC1R that causes high levels of red-yellow melanin, pheomelanin. The study showed that even without exposure to UV light, mice with the “red” MC1R gene variation showed significantly higher rates of melanoma than mice without the gene variation. By the end of the year-long study, half the red mice

Two new studies by researchers from the University of Cambridge show that alemtuzumab, a drug created to treat leukemia, is effective at preventing relapses of Multiple Sclerosis. Alemtuzumab has been used off-label for MS for several years. The studies, published in the UK journal The Lancet, show that the drug is significantly more effective than interferon beta 1a at preventing relapses, both for those whose MS was previously untreated and for those who did not respond to first-line MS treatment. Among the side effects experienced by those taking alemtuzumab were infections and autoimmune diseases, including thyroid disorders, suggesting that those who elect treatment with the drug would require careful monitoring for signs of negative side effects.