Lifestyle Zone

Lifestyle. Ashgrove veterinary nurse Sandy Collis counts her lucky stars for the day she met partner Duane Cannell.

He was one of the few people who did not shudder in horror when she revealed she shares her bed with a couple of dogs.

Now Schnitzel, a four-year-old schnauzer, and Pollywaffle, a three-year-old spoodle, have been joined in the bedroom by Cannell's own dog, Jackson, a border collie-cross, who has been upgraded to his own mattress at the bottom of the family bed.
"He loves them as much as I do. Schnitzel is such a little, fat, round hot water bottle, so we both like sleeping near him.

"When I was living by myself it could be quite scary so I felt more secure with the dogs in the bed."

Collis says occasional snoring sometimes keeps her awake (especially from Cannell) but, usually, all five of them sleep well.

Writer Amanda Logan shares her marital bed with two dogs, who boast a combined weight of more than 50kg, despite knowing the practice is frowned on by animal training experts.

Logan and her engineer husband, Pete, upgraded to a king-size bed earlier this year to accommodate their seven-year-old dogs - Ruben, a 30kg labrador/staffy-cross and Ella, a 23kg doberman/kelpie-cross.

Logan, who who has just sold her pet supplies business and doggy daycare centre, knows it's not considered proper behaviour by dog trainers but she is confident she has the situation under control.

She says Ruben, who lies in a spoon position, and Ella, who sleeps at their feet, have been in and out of the bed for the past six years.

"I was a very good dog owner and the dogs started out in our laundry, then we moved them outside with their own kennels. But then we moved and were renovating (with no fence) and my husband then went overseas for three months to South America so the dogs moved into the bed," Logan says.

"They slept out in the lounge room for quite a while but towards the end of last year they were back in the bed again because Ella had an operation.

"Our friends think we are insane."

Collis and Logan say that they would not have allowed their dogs in the bed if they were aggressive or domineering but both women feel comfortable that the humans in the relationship are seen as the pack leaders.

"It depends on the personality and breed types," Collis says. "You don't want dominant dogs in bed with you but there's no challenging in our house - I'm still the boss.

"Luckily our dogs haven't shown any sign of aggression but have such lovely natures."

Vet Mark Debritz, of Ashgrove Ave Veterinary Clinic, on Brisbane's northwest, says allowing dogs in the bed is up to the individual.

He owns a Jack Russell breed which is too active to sleep inside.

"Often people are in a situation where their pet is their only companion," he says.

"We have a lot of clients who have no children. Their dog is treated as another member of their family to the extent of sharing the bed with them and sitting on the couch, so it's a good stress relief and it's therapeutic.

"It often depends on the temperament of the dog and what you want out of your dog.

"Some people are very structured and issue very stern commands while other people have a casual style.

"Ideally, you want to be in control for obedience and behavioural issues.

"You don't want to become a slave to your pet."

Internationally renowned canine behavioural specialist and dog trainer Val Bonney allows her german shepherd dogs occasionally to lie on her bed - only at her command. They are not allowed to sleep on the bed.

Lifestyle. One of the largest and longest studies of coffee drinking suggests that coffee may indeed boost your lifespan - providing you drink enough of the stuff, that is.

New Scientist says the study tracked 129,000 men and women over two decades. It found that people who consumed several cups of coffee every day were less likely to die of heart disease than those who shied away from the stuff.

Heart disease is an umbrella term for conditions including heart attacks, stroke, and arrhythmia.

The researchers found that women who drank four to five cups per day were 34% less likely to die of heart disease, while men who had more than five cups a day were 44% less likely to die.

Lifestyle. One of the largest and longest studies of coffee drinking suggests that coffee may indeed boost your lifespan - providing you drink enough of the stuff, that is.

New Scientist says the study tracked 129,000 men and women over two decades. It found that people who consumed several cups of coffee every day were less likely to die of heart disease than those who shied away from the stuff.

Heart disease is an umbrella term for conditions including heart attacks, stroke, and arrhythmia.

The researchers found that women who drank four to five cups per day were 34% less likely to die of heart disease, while men who had more than five cups a day were 44% less likely to die.

LOVE, when misdiagnosed, can hurt.
It is often confusing at the beginning of a relationship to know whether you are in love or lust, because both are powerful, all-consuming feelings.

In the dictionary, love is described as having strong feelings of affection for another person and feeling romantically and sexually attracted to them. It is described as a warm attachment and unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.

Lust, however, is when you have an overwhelming desire or craving: a lust for power over the other person, usually intense or unbridled sexual desire.

Love is about wanting to share your life, whereas lust is often an obsessive desire, with your pleasure the main focus.

Kathleen Darcy, 28, from the inner Brisbane suburb of Milton says: "I knew it was not right with my former boyfriend, even though I mistook my intense feelings for love at the time.

"I would have done anything for this guy and spent the whole relationship bouncing from this exuberated high to a depressing low, where I would question my will to live at the thought of losing him.

"Love is not supposed to feel like that, it felt too negative, too crazy.

"I became totally obsessed with him and was uncontrollable, to my personal detriment and that of the relationship."

According to author and relationship correspondent Matthew Fitzgerald, this confusion is common and evolves because love and lust are inextricably linked.

"With lust you are totally focused on the other person's looks, you don't really care about what they have to say, only when they will see you," Fitzgerald says.

"You also only ever think about having sex with him/her and are happy to leave after this. With love you still have great chemistry but you find them attractive all the time, even when they look terrible.

"With love, you want to spend more time with the person. You start to see a future with them in it.

"This person will bring out your really romantic side, too. You are very defensive of them and they make you want to be a better person."

Brendan (surname withheld), 29, from northside Chermside says: "With Kerrie I knew it was different. I stopped focusing on myself all the time and started to think more about her feelings.

"My previous relationship was very intense with lots of great sex but that fizzled quickly. I realised I wanted more but not with this person, even though I had really been smitten with her initially.

"I guess that is the difference."
Authors, Dr Charles D. Schmitz and Dr Elizabeth A. Schmitz, aka "The Marriage Doctors", say one of the questions they are most frequently asked is: "How do I know if I am in love?"

Through 25 years of research on couples in love, they categorise symptoms of love into seven main areas:

Physical
BEING in love means you have a positive physical reaction when you think of the other person. This can be goose-bumps, a palpitating heart and tingling all over the body.

Emotional
BEING in love is emotional and you feel emotions that you do not routinely feel for others. When you think about or see the person you love, most lovers report similar feelings - "I laugh more often when I am with this person", "an uncontrollable smile comes over my face whenever I see her".

Future plans
THIS is the point in love when you begin to think about the future - your future with the one you love. You cannot imagine your life without him or her because they have now become your future.

Positive worry
LITTLE thoughts about the one you love begin to creep into your mind - things like car accidents, falling down, getting hurt at work or getting sick. These thoughts are normal and natural when you are in love.

Oneness
YOU begin to think about your lover and not just about yourself or your needs. You think about their wants, their needs and their desires. The feeling of oneness consumes you.

Pre-occupation
YOU think about the one you love most of the time. You can't get them out of your mind. You pull their photo out of your wallet and it makes you smile. You are pre-occupied with them, and everything that happens in your day somehow reminds you of them. You want to share all your experiences with them.

Self-expression
YOU have the courage to tell them you love them, without fear of consequence. Suddenly out of nowhere you want to scream: "I love, you, I love you, I love you."

Lifestyle. NEW research has revealed that "bad boys" who are cursed with anti-social personality traits are more successful with the opposite sex than "nice guys".

This week's New Scientist says two studies in the US have found that men with "dark" characters - such as Hollywood hunk Colin Farrell - have the most prolific sex lives.

Pictures: Football bad boysThe so-called "dark triad" traits include impulsiveness, narcissism, thrill-seeking and deceitfulness, it said.

One of the studies, a survey of 35,000 people in 57 countries, found a clear link between dark triad traits and the reproductive success of males.

"It is universal across cultures for high dark triad scorers to be more active in short-term mating," David Schmitt, of Bradley University in the United States, told the New Scientist.

"They are more likely to try and poach other people's partners for a brief affair."

Another study found that males who scored higher in the dark triad personality traits had a greater number of partners and a desire for short relationships.

Lifestyle. DOCTORS have, for the first time, successfully treated a skin cancer patient with cells cloned from his own immune system, according to a new study.

The ground-breaking treatment for advanced melanoma, or skin cancer, led to a long remission for the patient and used his own cloned infection-fighting T-cells, said doctor Cassian Yee, the lead author of the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr Yee and his associates from the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle removed CD4+ T-cells, a type of white blood cell, from a 52-year-old man whose melanoma had spread to a groin lymph node and to one of his lungs.

The melanoma was already well advanced and in stage four.

The T-cells which specifically fight melanoma were modified and expanded in the laboratory and some five billion cells were then infused into the patient, who received no other kind of treatment.

Two months later no tumours were found during scans of the patient's organs. And he had been cancer-free for two years, Dr Yee said.

"We were surprised by the anti-tumour effect of these CD4 T cells and its duration of response,'' Dr Yee said.

"For this patient we were successful, but we would need to confirm the effectiveness of therapy in a larger study.''

It was the first ever case to show that cloned cells from a patient's own immune system could successful combat skin cancer. If further tests confirmed the efficiency of the method, it could be used in some 25 per cent of patients with late-stage skin cancer, the study said.

Using a patient's own immune system to combat cancer, called immunotherapy, is a growing area of research that aims to develop less-toxic cancer treatments than standard chemotherapy and radiation.

Some 160,000 cases of melanoma are diagnosed around the world every year, particularly affecting white men living in very sunny regions.

Although it usually affects the skin, in rare cases it can also infect the eyes and intestines.

According to the World Health Organisation, some 48,000 people die from melanoma every year.