An Australian research study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition has found that women who were regular tea drinkers had a 2.8 per cent higher hip bone-mineral density and lost less bone (1.6 per cent versus 4 per cent) than those who did not drink tea.
The women who participated in the study drank an average of three cups per day. Scientists cannot point to any one single reason why tea may have this beneficial effect, but there are several possibilities.
For one thing, tea contains potent antioxidants which may slow the activity of osteoclasts (the cells that break down bone). Tea also contains flavonoids, which are thought to boost the production of new bone-building cells, as well as phytoestrogens, which may have a bone-protective effect on women whose levels of oestrogen are low.
There's always debate over whether there is a magic age that runners should hang up their shoes in favour of less stressful exercise pursuits like walking or swimming. Find out what the recent research says.
There’s always debate over whether there is a magic age that runners should hang up their shoes in favour of less stressful exercise pursuits like walking or swimming.
But visit the many seniors running groups or take a look around your local running track and you’ll see a fair share of incredibly active, incredibly fit older runners. Recent research from Stanford University published in a recent issue of Archives of Internal Medicine has found that it really may pay to simply…keep on running.
Stanford University research
At the beginning of the study, runners were younger, leaner and less likely to smoke than controls. After 19 years, 81 runners (15 percent) had died compared with 144 controls (34 percent).
Disability levels were lower in runners at all time points and increased in both groups over time, but less so in runners. At the end of the 21-year follow-up, in terms of disability, “the higher levels among controls translate into important differences in overall daily functional limitations,” the authors write. “Disability and survival curves continued to diverge between groups after the 21-year follow-up as participants approached their ninth decade of life.”
“Our findings of decreased disability in addition to prolonged survival among middle-aged and older adults participating in routine physical activities further support recommendations to encourage moderate to vigorous physical activity at all ages,” they conclude. “Increasing healthy lifestyle behaviors may not only improve length and quality of life but also hopefully lead to reduced health care expenditures associated with disability and chronic diseases.”
The authors note that regular exercise could reduce disability and death risk by increasing cardiovascular fitness, improving aerobic capacity, increased bone mass, lower levels of inflammatory markers, improved response to vaccinations and improved thinking, learning and memory functions.
YOUR SAY: Will this new research get you back out on the road and running? Tell us below…
Beguiling, mysterious and touchingly beautiful, Venice conquers all, as Larry Writer discovered on a leisurely tour around this legendary Italian jewel-box.
Venice is one of the highlight cities of The Australian Women’s Weekly and Trafalgar World Discovery Tour — a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the magazine’s 75th birthday and remember the thousands of readers who enjoyed the hundreds of Discovery Tours held since they were first launched more than 30 years ago.
Some cities are summer belles, never lovelier than when bathed in sunshine, their streets, famous sites, beaches and parks teeming with locals and visitors. Robust Sydney, Rome, Paris and New York spring to mind. Yet Venice is a winter town, melancholy, romantic and mysterious, especially when the chill descends and fogs roll in from the marshes across the lagoon.
When to visit
Fragile, doomed Venice’s pleasures are best experienced in the less-congested months from October to March, when there’s room and peace to stroll and savour the art and architecture. Far better than in the northern summer, when millions of holidaymakers, most, it seems, clutching a chunk of pizza in one hand and John Berendt’s The City Of Falling Angels in the other, invade, clogging the city’s delicate arteries like a terminal case of cholesterol.
Why visitors are good for Venice
Yet even as summer turns the grand old city into a theme park for half the year, mass tourism is helping to save Venice. By far its biggest source of revenue, tourism is a lifebuoy to a city literally sinking into the Adriatic. Much of the tourist dollar is channeled into schemes to restrain the inexorably rising waters. Yes, noisy hordes sporting Hawaiian shirts, baseball caps, tanktops and iPods seem shockingly incongruous in a city so steeped in the past and whose residents, among Italy’s oldest and courtliest, dress up even to go to the market. Yet the consensus is that the interlopers are a small price to pay for survival and they are welcomed.
What to expect
You could spend a lifetime in Venice and not scratch its crumbling surface, but on a brief visit it’s possible to come to understand why it’s renowned as the most beautiful city on earth. Venice is a jewel box of art and architecture both gorgeous and priceless, but the greatest treasure is the city itself, a 457sq km lagoon-bound labyrinth of 118 islands riven by 177 silvery canals and countless cortes (blind alleys) and fondamenti (streets running by canals), and linked by 400 stepped bridges. It’s a place of bustling squares and shopping precincts, and of peace (there are no cars) and memories in the making: a tubby cat luxuriating on an ancient windowsill, the strains of Mahler’s 5th (so chillingly used in Visconti’s Death In Venice) wafting from a palazzo courtyard, or the vista from the single-span wooden Accademia Bridge down the Grand Canal to the glistening dome of Longhena’s Baroque Santa Maria della Salute Church.
Get the best from a visit
Venice is a city to get lost in, its intimate delights to be savoured at leisure. Nowhere else can you walk so far in a day without feeling remotely exhausted. As you explore, it’s as if the sights of this exquisite city — there seems to be something wonderful around every bend — lift energy levels and spirits as high as the carved winged lions, symbols of old Venice, that preen atop the buildings.
Venice at heart is a time capsule which makes only the necessary concessions to modern life &$151; hotels, trattoria and souvenir shops. Try to ignore all that and you’ll see the city almost as Lord Byron, Leonardo da Vinci and Marco Polo saw it, as you walk the passageways or ply the canals.
How to get about
Get the lie of the lagoon aboard a vaporetto (water bus) or gondola (around $170 an hour, a cliché, but still worth doing) along the Grand Canal. Crammed with other ferries and gondolas, police boats, traghetti (no-frills gondolas rowed by two men that will take you across the canal for around $1.70), produce barges and private pleasure craft, Venice’s “highway” snakes four kilometres through the middle of the city.
Its banks are lined with fabled palaces, once glittering with gold and freshly painted scenes by masters, but now a little tarnished by time. Look for the monumental Fondaco dei Turchi, built in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Ca’ d’Oro, circa 1440, which once gleamed with gold.
Rialto Bridge
The majestic Rialto Bridge, built in 1588-91, spans the Grand Canal at its narrowest point. It is best viewed at a distance and from the water, for today it is covered with shops, selling cheap trinkets and, most of all, masks. There are more masks for sale in Venice than there could ever be faces to wear them, even at Carnevale in February, when they are de rigeur. There’s more atmosphere at the Rialto Market, where trestles groan with vegetables, meat and seafood, scaled, gutted and cleaned before your eyes by the flying fingers of the fishmongers.
Piazza San Marco
From Dame Nellie Melba to Madonna, Garbo to Grace Kelly, John F. Kennedy to F. Scott Fitzgerald, it seems more famous people have posed with the pigeons in Piazza San Marco in front of the Moorish glory of the Basilica San Marco than any other landmark. To enjoy this imposing piazza sans pigeons (which outnumber Venetians), go before the sun is on the square and the birdseed sellers have set up shop. It’s like a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds to look up to the rooftops and see thousands of perching pigeons waiting to swoop down to the paving stones when the square comes to life.
The Piazza San Marco is best enjoyed over a bellini (sparkling wine with peach puree) at an open-air cafe. Beware, though, if you’re there in December, when the Christmas tides bubble up through the square’s grates and in a short time immerse the square in water. That’s when shopkeepers break out the duckboards, which are fun to cross — like planks in a pirate adventure — but keep to the right to avoid collisions and a soaking.
Doge’s Palace
The pink and cream Doge’s Palace on Piazza San Marco was home to the 120 doges who ruled Venice from 697 to 1797. Many were as cruel as they were pious. On a wall of the Gothic-style palace there remains a wonderful stone lion’s head whose gaping mouth was a repository into which citizens popped printed accusations against their enemies. If the doge, who clearly didn’t have enough to do, found the charge justified, he’d punish the accused, if not, the tattletale would cop it.
Many of the present-day staff at the palace, curmudgeons who only leave off chain-smoking and reading The Da Vinci Code to bark at visitors, seem to have inherited the people skills of the doges. The Gothic confection’s massive halls are home to such works as Tintoretto’s Paradise and Veronese’s The Triumph of Venice and Rape of Europe. There’s plenty here, too, for the children. In the truly scary armoury, they’ll take macabre delight at the weapons — crossbows, spears, swords, guns and maces – on display. There’s even a metal chastity belt, so have an answer ready when the kids ask — and they invariably will — what it is.
Bridge of Sighs
When you’re passing over the forlorn Bridge of Sighs, which crosses from the palace proper to its dungeons, it’s easy to imagine the condemned sighing deeply as they gaze through the barred windows for a last look at sky and lagoon.
There are many art galleries, but three must-sees: the Accademia Galleries, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. The art in the Accademia spans Venetian painting from Byzantine to Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo, and includes some of the finest works of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Veronese and Titian.
Sublime art
The Guggenheim’s contemporary art collection includes works by Picasso, Leger, Magritte, Klee, Henry Moore and Jackson Pollock, and is housed in a palace on the Grand Canal. Peggy Guggenheim, an American mining heiress who made Venice her home, is buried in the back garden with her many dogs. The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a shrine to Tintoretto and includes his masterpiece, The Crucifixion (1565).
Where to eat
Venice is generally less renowned for food than for its art. Great dining exists — carpaccio, seafood, risotto and pasta con il nero di sepia (pasta with cuttlefish in its black ink and tomato sauce) are delicacies — but you have to seek it out and pay for it. Avoid restaurants with a menu turistico at the door. This virtually guarantees gunky pizza, cardboard pasta and limp salad. Better by far to graze on delectable cakes and ice-creams from a cafe, or fruit and nuts from the Rialto Market, then go somewhere special once a day. Say, to, Da Fiore, Vini da Gigio (in the city) and Bussa Alla Torre on the island of Murano.
Airport transfers
The best way to get from the airport to the Piazza San Marco is by private water taxi. At around $153, it’s not as cheap as the sardine cans of the Alilaguna ferry line, but the whip across the water, past San Michele and the walled cemetery, as gulls wheel above, and on to the lagoon to dock amid a flotilla of bobbing black gondolas at the piazza is a justifiable luxury. When it’s time to return to the airport, don’t rush, brave the ferry (less than $10), which meanders from stop to stop, soaking up your last glimpses as you chug across the steely Adriatic, back to the real world.
Up until recently, so-called “natural” skincare products didn’t have a great reputation for their effectiveness in dealing with mature skin concerns.
Now however a new range of products called Priori Coffeeberry is excellent for revitalizing ageing skin.
Based on the anti-oxidant-rich whole fruit of the coffee plant, Coffeeberry is said to be at least three times more powerful at fighting free radicals than green tea, making it a true supernatural cosmeutical able to deliver great anti-ageing benefits.
Must-have is Brightening Facial Complex, 30ml, $160.
There’s always debate over whether there is a magic age that runners should hang up their shoes in favour of less stressful exercise pursuits like walking or swimming.
But visit the many seniors running groups or take a look around your local running track and you’ll see a fair share of incredibly active, incredibly fit older runners. Recent research from Stanford University published in a recent issue of Archives of Internal Medicine has found that it really may pay to simply…keep on running.
Stanford University research
At the beginning of the study, runners were younger, leaner and less likely to smoke than controls. After 19 years, 81 runners (15 percent) had died compared with 144 controls (34 percent).
Disability levels were lower in runners at all time points and increased in both groups over time, but less so in runners. At the end of the 21-year follow-up, in terms of disability, “the higher levels among controls translate into important differences in overall daily functional limitations,” the authors write. “Disability and survival curves continued to diverge between groups after the 21-year follow-up as participants approached their ninth decade of life.”
“Our findings of decreased disability in addition to prolonged survival among middle-aged and older adults participating in routine physical activities further support recommendations to encourage moderate to vigorous physical activity at all ages,” they conclude. “Increasing healthy lifestyle behaviors may not only improve length and quality of life but also hopefully lead to reduced health care expenditures associated with disability and chronic diseases.”
The authors note that regular exercise could reduce disability and death risk by increasing cardiovascular fitness, improving aerobic capacity, increased bone mass, lower levels of inflammatory markers, improved response to vaccinations and improved thinking, learning and memory functions.
YOUR SAY: Will this new research get you back out on the road and running? Tell us below…
When Crown Princess Mary of Denmark recently returned home to Australia with her husband, Frederik, and their two children, she discovered there is no such thing as a holiday when charity calls, reports Wendy Squires.
The grey Audi four-wheel drive emerged from the driveway flanked by a line of cars carrying Tasmanian police officers, royal bodyguards, assorted local and international media, and the ever-present paparazzi. Slowly the convoy trailed the car for several blocks, where it pulled up outside a cluster of shops in West Hobart. There, the driver, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, disembarked and raced into a chemist, emerging minutes later carrying two packets of nappies — one pink, one blue — before returning to the car and driving back to her sister’s, the parade of cars once again in close pursuit.
This simple task would be an everyday activity for most women with two young children, but Mary is no ordinary mum, something her recent trip home to Australia made more apparent than ever. It was supposed to be an unofficial visit, but it appears there is no such thing these days for Mary, whose every move — no matter how pedestrian — makes headlines both here and in her adopted home of Denmark. It is a dichotomy of sorts for the laid-back royal who, only eight years ago, was a newly graduated Tasmanian law student working in Sydney real estate, used to a life of independence and spontaneity.
While part of her still craves the ordinary life, Mary is also aware that constant attention has a positive side, in that it allows her to deflect the spotlight onto the causes she passionately champions. So, on this visit, she again strove to balance both desires, spending private time catching up with her sisters, Jane Stephens and Patricia Bailey, as well as using her celebrity to attract attention to the charities close to her heart.
It is this self-deprecating charm which ensures the 35-year-old mother of nine-month-old Sage Florence will not only remain one of the most respected actresses working today, but also one of the most liked.
Your Say: Who is your favourite Australian export? Tell us below…
In the glow of new motherhood, Nicole Kidman speaks to Jenny Cooney Carrillo about her joy at being a mother and the pride she feels in her role in the much-anticipated epic Australia..
“I never thought that I would get pregnant and give birth to a child, but it happened on this movie,” an emotional Nicole says. The 41-year-old actress is talking to us exclusively from London, where she is rehearsing the musical film Nine, inspired by the 1963 Fellini movie 8½ and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
During our chat and previous interviews on the set of Australia in Kununurra, WA, and Sydney, Nicole touches on everything from her great Australian movie role opposite Hugh Jackman and the challenges that came with this labour of love, to the occasional revelation about her other new role as Sunday’s mum.
The fiercely protective and surprisingly shy actress can’t help but let us in on how she’s feeling at this blessed time in her life. “It’s exhausting,” she acknowledges, “but I think at this age it’s more like” — she lets out a huge, satisfied sigh — “spellbinding for me. To be given this again is a beautiful thing. To have raised Bella and Connor since I was 25 and now to be able to do it again at 41…wow!”
But I’m ready and I love children, and love the connection and to be needed. Who doesn’t want to be needed?” she muses. “And that’s the thing for my character, Lady Sarah Ashley, in the film, because she also finds there is a place in the world where she is really needed by these two males.”
The two males Nicole is referring to are her ruggedly handsome Aussie co-star Hugh Jackman, who plays the drover that sweeps her character off her feet, and 11-year-old Aboriginal actor Brandon Walters, who plays her surrogate son, Nullah, and became like a son to her during filming.
Set in northern Australia just before World War II, Australia follows the journey of Lady Ashley, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling cattle station in the outback and reluctantly makes a pact with a cattle drover (Hugh) to protect her new property from a takeover plot by cattle baron King Carney (played by Bryan Brown). The pair band together with an unlikely group, including her alcoholic accountant (Jack Thompson) and young Nullah, to drive 2000 head of cattle over unforgiving terrain to Darwin, where they experience the bombing of the city by the Japanese.
“As a kid, I grew up watching Australian films that were accepted around the world, like Gallipoli, The Man from Snowy River and My Brilliant Career — all those films and actors moulded and inspired me,” Nicole reflects. “I really wanted to make a film like that as a kid, so when we were filming this one, I’d look at Baz and Hugh sometimes and go, ‘Look, we’re doing it!’
“Hopefully, the next generation will watch our movie and feel the same way because it is very much a celebration of our country and our landscape, and the pain and love and survivor aspect of what we are as Australians.”
Nicole has certainly had more than her fair share of pain, love and survival, and much of it she’s experienced in the glare of the public eye as the world watched the roller-coaster of her life unfold — her marriage to superstar Tom Cruise in 1990, the adoption of their two children Bella, now 15, and Connor, 13, her split with Tom in 2001, her Oscar for The Hours, her love story with singer Keith Urban, their fairytale Sydney wedding in 2006 and the arrival of Sunday Rose on July 7.
The first-name-only supermodels of the 1990s are making a comeback, despite being the other side of 40. Lee Tulloch talks to Elle Macpherson, who has taken her “super” status and turned it into an empire.
Until recently, you might have been forgiven for thinking that the supermodels who dominated the fashion headlines in the 1990s had been consigned to history, a group of glamazons who had their moment in the sun in the same way the dinosaurs had theirs millions of years before. Now pushing — and passing — 40, the “supers”, who were once so famous they were universally recognised by their first names, should have gone off to the model’s graveyard, having been replaced by a conga line of interchangeable teens, most of whom are still doing high school by correspondence.
Yet something happened in our culture. The pretty teenagers began to seem bland and uninteresting to a generation of women who were pushing 40 and beyond, and who were becoming impatient with images of skinny waifs who bore no relationship to their lives.
The fashion business took note. Suddenly, this year, the “supers” are big news again. Linda Evangelista, at 43, is the new face of Prada’s autumn/winter collection. Christy Turlington, 39, is the face of Escada. Naomi Campbell, 38, fronts the latest Yves Saint Laurent campaign. Claudia Schiffer, 38, looks as luminous as ever modelling Salvatore Ferragamo. And Elle Macpherson, 44, has signed a three-year deal as Revlon’s brand ambassador.
If that’s not enough, this month sees the Australian release of Elle Macpherson The Body, a range of bath and body products based on her personal beauty routine.
While Elle was never the catwalk queen her contemporaries were, her name arguably has had the furthest reach. From record six-time Sports Illustrated swimwear cover girl to recipient of last year’s Everywoman Outstanding Designer Award in the UK, she has actively sought to redefine herself beyond the limiting model-slash-actress moniker.
She still models, but it is her business acumen that has given her career longevity beyond the photo shoot. Her brand is fast approaching empire status with the continued success of her lingerie collection, Elle Macpherson Intimates. In another new role, Elle will be the face of Invisible Zinc in markets outside Australia.
The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has a family tree that leads all the way back to the convicts transported on the Second Fleet in 1790 and the very foundations of Australia. Yet he isn’t the only Australian with a rich family history.
More than 160,000 convicts came to these shores between 1787 and 1857, and today many Australians can trace their family back to those who were brought here as punishment for crimes that appear trivial by modern day standards. Of course, not everyone came here as a convict. Many arrived as free settlers, or as soldiers or businessmen hoping to start anew — no boundaries, no barriers. Some of the most ambitious came from successful and often well-connected English families wanting to create dynasties of their own, while others wanted to escape the poverty they were born to. Either way, it was to Australia that they turned for a fresh start.
Kevin Rudd’s family background is woven into the fabric of this country’s history. Yet all Australians contribute to the variety and richness of that tapestry. All families have stories, ordinary and extraordinary people caught up in adventures, mysteries, famous names, places and deeds that resonate through the centuries.
EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Readers of The Weekly who sign up to www.ancestry.com.au through the link below can save 50 per cent. For full details, plus terms and conditions, go to www.ancestry.com.au/aww.
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