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4A Daily News – Monday, October 31, 2011 Vitality & health How to … eat healthy as a couple (MCT) — Women are more likely to gain weight after marriage, according to a recent study from Ohio State University. One solution: understand your nutri- tional needs. "Don't think you and your significant other can eat the same amount of food," says Jessica Levinson, a registered dietitian in New York City. Don't match him bite for bite ... Men often are taller and more muscular than women and can eat more with- out gaining weight. While women generally need 1,600 to 2,200 calories a day _ the higher number is for younger, more active women _ the range for men is 2,200 to 2,800. ... or sip for sip. Women have lower amounts of an enzyme that breaks down alcohol and less body water to dilute it. Stick to one drink a day. Don't gobble food. Men tend to eat faster than women. Put down utensils between bites, chew food thoroughly and use smaller forks and spoons (a tea- spoon for cereal, say, rather than a soup spoon). Know your needs. Talk to a registered dietitian or find an online calculator for calorie recommendations based on gender, age, size and exercise habits. Consid- er a multi-vitamin that offers sex-specific formulas; women often need more of certain substances (iron) and less of others (protein). Eat well when you're alone. Fill up on fruits, vegeta- bles, lean protein and whole grains. Don't "let yourself go." Share diet and fitness goals with your significant other, ask for support and identify behaviors that interfere with them. Also find an exer- cise you can enjoy as a couple. Be a creative cook. Tweak favorite "manly" foods: bake chicken with bread crumbs rather than frying it, for example, grill with olive oil instead of butter and use low-fat cheeses in sandwiches and recipes. MINNEAPOLIS (MCT) — Was one of the world's most famous medical cases a mistake? Or, worse yet, a hoax? Author Debbie Nathan's book "Sybil Exposed" explores the history of the Minnesota woman who became a cause celebre in the 1970s after it was reported that she had 16 different per- sonalities. Following the best-selling book "Sybil" and a movie adaptation starring Sally Field, mul- tiple personality disorder, or MPD, was officially classified as a psychiatric disorder. The medical records for Sybil — who really was Shirley Mason, a native of Dodge Center, Minn. — were sealed until she died in 1998. After combing through those records, which included tape recordings of therapy sessions involving hypnosis while under the influence of "mind-bending drugs," Nathan is convinced that the treatment caused rather than cured her con- dition. "I don't think she had MPD," said Nathan, a journalist who rose to prominence in the 1980s for her investigation of so- called "therapeutic inter- rogation" techniques. "I'm not a doctor, but in retro- spect, I think she had a physical illness, perni- cious anemia, which is known to cause hallucina- tions." If so, the condition fitness Was 'Sybil' a case of mistaken identity? truth." If it was a hoax, they did a really bad job of it. For starters, they saved things that refuted their claims. "One of 'Sybil's well- MCT photo Shirley Mason, the real Sybil, is seen in her Dodge Center, Minn., 1941 senior class photo. would have been exacer- bated by Mason's psychi- atrist, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who prescribed liberal doses of drugs, many of which are now known to be hallucino- genic. When Mason was depressed, she would double, triple and some- times even quadruple the dosages, Nathan alleges in her book. Wilbur believed that Mason had repressed memories from a traumat- ic childhood. She would hypnotize Mason and suggest things that might Counseling Center Giving Families Hope! Did you think we were just for children? • Individual & Family Counseling • Couple/Relationship Issues • Anger • Depression • Anxiety • Emotional Trauma • Family Relationships • Parenting Call our office for more info. 529-9454 Red Bluff 590 Antelope Blvd. Suite B-30 Corning Counseling Center 275 Solano Street #2 have happened. Mason incorporated many of the suggestions into her sto- ries about growing up. "She was very suscep- tible to hypnosis and to suggestion," Nathan said of Mason. Even her real memories are suspect, she added, because they "got all mixed up with her hal- lucinations." A case in point: "Sybil" describes an inci- dent when she was 7 in which a gun went off and killed a friend right in front of her. Wilbur theo- rized that she escaped the emotional trauma by turn- ing her body over to an alternative personality. But Nathan's check of newspaper archives revealed that while the story about the friend's death was true, it hap- pened 10 years later and Mason wasn't there. While it's easy to dis- prove Mason's "memo- ries," how those stories came to be taken as fact is harder to pin down. "Some people in the media who have skimmed my book or just read parts of it are saying that I'm arguing that it was a hoax" conceived by Wilbur and Flora Schreiber, the author of "Sybil," Nathan said. "I'm not willing to go that far. I don't know if it was a lie or a hoax or simply an inability to deal with the known stories was that when she was 9, she was taken over by an alterna- tive personality for two years," Nathan said. "Dur- ing that time, she learned the multiplication tables. The story is that she was good at math, but when her real personality returned, she flunked math because she couldn't remember anything that the alternative personality had been taught. "Within the first hour of opening the first box (of documents), I found all of her report cards. She was never good at math. And as I'm looking at those grades, I'm asking myself, 'Why did they save this stuff?'" She wonders if Wilbur and Schreiber got caught up in the ego rush of breaking new medical ground and were afraid to explore any avenues that might burst that bubble. The latter included diaries that contradicted many of Mason's trance-induced stories about her child- hood. "I don't know if they ignored what was in the journals or simply never bothered to read them," Nathan said. The real story about Mason surfaced thanks to two French medical researchers who stumbled on a letter that listed Sybil's real name and address, information that enabled them to deter- mine that she died in 1998 at age 75. Arguing that patient privacy rules no longer applied, they peti- tioned for her medical records to be unsealed. Late in 2001, they were granted access to the files. They wrote a book challenging the concept of MPD but devoted only one chapter of it to Mason. Plus, the book has never been translated into English. Nathan felt there was a need for a bigger story, and not just for its sensationalism. While others might be focusing on the deception behind the Sybil myth, she sees her book as more of a cautionary tale. With "Sybil" and the movie both becoming hugely successful, MPD became the trendy diagnosis of the 1970s. "It just made everything worse," she said. "Sybil supposedly had 16 person- alities, which was unprece- dented at the time. Within a couple of years, there were people claiming to have hundreds of personal- ities. There were even a few who were said to have more than a thousand." The moral of the story, she said, is that even sci- ence is subject to fads. "Science is not just test tubes," she said. "It comes from humans. What we need to take from this is that when science makes new claims that sound really, really impressive, we need to situate those claims in the culture." James W. Tysinger, Jr. M.D. Eye Physician & Surgeon Fellow American Academy of Ophtalmology We accept Medical, Medicare & most Insurances Office Hours: Tues-Wed-Thurs 8am-4:30pm Mon & Fri 1pm-5pm For Emergencies, After Hours, Week-ends, Call 530-567-5001 345 Hickory St. Red Bluff Tel: (530) 529-4733 Fax: (530) 529-1114