Acupuncture Helps Ease Fatigue After Breast Cancer

Acupuncture Helps Ease Fatigue After Breast Cancer

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthPersistent fatigue after breast cancer treatment is a common problem among patients, with one in three women suffering the debilitating tiredness for a year or more after their treatment ends. Older women, in particular, say their post-cancer fatigue severely affects their mood and quality of life. But a new multicenter study by British researchers finds that acupuncture may help reduce fatigue and improve quality of life in women who have had breast cancer. In the study published this week in ...

Persistent fatigue after breast cancer treatment is a common problem among patients, with one in three women suffering the debilitating tiredness for a year or more after their treatment ends. Older women, in particular, say their post-cancer fatigue severely affects their mood and quality of life.

But a new multicenter study by British researchers finds that acupuncture may help reduce fatigue and improve quality of life in women who have had breast cancer.

In the study published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers with the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom found that women who received weekly acupuncture sessions had greater improvements in fatigue as well as anxiety, depression and quality of life, compared with those who only received educational materials, Reuters reported.

The study involved 302 breast cancer patients who had all received chemotherapy for breast cancer in the five years before the study. Most reported feeling chronically tired for a year or more. Seventy-five women were randomly assigned to receive a booklet about managing fatigue, while 227 received acupuncture once a week for six weeks as well as a booklet.

After six weeks, both groups were asked to rank their fatigue, anxiety, depression and other quality-of-life measures. Among the acupuncture group, general fatigue had dropped by almost four points on a 0-20 scale, compared with a less than a one-point decline in the booklet-only group.

Amit Sood, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not part of the study, told Reuters that the four-point drop should be considered “mild to modest” improvement, enough to make acupuncture ”well worth a try” for some people.

Anxiety and depression scores dropped by even more post-acupuncture, compared with the scores from women in the booklet-only group. Emotional and physical well-being got a greater boost with acupuncture therapy as well, the researchers found.

Lead researcher Alexander Molassiotis, a professor of cancer and supportive care at the University of Manchester, wrote that the results suggest that “acupuncture is an effective intervention for managing the symptoms of cancer-related fatigue and improving patients’ quality of life.”

In an accompanying editorial, Julienne Bower of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center noted that “only a handful of randomized controlled trials have targeted patients with moderate to severe fatigue,” as this study did. Considering the prevalence and impact that cancer-related fatigue has on patients’ health and survival, “there is a critical need” for more studies to help patients cope with the aftereffects of cancer treatment, Bower said.

In other health news:

Mammograms: For every one life saved, three women overtreated. Breast cancer screening for women over age 50 saves 1,300 lives a year, new British research shows, but that comes with a cost: Roughly 4,000 women are overdiagnosed and treated for a slow-growing cancer that doctors say would never have threatened their lives, according to Reuters.

Advanced lung cancer patients misunderstand purpose of treatment. The Los Angeles Times reports that patients diagnosed with lung cancer that is considered incurable appear to misunderstand the purpose and likely effect of a treatment aimed at making them more comfortable, a new study says.

Photo: acidpix via flickr

Source: blog.aarp.org

Anti-Aging Products Are Not Just For the Old

Anti-Aging Products Are Not Just For the Old
There are many products on the market for anti-aging. Everyone wants a more youthful appearance, and these products may be beneficial.
Source: EzineArticles.com

What Are Those Free Radicals I Hear So Much About?

What Are Those Free Radicals I Hear So Much About?
If it isn't broccoli or blueberries, it's skin cream bragging that it's chucked full of antioxidants. And by now, we all know antioxidants are good for us. But do you know why?
Source: EzineArticles.com

An Electrical Device that Kills all Pathogens and Improves Cancer Treatments?

An Electrical Device that Kills all Pathogens and Improves Cancer Treatments?
There is word going around about an electrical device that mimics and amplifies the immune system. It is capable of killing off all pathogenic bacteria, viruses, and parasites. That was the original intent of its designers, to kill off viruses such as hepatitis and HIV. The original developers, William Lyman and Steven Kaali at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine designed an electrical device to run on 50 - 100 microamperes, equivalent to the current of a pacemaker in 1991.

Paul Fassa
NaturalSociety
October 29, 2012

There is word going around about an electrical device that mimics and amplifies the immune system. It is capable of killing off all pathogenic bacteria, viruses, and parasites. That was the original intent of its designers, to kill off viruses such as hepatitis and HIV.

The original developers, William Lyman and Steven Kaali at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine designed an electrical device to run on 50 – 100 microamperes, equivalent to the current of a pacemaker in 1991.

Lyman and Kaali had it set up to electrify blood in a process similar to dialysis or oxygen therapies that recycle the patient’s blood into external machinery. Their device was approved for 14 patents. Very few articles were published in scientific journals – then silenced – but not forever.

A retired physicist, Bob Beck, had read one of the articles and was very curious. He tried to obtain the original research papers from the Albert Einstein College, but was told it didn’t exist. The research papers had even been removed from the conference publication where it had been introduced.

The speculation on the streets is that the researchers were involved in a deal they couldn’t refuse without damaging their careers or worse. They may have sold their patents to a group that claimed they would use it, but that group simply shelved the project.

This is a common Medical Mafia practice that was tried on early 20^th Century alternative cancer cure methods of Rene Caisse, Harry Hoxsey, Raymond Rife, and others. The Medical Mafia’s strategy is to use the therapy profitably or make sure it can’t be used at all once they own it. This is similar to how individuals responsible for the research revealing how a Chinese plant could wipe cancer out in 40 days are actually looking to create a pharmaceutical drug from the essential component triptolide. A drug that will seek FDA approval and ultimately be patented, nutritionally ruined, and sold for exorbitant amounts of cash.

As Bob Beck once quipped, “A patient cured is a customer lost.” The cancer industry, the AMA, and Big Pharma don’t want cures. They want expensive “treatments.” So do other affiliated businesses, even “non-profit” fund raising groups.

Perseverance Paid

Bob hired a private investigator to hunt down that original conference’s attendees and get the research papers. That strategy worked. As an experienced physicist and inventor, Bob was able to figure out what Lyman and Kaali were up to and went to work on inventing his own version.

Bob came up with a smaller device that sent current directly into the blood via a couple of small electrodes attached to the wrist’s Radial and Ulnar arteries, where the pulse is commonly felt.

Bob Beck, who passed on a few years ago, tested his device thoroughly and discovered results on actual humans with infectious diseases that exceeded Lyman and Kaali’s lab test results. But he refused to profit from it.

Bob approved a company to manufacture and sell the device, which was almost shut down by the FTC and Canada’s Health Ministry. But the company survived with the agreement to not include Bob Beck’s name, omit most application and use instructions, and to not use the cure word.

Bob Beck’s original instructions are available on a free download-able pdf. Hurry to check them out before Big Brother and the Medical Mafia close in and disappear it into their “memory hole.”

Fighting Cancer

Jacques Schrenzel and Karl Heinz Kraus of Geneva, Switzerland’s University Hospital reported a finding in 1998 that corroborates the device’s fundamental mechanics. They discovered that white blood cells kill pathogenic microbes by electrocuting them.

Now Cancer Tutor raves about applying the Beck device along with a protocol for cancer. They explain that Beck’s device doesn’t cure cancer. It frees the body’s immune system from all other pathogenic distractions to focus on eliminating cancer cells. Cancer tutor is a very reliable, thorough and conscientious alt-cancer cure site.

Cancer Tutor’s first concern is to make sure you observe the cancer diet, which they explain in great detail on their site. Most importantly, don’t eat sugar or sugary substances at all. That doesn’t mean you should use artificial sweeteners either. They’re toxic!

Cells become cancerous when they can no longer use oxygen as part of their metabolic process to take in nutrients and grow. Instead, cancer cells ferment glucose for their energy. So one must remove their fuel source. Most oncologists won’t tell you this. They think you only need chemo or radiation. Cancer cells cannot survive in oxygen like normal cells, which need oxygen.

All this was discovered decades ago by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Otto Warburg. I guess medical students were too busy listening to visiting pharmaceutical reps pitch their products to consider that bit of medical history.

All alternative cancer therapies, and even conventional toxic cancer therapies should be accompanied by a diet of organic, non-processed foods with emphasis on raw veggies, fruits, and juices. No sugar, no sweets, sodas, or processed pastries.

Use the inks and sources below for more information.

Additional Sources:

CancerTutor.com

ChrisBeatCancer

NaturalNews

PeruTechnologies

ChrisBeatCancer.com – beckprotocolhandbook.pdf

Source: naturalsociety.com

Could this Morning Beverage be an Effective Pain-Reliever?

Could this Morning Beverage be an Effective Pain-Reliever?
We already know that coffee has great benefits where focus and energy levels are concerned, but new research says that it can also reduce pain. A study from BMC Research Notes, indicates that coffee consumption can particularly help with pain related to sitting at a computer all day—exciting news for anyone who spends their day at a desk.

Elizabeth Renter
NaturalSociety
October 26, 2012

We already know that coffee has great benefits where focus and energy levels are concerned, but new research says that it can also reduce pain. A study from BMC Research Notes, indicates that coffee consumption can particularly help with pain related to sitting at a computer all day—exciting news for anyone who spends their day at a desk.

Many people couldn’t make it through one day at the office without coffee. And this new research gives them yet another reason to feel okay about their warm-beverage indulgence.

Study participants were given coffee before performing office tasks. Those who drank the coffee had less pain in the neck, shoulders, wrists, and forearms, when compared with those who didn’t have coffee before the tasks.

Researchers credited the caffeine with the benefits. But, Sayer Ji with GreenMedInfo.com suggests there may be more to it than that.

“In a previous post on coffee as both drug and medicine, we looked at the opiate-like properties of an oil-soluble component within both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee called cafestrol which likely acts as a pain-killer. Because the average cup of coffee contains five times the amount required to produce an opioid effect (as measured by ED50), it would appear that the pain-killing effect in coffee is not just about the caffeine.”

Caffeine does have its benefits, however, including the ability to increase focus and attention, boost mood, and even reduce the risk of depression. But, keep in mind, this is naturally occurring caffeine, not some blend created in a lab and put in a metal can.

Some research indicates coffee drinking could even extend your life and decrease your risk of certain types of cancer. Some other coffee health benefits include:

• Decreased risk of Type 2 Diabetes

• Slowed progression and reduced risk of dementia

• Protection against atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries)

Naturally occurring caffeine is also found in green tea, which has its own mega-list of benefits. So, when choosing your morning beverage, or really your anytime-of-day beverage, you have a few options for natural health and disease prevention.

Source: naturalsociety.com

Paul Stamets: Chaga, The Clinker Fungus: This Mushroom Looks Scary But Can Benefit Health

Paul Stamets: Chaga, The Clinker Fungus: This Mushroom Looks Scary But Can Benefit Health

Cortes Island, British Columbia, October 17th, 2012

Chaga is one of the weirdest mushrooms you may ever see. A fungal parasite found on birch trees, Chaga is a hardened, blackened, crusty formation that looks like a bursting tumor. While this strange-looking mushroom has been called a "tree cancer" since it will eventually kill its host tree, it has attracted interest for centuries in fighting human cancer and other diseases. This interest in its medicinal properties has led to rampant harvesting of wild specimens -- threatening this ecologically-delicate species. Growing the mycelium of the Chaga mushroom under laboratory conditions provides an ecologically friendly alternative supply of this unique medicinal mushroom.

Mycologist James Gouin and a Chaga bursting through the bark of a birch tree.

Chaga is one stage in the life cycle of Inonotus obliquus, a polypore mushroom that usually parasitizes birch and beech trees but may also be found on alder, chestnut, and hornbeam trees. The crusty blackened mass commonly called the Chaga "mushroom" is actually a sterile fungal body that precedes the actual spore-forming reproductive cycle of the Inonotus obliquus organism. This crusty black conk emerges over several years from inside the tree's cambium (the outer layer of actively-growing tree cells), pushing out and breaking through the bark. It is alien-like. You get the sense that the host tree is in deep trouble. Sometime after the Chaga conk matures, a fragrant spore-producing sheath forms obliquely, drops spores from its many tiny pores, and quickly disappears -- often quickly consumed by mycophagous insects, especially beetles and flies, which spread its spores to trees nearby. Estimates of Chaga parasitizing birch trees range from 1 in 20, to 1 in 15,000. This disparity can be explained simply: Chaga mycelium is inside many more trees than is obvious when the Chaga mushroom is visible on the outside. Foresters have yet to do a thorough study of how widespread Chaga infection is in temperate forests.

Today, the market for Chaga is exploding. Nutritional supplement companies capitalize on Chaga's reputation as a medicinal mushroom. Interest in the West began when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1967 book Cancer Ward introduced his readers to Chaga's use as a traditional Slavic anti-cancer remedy. To date, however, there are no credible clinical studies showing its effectiveness in cancer treatment. Nevertheless, Chaga does contain compounds with enticing medicinal properties. Of particular interest are the ethanol-soluble lanostanic triterpenoid antioxidants, which have been detected in laboratory tests and corroborated in many peer-reviewed articles. Antioxidants mitigate the damaging effects of free radicals that harm tissue and interfere with DNA replication. A breakdown in the antioxidant capacity of cells is suspected to underlie various health challenges, such as inflammation, premature aging, and some cancers.

In 2004, Korean researchers reported that human cells pretreated with a hot water extract of wild Chaga conk showed more than 40 percent reduction in DNA fragmentation compared with the positive control (Park et al., 2004). In 2007, medical scientists at the University of Bradford, U.K., studied the anti-oxidative effects of a commercially available room temperature water-ethanol extract of cultured Chaga mycelium on the DNA of 20 healthy vs. 20 irritable bowel disease (IBD) patients, and concluded:

Chaga supplementation resulted in a 54.9 percent (p < 0.001) reduction of H2O2 induced DNA damage within the patient group and 34.9 percent (p < 0.001) within the control group ... Conclusively, Chaga extract reduces oxidative stress in lymphocytes from IBD patients and also healthy individuals when challenged in vitro (Najafzadeh et al., 2007).

Both these studies used similar methods to measure inhibition of free radicals. The take-home message here is that a room temperature water-ethanol extract of the sustainably-cultured Chaga mycelium is more powerful in its antioxidant effects when compared to a twice-cooked hot water extract of the increasingly scarce wild conks.

Moreover, our initial research with the U.S. government's now-expired BioShield BioDefense program discovered a diluted mycelial-based, water-ethanol extract had high activity, in vitro, against Flu B and Flu A (H5N1) viruses, favorably comparing to the positive control pharmaceutical ribavirin (Stamets, 2007). Curiously, the water extract from boiling wild Chaga conks had no noticeable effect against these viruses.

The problem with Chaga today is that widespread chopping of Chaga conks off of trees threatens a delicate ecological balance. Highly-motivated commercial foragers are quickly removing Chaga found near roads and hiking trails, making Chaga increasingly hard to find. Harvesters wielding hatchets and saws badly wound the trees they harvest from, exposing the fragrant and soft fungally digested wood to fungus-loving insects, potentially increasing the spread of insect-carried diseases. While a lack of forestry research on the topic has left no clear consensus in the scientific community about the long term effect of Chaga harvesting, there is sufficient cause for concern. Forest ecologists have a vested interest in understanding the long-term ecological role of Chaga, lest we learn later that the chopping off of wild Chaga accelerates beetle and other blights with untold downstream impact. This onslaught for short-term profit may inflict long-term ecological damage, though more research is needed to fully understand the scope and long-term impacts.

A solution to over-harvesting Chaga for the nutriceutical industry is cultivation. Chaga mycelium is relatively easy to grow by using methods already practiced elsewhere in the mushroom industry. Its mycelium is initially an off-whitish color, deepening with age. It turns brown as its squirrel-like furry growth matures. Analysis of this mycelium shows that its anti-oxidant effect similar to that of wild-harvested Chaga. Moreover, Chaga is cleaner when cultivated under laboratory conditions. The pure Chaga mycelium has the distinct advantage of not carrying insects and their feces, and is less likely to absorb heavy metals that have been concentrated from air pollution. Moreover, cultivation is a sustainable practice, while the commercial harvesting of wild Chaga is making this mushroom harder to find.

Chaga is significant in ethnomycology, forest ecology, and increasingly in pharmacognosy. Its long-term human use and cultural eastern European and Russian acceptance should awaken serious researchers to its potential as a reservoir of new medicines, and as a powerful preventive ally for protecting DNA. For now, I hope that the medicinal demand for Chaga can be tempered by the knowledge that it can be sustainably grown -- without the rampant scarring of the forests. I recommend reading the fall 2012 issue of FUNGI Magazine which focuses on the ecology and cultural impacts of the Chaga phenomenon.

References:

Joo, J.I., Kim, D.H., Yun, J.W. 2010. "Extract of Chaga mushroom (Inonotus obliquus) stimulates 3T3-L1 adipocyte differentiation." Phytother Res. 24 (11):1592-9. doi: 10.1002/ptr.3180.

Ko, S.K., Jin, M., Pyo, M.Y. 2011. "Inonotus obliquus extracts suppress antigen-specific IgE production through the modulation of Th1/Th2 cytokines in ovalbumin-sensitized mice." J Ethnopharmacol. 137 (3):1077-82. E-pub July 28, 2011.

Najafzadeh, M., Reynolds, P.D., Baumgartner, A., Jerwood, D., Anderson, D. 2007 "Chaga mushroom extract inhibits oxidative DNA damage in lymphocytes of patients with inflammatory bowel disease." Mol Cells. 31 (2):165-73. E-pub Dec. 22, 2010.

Park, Y.K., Lee, H.B., Jeona, E-J., Jungb, H.S., Kang, M.H. 2004. "Chaga mushroom extract inhibits oxidative DNA damage in human lymphocytes as assessed by comet assay" BioFactors 21:109-112.

Stamets, P., 2008. U.S. Patent Application # 12/284,646. "Antiviral and Antibacterial Activity from Medicinal Mushrooms." Filed September 24, 2008.

Won, D.P., Lee, J.S., Kwon, D.S., Lee, K.E., Shin, W.C., Hong, E.K. 2011. "Immunostimulating activity by polysaccharides isolated from fruiting body of Inonotus obliquus." Mol Cells 31(2):165-73. E-pub 22 Dec. 2010.

For more by Paul Stamets, click here.

For more on natural health, click here.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Dealing With Wrinkles Around The Mouth

Dealing With Wrinkles Around The Mouth
Wrinkles are synonymous to aging, and when it comes to aging gracefully, it's the women who are most concerned about it. The first and most visible signs of aging are usually fine lines forming at the corners of the eyes and mouth. Women are constantly on the lookout for ways to avoid, conceal and even erase these annoying wrinkles.
Source: EzineArticles.com

Kathryn Lamble: Are You A People-Pleaser? A Healthier Approach To Friendships

Kathryn Lamble: Are You A People-Pleaser? A Healthier Approach To Friendships

I like to make people happy, and really, what's wrong with that? As an approach to the world, it's a good thing to want to make people happy, right? Let's all be friends and let's all get along. Wonderful!

Yeah, but... maybe, not so much. Recently I have been ruminating on the point at which wanting to make those around you happy stops being a well-meaning social aspiration and actually begins to encroach on your psychological and emotional well-being. Yes -- it's the curse of people-pleasing.

As a chronic people-pleaser, I have to try to make those around me happy. Now, before you stop reading at the saccharine-sweet picture I appear to be painting of myself here, wait. There's far more to this than just being a goody-two-shoes.

I navigate my way through most social situations anticipating what those around me want and need, and then I give it to them. I have a "me" for everyone. Feeling weepy? I'll be the comforter. Full of rage? I shall share your indignation. Bored today? Come over and hang out with me! Because it's nice to be needed, isn't it? Not always.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you just got home on Friday night, fresh off the work week, you want to pour yourself a glass of vino, fire up a DVD and spend some time with your beloved. Bliss... but hark! What's this? The telephone tears through the fibre of your Friday evening and your chum is on the other end of the line. Maybe they're bored, had a bad day in work, family argument. The air thickens; you know what's coming and you're at the point where you feel virtually powerless to stop it.

"Yeah sure, come over, we're not doing anything."

But you were doing something, weren't you? You were doing nothing, but it was your nothing. It was your time to recharge, to become a little bit more you, to indulge in that delicious experience of just being yourself.

So why not just say that to your friend? Well, that's where it all starts getting interesting. I am terrified of not being liked, and it took me a while to realize this. Many thwarted attempts at asserting myself passed, many deep conversations about self-sabotage, before I realized that I equate saying "no" to people -- to prioritizing what I want from time to time -- with being disliked by others. (The inability to say "no" requires a blog all its own...) So my strategy for maintaining friendships became: Give them everything they want, and make 'em laugh!

And that went for most things; we'll go where you want to go, we'll leave when you want to leave. Your point on a topic? I agree because it's simply too awkward for me to disagree. Get something wrong? I'll save face for you because nice people don't tell others when they make a mistake, it's mean. Ask me to make a decision and I simply reply, "I don't mind!" Liar.

I felt dissatisfied, and I wasn't sure why. Being with people became draining rather than refreshing. I was uprooted and cast adrift, and my sense of center was fading rapidly.

When I started the Fearless Living Bootcamp, one of the first challenges I had to think about was an area of my life I was not satisfied with. Various standard examples came up -- money, job, weight, wardrobe. But there was something pulsing underneath, waiting to erupt. I was dissatisfied with life. How sad. Because I had no root in authenticity.

When I began to really dig, to really force myself to go inward, to sit with that discomfort and maybe have a drink with it a few nights, I discovered that my people-pleasing came from an innate desire to be approved of by those around me. I want them to show me that I am worthy of being liked, that I am a lovable person. Therefore, the best (and easiest!) way of doing that, for me, was to give them every reason to approve of me.

"Kathryn! She's so agreeable, easy to please, fits in, makes no noise. Great!"

But this kind of approval-seeking behavior only reinforces your own self-disapproval. It makes it okay to hate yourself. Trying to solve your crappy self-worth through outside approval is a race you're always going to be running at half-speed. When the outside approval dies down, that's the discomfort you have to sit with. That's the "you" you have to learn to love.

I believe that people-pleasing is born out of fear. Fear of being disliked, and for me, a fear of being abandoned. I don't want my friends to walk away from me, because who will I be? What does that say about me? So I hold people hostage by indulging them, by granting them their every wish and pandering to their every whim just to keep them there.

But really, I have behaved quite unfairly. I failed to give them agency enough to handle being told "no." In reality, I was not respecting them. I should have just given them who I am all along. I've indulged them with a version of myself for every occasion when all they needed, and probably wanted, was me. Exactly as I am, in every moment.

Your center shatters into tiny pieces when you try too hard to please everyone around you, and it can be so hard to reconcile who you could be with who you have been behaving as. And maybe who you might be is a scary prospect, when the pretense and the masks fall away.

But this is the question I must ask of myself every day: Which fear is greater? Not pleasing everyone else, or never pleasing yourself? Staying as something less, or becoming something so much more?

For more by Kathryn Lamble, click here.

For more on emotional wellness, click here.

Follow Kathryn Lamble on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheDivineMissK

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

7 Things You Need Do If You Want To Look Fabulous At 50 (and Beyond)

7 Things You Need Do If You Want To Look Fabulous At 50 (and Beyond)
Women today can keep looking fabulous, youthful and (to call it as it is) hot, at 50, and beyond! Read on for my tips on how to look and feel absolutely fabulous at 50!
Source: EzineArticles.com

Should You Be Concerned With Oxidative Stress?

There are many things which can go wrong with the body as people age. One of them is called oxidative stress. It, along with other effects of aging, may be able to be controlled. Read here

Stars Who Packed On The Pounds For Movie Roles

Stars Who Packed On The Pounds For Movie Roles

When you're an actor, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to nab that dream role -- including dropping and gaining weight to portray a character.

And that's exactly what some of Hollywood's biggest stars have done.

From George Clooney and Matt Damon to Charlize Theron and Renee Zellweger, celebrities have packed on the pounds (and we're talking serious, serious pounds) for films they are truly invested in.

But a little cellulite never hurt anyone, especially when all those cupcakes and donuts put you in the running for an Academy Award.

Check out 15 stars who've chowed down for movie roles:

• George Clooney

  George Clooney gained 30 pounds to play former CIA agent Robert Baer in 2005's "Syriana." Thankfully, the weight gain paid off -- he won an Oscar!

• Matt Damon

  Damon gained 30 pounds for his role in "The Informant!" in 2009, but the actor says packing on the weight was "fun." “It was very, very easy to gain the weight. Very, very fun,” he <a href="http://www.accesshollywood.com/matt-damon-talks-gaining-weight-for-the-informant-it-was-very-very-easy_article_22621">confessed</a>. “I just basically ate everything I could see for a few months.”

• Renee Zellweger

  Zellweger gained 28 pounds (twice!) for her lead role in "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason." Reportedly, she'll be reprising her famous character for another installment of the franchise, "Bridget Jones's Baby." Another round of weight gain?

• Charlize Theron

  Theron gained 30 pounds to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos in "Monster." She also gained something else along the way -- an Academy Award for Best Actress!

• Jared Leto

  Leto put on 67 pounds to play John Lennon's assassin, Mark David Chapman, in "Chapter 27." The movie didn't get the best reviews, and Leto's body took a beating. Let's just say he probably won't do it again.

• Gwyneth Paltrow

  Paltrow added 20 pounds to her thin frame for her role as a washed out country star in "Country Strong." <a href="http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,20316530_20440520,00.html">With the help of her personal trainer</a>, Tracy Anderson, she dropped the pounds in two weeks!

• Ryan Gosling

  Ryan Gosling and his "Blue Valentine" co-star Michelle Williams each gained 15 pounds for the movie, in which they played a couple stuck in a troubled marriage.

• Julia Roberts

  Roberts gained 10 pounds to accurately portray Elizabeth Gilbert in "Eat, Pray, Love," which is based on a true story. Gilbert gained 30 pounds in real-life, so Roberts figured she needed to pack on some pounds to be authentic.

• Christian Bale

  Not only did Bale lose over 60 pounds for his leading role in "The Machinist," he also gained tons of muscle weight to play Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, in Christopher Nolan's epic trilogy.

• Russell Crowe

  Russell Crowe gained 63 pounds for his role in 2008's "Body of Lies." He did it <a href="http://socialitelife.com/russell_crowe_explains_weight_gain-09-2008">with a little help from his food friends</a> -- cupcakes and cheeseburgers.

• Hilary Swank

  Swank didn't just have to gain weight for her role in "Million Dollar Baby," she had to bulk up! The actress put on 19 pounds of pure muscle and walked away with an Oscar.

• Eric Bana

  In 2000, the normally buff Bana put on 28 pounds to play a murderer in "Chopper." But, no worries. Bana was allegedly back in tip-top shape within months.

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  The former "Third Rock From the Sun" actor turned into an action star for the final Batman flick, "Dark Knight Rises." Just like his co-star Christian Bale, Gordon-Levitt packed on the muscle (and it shows).

• Robert De Niro

  How could we forget De Niro, who made gaining weight for a role cool thanks to "Raging Bull"? He famously gained 60 pounds for the movie and paved the way for Hollywood body transformations.

• Chris Pratt

  The funny guys is currently eating up a storm while his wife, Anna Faris, tries to shed her baby weight. He has already gained 40 pounds since June in preparation for his role as a lawyer in the upcoming comedy "Starbuck."

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com