Elizabeth Mayhew

Lifestyle expert

 

Three-time Triple Ironman winner and manager of Jack Rabbit Sports in New York City

 

Editor-in-chief of POZ magazine; living with HIV

 

Assistant professor of Pediatrics and a Molecular Geneticist at Columbia University

 

 

Is mess making a stress in your life? We hear from one woman named Sarah, who is frustrated because she can’t find things, doesn’t have much spare time and she feels as though she is in a cycle of anxiousness and worry. Lifestyle expert Elizabeth Mayhew donated her services to Sarah and Your Total Health donated the supplies. Elizabeth turns Sarah’s cramped quarters into an organized space with the help of some new boxes, shelves and a lot of creativity!

 

Finding that perfect pair of athletic shoes, no matter what exercise you like, can be a challenge. Some stores, including Jack Rabbit Sports in New York City are going hi-tech to help. Store manager, and three-time Triple Ironman winner, Chris Bergland - shares his expert (and highly technologically advanced) advice to Hoda.

 

 

Living HIV positive in America  

While the perception about HIV is often that it is something that is happening “over there” - there being in Africa or India… the fact of the matter is that HIV is still raging in the United States. Regan Hoffman, an HIV positive woman living in the United States, shares her story. Regan contracted HIV from a person she cared deeply about. She felt embarrassed to go public with her condition given the stigma still attached to the disease. However, she made a decision to not let the disease rule her life and is now the Editor-in-Chief of POZ Magazine, a magazine for people living with HIV and AIDS. 

 

A Your Total Health producer recently found out that she was pregnant. Almost immediately, she had lots of questions... including one that's been very tough to answer: should she bank her baby's umbilical cord blood for its potential medical benefits in the future? Our producer decided she would – but then the question became: would she bank it privately or publicly?  Dr. Wendy Chung, an Assistant professor of Pediatrics and a Molecular Geneticist at Columbia University, joins Hoda in the studio to talk about this new phenomenon and what all expectant mother should know. 

                       

 

When it comes to raising awareness about a disease, few can shine the spotlight quite like a celebrity. And few celebrities have as much star power as Aretha Franklin.   She has put her name and her voice to work to educate people about a little known condition called Marfan Syndrome, a genetic disorder that weakens the body’s connective tissue and often alters the body’s physical appearance. The most devastating toll this disease takes is on the aorta, the main artery that carries blood from the heart to other parts of the body. Aretha recently raised almost a quarter of a million dollars at a benefit concert for the National Marfan Foundation. Doctors believe that playwright and composer Jonathan Larson, who died 10 years ago, before his musical "Rent" opened on Broadway, succumbed to Marfan Syndrome when he died suddenly of a ruptured aorta. Though he was never officially diagnosed, he had some of the characteristic traits: a tall lanky frame, long arms, an indented chest bone and flat feet. Currently, an estimated 200,000 people in the U.S. suffer from Marfan Syndrome.