Density

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

Chris Robbins could be a poster child for mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti's vision for Los Angeles. Each morning, Robbins straps on a backpack, cues up his iPod and sets out on a short walk to the subway, which whisks him to his downtown public relations job. He and his wife share one car. On the weekends, they like to stay local, savoring their neighborhood's array of new restaurants and bars. Over 12 years as Hollywood's councilman, Garcetti has emerged as a leading champion of "smart growth," which aims to entice residents like Robbins out of cars by densely concentrating new development along transit lines.

I live two miles from the Soka campus and I take exception to ALfred Balitzer's letter Jan. 4 regarding neighbors backing the school. There is overwhelming neighborhood opposition to the planned development of Soka University at the corner of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway. It doesn't matter that it is Soka that is planning the development. It is the development of such density that the neighborhood overwhelmingly objects to. Soka has complained that the planned density that the national park proposes would be 30,000 people per year, whereas their density would be 5,000 full-time students and staff members.

Lake Tahoe towns will grow taller and denser under a new regional plan that supporters hope will quell a rebellion by Nevada against land use regulations that have restricted development in the basin. The new plan is intended to rid the area of some of its midcentury strip development and turn town centers into more inviting, greener destinations that will revive the area's ailing economy. But the success of the strategy is far from guaranteed. Some traditional environmental defenders of the lake - one of the world's deepest and clearest - endorsed the plan primarily to persuade Nevada to remain in a 1969 compact with California.

Re "In Valley, pace of change is fast," Dec. 20 The article on the east-west divide of the San Fernando Valley omitted one glaring factor: population density. This is the main reason the people in the West Valley wanted to secede. We need local control. Look at all the two- and even three-story apartments and condos plus underground parking being built. Too many zoning changes and variances are being granted. Many environmental impact reports are misleading, if not downright false, declaring that our already overcrowded schools have adequate room for more students and that traffic will not be affected.

In his op-ed article "Transit Options Must Deal With Real World" (Feb. 26), Bruce Nestande said that Orange County can't have fixed-corridor mass transit because its density is too low. His only suggestions are to improve the bus system and create more commuter lanes. This is not very creative, and judging by current usage, it also won't be very successful. In reality, higher-density development is needed only at the destination point for a monorail-type system to work. The origination point is unimportant: People can drive a mile to a collection point, park their cars and get on a monorail as long as it drops them off within walking distance of where they want to go. Do we have enough "density of destinations" to justify a monorail?

Want strong bones? Eat foods high in calcium and vitamin D, get plenty of exercise — and maybe steer clear of soda. In recent decades, as consumption of the beverage has steadily displaced the consumption of others —particularly milk — studies have consistently linked soda consumption with weaker bones. Now scientists are trying to figure out how and why, precisely, drinking soda may affect skeletons. One theory is that a component in cola may cause bone to deteriorate; another is that people who drink soda simply drink (and eat)

Councilman Marvin Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky have qualified a ballot initiative designed to reduce density and size of new commercial structures in the city of Los Angeles. Present density is three times the buildable area of a lot. The initiative proposes that such density be reduced to 1 1/2 times. Should this initiative become law, the most gifted architects might find it impossible to design a building with adequate rental space, potential rental income and adequate provisions for parking to meet requirements of three spaces for every 1,000 square feet of building improvement.

It may have been an accidental misprint, but a statement attributed to me seriously jeopardized the political aspirations of several candidates running for City Council in Hermosa Beach. The following statement was made by the Los Angeles Times in an article printed Oct. 25. "Planning Director Michael Schubach said the council and the commission approved the higher density in all but one case." This statement is incorrect. The City Council lowered the density in all but one case.

The adage "an empty can makes the most noise" was never more evident than in the Dec. 27 story dealing with development in the Santa Monica Mountains. The story made a great deal of noise but totally ignored the vital facts. The article failed to report that the 37 plan amendments resulted in only 814 additional homes--an average of about 80 homes a year. Hardly a building boom! By way of comparison, Ventura County (which The Times lauds as an example of responsible development controls)

Responding to William Fulton's Op-Ed article Monday positing a link between urban sprawl and municipal bankruptcies, reader Sidney P. Anderson of Mission Viejo writes: "As a retired taxpayer whose home has been saved by Proposition 13, I consider Fulton's argument poorly disguised apologia. He does mention pensions half-heartedly in his discussion on what empties cities' coffers, but he fails to use the word 'union' even once. He evidently does not object to this cost but blames instead a lack of tax revenue to pay for it. He is obviously not a fan of nonunion taxpayers who end up paying for these unionized government workers' generous benefits.

You would think there could be no downside to California's new law that requires doctors to inform women if a mammogram reveals they have dense breasts. But some doctors do have concerns about the legislation , which also requires physicians to tell patients that dense breasts are linked to a higher risk of breast cancer , that they make mammograms harder to read and that there are alternative breast cancer screening options. Here are the thoughts of three doctors with whom we spoke.

Finding a peaceful resolution to this Hollywood feud is one tall order. Hollywood "flat-landers" and development advocates are urging Los Angeles officials to increase density guidelines in Hollywood, paving the way for glitzy new skyscrapers and apartment buildings they say are necessary to house tens of thousands of future residents. But Hollywood's hillside dwellers are fighting the move. They say high-rises are unnecessary, because the population there is shrinking, and contend that new towers will only ruin the area's scenic and world-famous skyline.

If this is the season to be merry, many residents of Hollywood did not get the memo. Instead, they got a community development plan they look upon as their very own nightmare before Christmas. It happened earlier this month, when the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved zoning changes that could make it easier to erect skyscrapers in the heart of Hollywood, forever changing the scale of a historic neighborhood with international cachet. They say the high-rises will block views, throw shadows and obscure the landmark Capitol Records building, and make already unbearable traffic even worse.

Whole-body vibration machines are becoming a fixture in the fitness world, but they may fall short in one area: a study of post-menopausal women who used the plates daily for a year showed no improvement in bone density. The study, released Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine , included 202 healthy post-menopausal women who had low bone mass but not full-on osteoporosis that required medication. They were randomly assigned to three groups: two that stood for 20 minutes a day for a year on a whole-body vibration plate set at a low-magnitude vibration (either 30 Hz or 90 Hz)

Breast density has emerged as an important risk factor for breast cancer along with other factors such as age, family history and some gene mutations. However, there is no consensus on what to do with information on breast density and on Sunday, California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed proposed state legislation that would have required doctors to notify women having mammograms of their breast density. Having more high-density tissue, which has less fat, raises breast cancer risk, while having more low-density tissue lowers it. In a letter to the California state Senate, Brown said he agreed that patients need more health information.

Re "Higher Density Zoning," Ventura County letters, Sept. 5. Kathy Heiberg's characterization of the Sustainability Council of Ventura County as a "wolf in sheep's clothing" for advocating higher density zoning seems as unfair as it is incorrect. The Sustainability Council does not advocate higher density development but promotes sustainable solutions to contemporary problems. Given an increasing population and constraints to suburban sprawl under Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR)

Joel Kotkin criticizes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for re-imagining Los Angeles (Opinion, Dec. 13). Kotkin says that Angelenos want to live in a place more like Manhattan Beach than Manhattan. Kotkin is fixated on the wrong coast. Manhattan Beach has a greater population density (8,607 people per square mile) than L.A. (7,877). Backyards (if any) are like postage stamps. Why does this density work? Because Manhattan Beach's 19th century planners had Villaraigosa's 21st century views.

Mammograms should be recommended to women based on several individual risk factors, such as age, family history and breast density, doctors said in a study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. But how many women know their breast density? Under legislation proposed in California, every woman who has a mammogram would also receive information on her breast density. Studies have confirmed that having more high-density tissue, which has less fat, raises breast cancer risk while having more low-density tissue lowers it. The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 173, is opposed by several medical groups, however.

Breast density would be included in a mammography report under a bill proposed in the California Senate. What that would mean for women is receiving a score of 1 to 4 to help her and her doctor better assess her individual risk of developing breast cancer. The risk of breast cancer is based on several factors: age, family history, previous breast biopsies, gene mutations and density. Having high-density tissue, which has less fat, raises breast-cancer risk; low-density tissue lowers it. Very dense breast tissue is harder to read on a mammogram.