Theories Abound About Britney's VMA Flop

Theories Abound About Britney's VMA Flop
Performance Panned On Many Fronts; What Happened?

Tongues are still wagging about Britney Spears' performance at Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards show -- widely viewed as lackluster, at best.

The buzz has it that Spears' dance moves were lackluster and her lip-synching way off, observed E! Entertainment news anchor Giuliana Rancic on The Early Show Tuesday.

Her act was the talk of the after-show party at Tao's, Rancic reported.

"I don't know if she should have started the show off, but I thought it was alright," rapper and record producer Jermaine Dupri told Rancic.

Musician Travis Barker said Spears seemed unprepared, noting, "It looked like she was like rehearsing or something, not to diss her or anything, but that's what I thought."

So, what went wrong?

The pre-show chatter had been all about Spears rehearsing with magician Criss Angel but, commented Rancic, no magic was evident on stage.

"Planet Gossip" co-host Tina Dirmann remarked to Rancic that, "We've all seen her hanging out with Chris Angel lately and, apparently, he was teaching her some illusion-type stuff. She wanted to do some appearing-disappearing stuff during her act. Well, it was just too complicated, they couldn't really pull it off, and so the producers nixed the idea, and she wasn't happy about it. So they had to come up with an alternate performance that night."

There have also been whispers, Rancic said, that Spears might have been on medication.


To that, Dirmann said, "People were not happy with the fact that she was partying late into the night before she would go into the rehearsals and before she had this big performance. She was out on the party scene all night long. Of course you're gonna be tired."

For Rancic's part, she told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen, "I do think … it was premature. Britney's just not ready. She's not taking this seriously. She's still out partying way too late. You know, we see her every other day with the lollipop in her hand, the big sunglasses, out till 4 in the morning, doing god knows what. She's just not taking her career seriously. I think this was too soon for her to try to do this.

"But a lot of people are saying, 'You know, maybe MTV is to blame, you know, they shouldn't have put her on, you know, it was too soon.' But if you're MTV and you get a phone call saying, 'Britney's confirmed, she's gonna open,' you're gonna say, 'Yes.' So, of course MTV jumped at this."

Rancic also mentioned the possibility that Spears didn't like the outfit MTV wanted her to wear, so brought her own, including boots that proved inappropriate, because they caused her to be unsteady while trying to dance.

Study: Vitamin D May Prevent Some Cancers

Study: Vitamin D May Prevent Some Cancers
Sun-Related Vitamin Might Prevent Many Cases Of Colon And Breast Cancer


A new study suggests the number of cases of colon and breast cancer could be cut dramatically if people got more vitamin D.

University of California researchers estimate 250,000 cases of colon cancer and 350,000 cases of breast cancer could be prevented worldwide by increasing intake of vitamin D. Sunlight spurs production of vitamin D in the skin, and people who don't get much sun exposure tend to have lower levels of the vitamin.

Past research indicated that vitamin D helps slow the growth and spread of cancer cells.

"There's been a lot of evidence for a long time that vitamin D is very important, not just for bones, which everybody knows, but for all the organs in the body," Dr. Larry Norton, an oncologist at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, explained to Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Thursday.

"What's very interesting," he continued, "is that all humans really can (trace) their ancestry to just a few thousand people who walked out of Africa into what is now Yemen, just about 80,000 years ago, and populated the whole earth.

"As people moved further north, their skin got lighter. Why? So it could absorb more vitamin D from sunlight. But now, in the modern world, we wear clothes, we wear sunblock, we work indoors most of the time - so, essentially, nobody who lives outside the equator gets enough vitamin D, especially in the winter months.

"This study was interesting because it looked at sun exposure, cloud cover, as well as vitamin D levels in over 170 countries. And there's a clear association with less sun, lower vitamin D levels and higher incidences of certain cancers, particularly colon cancer and breast cancer."

Norton pointed out that, "There (could always be) other explanations. Any scientific study is going to have lots of debate and argument. This study, the numbers will be debated back and forth. But there's no question that we don't have high enough vitamin D levels, especially those of us who live further from the equator and have longer winters.

"You don't necessarily want to get that Vitamin D from sun exposure, because that's going to age your skin, and it's going to increase skin cancer. But simple supplementation can make a big difference.

"What's fascinating about this study is it does make a recommendation of 2,000 international units of Vitamin D a day, which is much higher than the current recommended standards, more than twice, for older people, especially. That number, people are going to talk about.

" … Actually, 2,000 a day is safe. There's a lot of studies showing 2,000 is safe. You don't get into toxic levels until you get to much higher levels of exposure. For almost everybody, 2,000 is safe, and could make a difference."

What's more, said Norton, "This study focused largely on colon cancer and breast cancer. But, there is smoking gun evidence in other cancers, as well, especially prostate cancer.

"Much more work has to be done in this area. But this is one spot where oral supplementation of vitamins may make a lot of sense. Make sure you take enough vitamin D.

"I think this needs further discussion about what is the recommended daily allowance. Right now, (many) of us think it's much too low, and we should be taking more."