The California International Marathon on Dec. 6 reached its 7,000-entrant limit by the deadline on Sunday.

So you runners who -- do'h -- forgot to actually fill out the online form and fork over the entry fee are plum out of luck, right?

Not so fast.

Race director John Mansoor (pictured) says the CIM board meets tonight and is likely to approve at least 200 additional spots for tardy runners. To be put on the waiting list, email runcim@jhu.edu. pronto. There will be a price to pay for tardiness, though: Mansoor says the entry fee will be raised to $200 (from $100, plus bus fare). The "penalty fee" will be donated to charity, Mansoor says.

"We capped out a 6,000 last year and then we got a lot of people just desperate to get in," Mansoor says. "I can't believe this, but it's happening again. I've heard from people who are coming from Canada who already bought their airline tickets, already made their hotel reservation but didn't enter. It doesn't make sense.

"Last year, we did 200 additional entries for charity. We donated that money to the (American River) parkway for the improvement of the running trail. We'll probably do at least 200 charity entries again this year, if not more."

Marathon relay entries also closed at 850 and Mansoor says that the relay will not be expanded. 

More than 7,000 runners in the marathon field is impressive, but Mansoor says the race has become so popular that it could swell to as many as 10,000. But such an expansion, he says, would mean some changes in the race.

For instance, there would have to be "wave" starts every 15 minutes, the faster runners going first. That would mean keeping the race course open a half an hour longer than the current six hour time limit, but Mansoor says community officials are open to the idea. 

The other change would be to ban personal vehicles from parking anywhere near the starting line in Folsom and having all runners take buses to the start line. That's a  practice nearly all big and medium marathons already employ, but it would without a doubt  lead to some grumbling from bus-averse runners. 

To encourage runners to take the bus, the CIM will route the shuttles around the car traffic and designate an "express route" on the newly opened Folsom Lake crossing bridge. 

"We're also going to stop personal vehicles a little further away from the start line and force them to get out of their cars and shuttle them in that last way," Mansoor says.

So says the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which analyzed incidents in 2006. Here are the highlights:

• Boys had three times more visits to treat sports injuries than did girls (147 visits per 10,000 children vs. 50 visits per 10,000 children).
• Teens were five times more likely than children to be treated for sports injuries in emergency departments (154 visits per 10,000 15 to 17 year-olds vs. 30 visits per 10,000 5 to 9 year-olds).
• Some 81 percent of all visits were for bruises, sprains and strains, arm fractures, or cuts and scrapes to the head, neck or chest.
• Only 1.3 percent of visits resulted in hospital admissions, mostly for leg and arm fractures. In nearly 99 percent of visits, the children were treated and released.

Personally, I'd like to see the figures specifically for teenage skateboarders. It's got to be off the charts.

Analyzing data on mothers' recalled weight and pregnancy weight gain for more than 24,000 mother-daughter pairs, the study found that the heavier a mother was before her pregnancy, the more likely her daughter was to be obese in later life. An average-height mother who weighed 150 pounds before pregnancy was twice as likely to have a daughter who was obese at age 18 as a mother who weighed 125 pounds before pregnancy

 "If we can help women reach a healthy weight before they start a family, we can make a difference for two generations," says lead author Dr. Alison Stuebe, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina, in a press release. 

The ideal weight gain during pregnancy, according to the study, was 15 to 19 pounds to ensure the lowest risk of obesity in the daughter. Women who gained more than 40 pounds during pregnancy were twice as likely to have daughters who were obese by age 18.

A condensed version of May's forum titled "How to Stay Healthy in a Sick Economy," sponsored by Capital Public Radio and The Bee, will air Friday at 10 a.m. on KXJZ (90.9 FM).

Moderated by Jeffrey Callison, host of the public-affairs show "Insight," the forum features doctors specializing in primary care and integrative medicine giving information on nutrition and dietary supplements, as well as mental health professionals and such health mavens as Fleet Feet Sacramento's Dusty Robinson and Davis Farmers Market guru Randii MacNear. (Yes, even your humble blogger is on hand to represent the health and fitness media perspective.)

By the weay, the next free Health Forum will be Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Sacramento State Alumni Center. The subject: "Would It Kill You to Plan for Your Death?" The subtitle: "A painless way to approach the inevitable."

Now there's a subject to die for.   

Yikes! In chilhood obesity, California is at 30.5 percent, ranking 28th.

Read the study's press release here.

Starnes will be in Sacramento on Saturday, July 11 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Creekside Town Center, 1256 Galleria Blvd. in Roseville.

When he worked at KFBK, Starnes' weight ballooned to 300 pounds and he suffered a heart attack. He chronicled his bypass surgery on the air. Since losing weight and moving to New York, Starnes has run in the New York Marathon. 

Celiac, an immune system reaction to gluten in the diet, affects about one in 100 people, according to the Mayo research.

Says Mayo gastroenterologist Joseph Murray, "We also have shown that undiagnosed or 'silent' celiac disease may have a significant impact on survival. The increasing prevalence, combined with the mortality impact, suggests celiac disease could be a significant public health issue.

"Something has changed in our environment to make it much more common. Until recently, the standard approach to finding celiac disease has been to wait for people to complain of symptoms and to come to the doctor for investigation. This study suggests that we may need to consider looking for celiac disease in the general population, more like we do in testing for cholesterol or blood pressure."

Researchers at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, India, put 40 spinal surgery patients into two groups. About 25 percent of patients who used the licorice gargle had a sore throat, compared to 75 percent of those who gargled with water. Postoperative sore throat was also less severe in the licorice group.

They also found that the licorice group had fewer incidences of post-op coughs.