THURSDAY, Feb. 14 (HealthDay News) -- With Valentine's Day as a backdrop, researchers are taking a cold look at the hot topic of romantic attraction and turning some long-held assumptions on their pretty heads.

Debunked myth number one: Men alone place a premium on appearance, while women prioritize mates by the size of their wallets.

Reality check: It turns out that regardless of what people may claim they want, in the real world of face-to-face dating, physical attractiveness is the number one draw for both sexes, ahead of either money-making potential or ambition.

"When you ask them to describe their ideal preferences, women consistently say they care more about earning prospects, and men consistently say they care more about physical attractiveness," said study co-author Paul W. Eastwick, a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Northwestern University. "But when you see what men and women are truly attracted to, you don't find these sex differences emerging."

Debunked myth number two: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Reality check: People stick to a universal standard of beauty when assessing the physical attributes of others, no matter how attractive the judging parties are themselves.

"Although more attractive people are more selective in terms of the attractiveness of their potential mate -- in terms of who they choose to date -- all people, regardless of their own looks, perceive the attractiveness of others in similar ways," said the lead author of the second study, Leonard Lee, an assistant professor in the marketing division of the Columbia University Business School.

Eastwick's work is published in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, while Lee's finding were expected to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science.

In the first study, Eastwick joined his co-author Eli J. Finkel, an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern University, to conduct 30-minute online surveys of 163 undergraduate students regarding their pre-dating preferences for an "ideal" romantic partner. With an average age of almost 20, the participants and their responses split by gender -- men placed an emphasis on looks, women on money.

Approximately a week to two weeks later, all took part in a speed-dating event in which multiple four-minute "dates" occurred over the course of two hours.

Over the following month, as speed-date meetings turned into subsequent dating, students continued to register their views on both ideal romance and the actual characteristics of their speed-date matches. And the researchers found that although men and women may say they're from different worlds when it comes to attributes in a potential mate, they're equally inspired by physical attractiveness.

That's not to say a prospect's earning power was deemed irrelevant. In fact, after appearance, both men and women showed equal interest in good earning potential and ambition, the study found.

Trying to explain the findings, Eastwick and Finkel suggested that it could be that men and women don't really know what they want in a partner. Or, perhaps both sexes tend to engage in faulty role-play, taking cues from popular culture and gender myths when drafting their own idealized views of a mate.

The question of what men and women really want in a partner was explored further in the second study, in which Lee joined colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to analyze data collected by the online dating site "HOTorNOT.com." The Web site allows members to post photos and profiles, rank each others' attractiveness, and indicate dating interests.

The study authors found that more attractive people tended to be pickier about looks. What's more, both men and women preferred to step up a notch -- seeking to date someone "moderately" more attractive than themselves, so long as it wasn't someone "overwhelmingly" out of their league.

And following the online tally -- in their own speed-dating experiment -- the researchers also found that people of varying attractiveness seemed to use different criteria when assessing mate potential. While the more attractive individuals placed a greater emphasis on looks during date selection, less attractive men and women put more weight on other traits, such as sense of humor, likeability, and intelligence.

"This suggests that less attractive people are strategic, rather than deluded," Lee said.

More information

For more on physical attractiveness, visit Colorado State University  .

THURSDAY, Feb. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Women undergoing in vitro fertilization can increase their chances of becoming pregnant by up to 65 percent if they also have acupuncture, a preliminary study suggests.

About 10 percent to 15 percent of couples have difficulty conceiving, and many opt for in vitro fertilization, in which a woman's egg is fertilized in a laboratory and then transferred into her womb. There had been some evidence that acupuncture can increase the success rate of this procedure.

"Complementing the embryo transfer process with acupuncture seems to increase the odds of pregnancy by 65 percent, compared to sham acupuncture or no adjuvant treatment," said lead researcher Eric Manheimer, a research associate at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Integrative Medicine.

For the study, Manheimer's team looked at seven trials that included 1,366 women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Each trial compared acupuncture given within one day of the embryo transfer, to sham acupuncture or no acupuncture.

The researchers found that women who had acupuncture increased their chances of becoming pregnant by 65 percent compared with women who had no acupuncture or sham acupuncture.

"In absolute terms, this means that 10 women would need to be treated with acupuncture to result in one additional pregnancy," Manheimer said.

However, in studies where pregnancy rates were high, the benefit of acupuncture was small and non-significant, the researchers noted.

The findings were published online in the Feb. 7 edition of the British Medical Journal.

"Acupuncture may be useful adjuvant treatment in the IVF process," Manheimer said. "However, I think there needs to be more studies to confirm these findings, because they are still preliminary," he added.

One reproduction expert cautioned that it's not clear if acupuncture improves the success of IVF, with studies showing both that it does and doesn't work.

"I approach this paper with hopefulness. I hope it would be borne out to be true that acupuncture boosts pregnancy rates," said Dr. Owen K. Davis, co-director and associate professor at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City.

There are a lot of IVF patients undergoing acupuncture, relatively few of them at the suggestion of doctors, Davis said. "More often, it's something they seek themselves. Obviously, anything that can help our patients is something I'm very excited about. On the other hand, this study has many flaws," he said.

Davis thinks a large, randomized study is needed to really answer the question.

"I don't think we can say conclusively that acupuncture is effective or is anywhere near being a standard care, but it's not something I would discourage someone from trying if they wanted to. But I'm far removed from prescribing it to patients," he said.

One acupuncturist said the study findings bear out his own experience in using acupuncture to increase the success of IVF.

"I'm not surprised by these findings," said Dr. Marshall H. Sager, past president of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture. "I've done acupuncture and infertility and been successful a number of times."

Sager thinks all women undergoing in vitro fertilization can benefit from acupuncture. "I think you are increasing the chances of success," he said.

More information

For more on acupuncture, visit the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture  .

FRIDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- During pregnancy, asthmatic women should continue to use their asthma medication in the lowest dose possible to manage symptoms.

So recommends a new Practice Bulletin just released by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

The bulletin says women with moderate or severe asthma should also be monitored throughout pregnancy for fetal growth restriction and signs of possible preterm birth.

During pregnancy, asthma attacks may deprive the fetus of oxygen and may be associated with premature birth, growth restriction and other fetal complications, as well as illness and death in women, the ACOG said.

The new recommendations are based on a review of existing studies and support the position of the U.S. National Asthma Education Prevention Program that "it is safer for pregnant women with asthma to be treated with asthma medications than it is for them to have asthma symptoms and exacerbations."

"Previously, there was limited guidance regarding the management of asthma during pregnancy," Dr. Andrew J. Satin, chairman of the ACOG's Committee on Practice Bulletins-Obstetrics, said in a prepared statement. "With the growing number of asthmatics in the U.S., it became a priority to formalize recommendations for ob-gyns, who will likely see an increasing number of asthmatic patients."

"Research consistently shows that women with well-controlled asthma can have healthy pregnancies with excellent maternal and perinatal outcomes," Dr. Mitchell P. Dombrowski, an ACOG Fellow who contributed to the new Practice Bulletin, said in a prepared statement. "The ultimate goal of controlling asthma during pregnancy is to ensure that the fetus continues to get adequate oxygen by preventing asthma attacks."

The bulletin is published in the February issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

More information

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology has more about asthma and pregnancy  .

(HealthDay News) - Women who are trying to get pregnant need to understand their menstrual cycles, especially when they are ovulating.

Ovulation is the release of a mature egg that occurs once during each menstrual cycle, in which the egg is ready to be fertilized.

Here is information to help you understand your monthly ovulation cycle, courtesy of the American Pregnancy Association:

• A menstrual cycle is measured from the first day of one menstrual period to the first day of the next menstrual period.
• A menstrual cycle typically lasts between 28-32 days, but it can be shorter or longer.
• Determine the date of ovulation by calculating the middle of your menstrual cycle -- ovulation typically occurs between day 11 and day 21 of a cycle.
• Ovulation can also be calculated by counting 12 to 16 days before the first day of your next period.