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Gabe Mirkin, M.D. - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in Sports Medicine and three other specialties.
Dr. Mirkin's daily features on fitness have been heard on CBS Radio News stations since the 1970's. He has written 16 books including The Sportsmedicine Book, the best-selling book on the subject that has been translated into many languages. His latest book ... [More]
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Gabe Mirkin, M.D. Email Alerts
- Bedwetting Can Be Treated
[Kids-and-Teens] Bedwetting is usually caused by lack of antidiuretic hormone that is produced by the brain at night to shut down the kidneys and that this condition in young children can often be cured by taking a nasal spray or pill, called desmopressin, that shuts down the kidneys at night. When I was a resident in training, researchers were actively trying to find a cause and cure for bedwetting.
- Breakfast Cereals-2007's Best
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The most healthful breakfast is whole grain cereal. If you're trying to lose weight, control cholesterol or diabetes, or just need a lot of energy, your best bet is oatmeal. Prefer cold cereals? Here's my list of the BEST in 2007. plus my guidelines for reading the list of ingredients and nutrition information on any cereal box.
- Injured? Try Cross-Transference to Keep Fit
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Did you know that exercising one leg or arm helps to maintain strength, endurance and power in the other limb? If you have an injury, you can use the principles of cross-transference to keep fit while you recover.
- Spin Faster for Greater Efficiency
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] The key to riding a bicycle efficiently over long distances is to find out how fast you can pedal before you become uncoordinated. Let the latest research help you figure out the best cadence for you.
- Mild Dehyration Does Not Impair Performance
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Recent studies show that fit humans can tolerate significant fluid loss before their performance suffers and that most cases of muscle cramps are not caused by dehydration or salt loss. These findings can help you understand your fluid requirements during exercise.
- Older Exercisers Recover as Fast as Children
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Older people can recover from hard exercise as fast as young children can, according to new studies. If you find this hard to believe, read on to understand these findings and apply them to your exercise program.
- Exercise Does Not Cause Inflammation, Reduces Heart Attack Risk
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Many scientists have expressed concern that hard exercise damages muscles, so it may turn on inflammation and thus increase heart attack risk. A recent study shows that this does not happen. Read on to understand the latest research on benefits of vigorous exercise to reduce heart attack risk.
- Efficient Running Form
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Efficiency in running form is measured by how much energy is lost by wasteful movements. Understand the latest research to learn how to improve your own running form and study the condition of your competitors.
- Calorie Restriction to Prolong Life: A More Human Approach
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] The latest work at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center shows that monkeys eating only 30 percent of their normal caloric intake live much longer and appear much younger than those eating their full diets. Can this research be applied to humans?
- Muscle Burning: Reduce with Baking Soda?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Researchers in Greece have shown that ordinary baking soda may neutralize the
acid in muscles during intense exercise and helps athletes to exercise longer. Should you apply this idea to your exercise program?
- Most Type II Diabetes is Preventable
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] If pre-diabetics take medications used to treat diabetes, or change their lifestyles, they markedly reduce their chances of going on to develop diabetes. Understand the latest research to reduce your risk and to help your loved ones.
- Exercise Lowers Homocysteine
[Health-and-Fitness:Heart-Disease] High blood levels of homocysteine increase your risk for heart attacks, but at this
time, nobody knows why. It may be that homocysteine does not cause heart
attacks, strokes or dementia, but is just a marker associated with
them. Understand the latest research an what you can do to reduce your own risk.
- Foods to Build Muscle
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] If you want to become very strong, you should lift heavy weights, eat carbohydrates before you lift and eat plenty of protein afterwards. Understand the science behind the foods that benefit weight lifters with this new research.
- Memory Loss Linked to Overweight
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] How could excess weight cause memory loss? How much do you need to exercise to lose weight? Apply the findings of these recent studies to your weight loss program.
- Calf Pain May Be Intermittent Claudication
[Health-and-Fitness:Heart-Disease] If your legs don't hurt at rest and you develop pain in
your calves after walking for a short time, you may have a condition called
intermittent claudication, a partial obstruction of the blood flow to
your legs. Recent research explains the exercise program that helps most.
- Increase Endurance with Carbs and Fats
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] A high carbohydrate, high-fat diet for three days before competition can help athletes store more fat in their muscles and use much more muscle fat for energy during exercise. Learn how to apply this recent research to your training program.
- Strengthen Bones with Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] Regular exercise helps to keep bones strong and exercising into later life protects bones of older
people even more. Read on for the latest research on protecting your bones...
- Salt Sensitivity Lowered by Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Heart-Disease] Why do some people develop high blood pressure when they take in a lot of
salt, while others do not? A recent study explains why people who start an exercise
program lose their tendency to develop high blood pressure when they take in extra salt
- Soybeans: Healthful or Harmful?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Recent research was widely reported in the news media stating that eating soybeans prevents heart attacks, but that’s not what the study showed. Here's what you need to know about soybeans or soybean products in your diet.
- Fit Women Live Longer
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] The strongest, best-coordinated, fastest older women with the most endurance live the longest. Read on for the results of a French study that should encourage you to keep on exercising, or to start an exercise program if you are out-of-shape.
- Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Some Cannot Be Detected
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] Drugs appear to be the cause of many recent records in sports
requiring strength and speed. Many bicycle racers know that
some drugs that make them better riders can’t be detected by
testing techniques that are available today.
- Lactic Acid is Good For Your Muscles
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] You've probably learned to fear lactic acid, but it is the most efficient fuel that your muscles
can use, even more than sugar. Research from New Zealand explains why.
- Obesity in Children and Teens: The Role of Fruit Juices & Weight Loss Drugs - 2 New Studies
[Health-and-Fitness:Childhood-Obesity-Prevention] Are fruit juices a better choice for children and teens than soft drinks? Are any of the weight loss medications safe and effective for teenagers? Two new studies give guidance for these important issues.
- Race Longer with a Low-Glycemic Index Meal
[Recreation-and-Sports:Triathlon] Athletes in sports events lasting more than a couple hours may benefit from a pre-competition meal that has a low glycemic index, according to a new study. How long you can exercise a muscle without hurting depends on how much sugar you can store in that muscle and how long you can keep that sugar in the muscle during competition. This study explains why a low-glycemic-index pre-race meal can help you.
- Master Athletes Age Better
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] Master athletes are older men and women who compete in sports at a very high level, no matter how old they are. They are healthier than age-matched people in virtually every category that has been measured, according to a new study. Here's what these findings should mean to you.
- What Causes Diabetes: Genes or Environment?
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] Is diabetes more likely to be caused by your genes or your environment? What diagnostic test is the best predictor of diabetes? Two new studies give interesting answers.
- Caffeine Increases Endurance in Long Races
[Recreation-and-Sports] Caffeine increases endurance during long events such as a marathon, triathalon or bicycle race. A new study shows that caffeine helps the body use more carbohydrates from drinks that you take during exercise. How should you apply this information to your training program?
- Fat Restriction Does Not Reduce Heart Attacks, Strokes or Cancers
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] A long term study of 50,000 women shows that it is difficult to reduce total fat intake, and that it does not reduce the risk of heart attacks or cancers. Here's the latest thinking on fat restriction.
- Cadence: Pedal Faster to Ride Better
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] Muscle fatigue and damage are caused by excess pressure on the pedals, not by how fast you pedal. Pedaling at a faster cadence with less pressure allows you to pedal longer and harder. Know the pros and cons.
- Children Need More Exercise for Heart Health
[Kids-and-Teens] Children need at least 90 minutes of exercise a day to avoid heart disease when they are older, according to a new study. How do these findings apply to your child's activity program?
- Sports Drinks: What Do You Really Need?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Higher body temperatures during exercise slow you down and tire you earlier. Before you choose a sports drink, you need to know how it will affect your body temperature.
- Second Wind: A New Explanation
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Second wind means that when you run very fast, you reach a point where you gasp for breath, slow down but keep on pushing and after a few seconds, you feel recovered and pick up the pace. Some people think that you just slow down and allow yourself enough time to recover from your oxygen debt, but this new research gives another explanation.
- Strength Training Helps to Prevent Diabetes
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] One third of Americans will become diabetic because they eat too much and exercise too little. A recent study shows that lifting weights can help to prevent and to treat diabetes. Here's how this applies to you.
- Low Testosterone: Does it Cause Heart Attacks?
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Two widely reported studies showed a link between low testosterone and heart attacks in diabetics. This does not mean that low testosterone was the cause of the heart attacks. What does this research mean for you?
- Protein Drinks: Will They Improve Your Performance in a Race?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] When you compete in an athletic event lasting more than an hour, you need fluids and calories. In events lasting more than three hours, you also need salt. Will adding protein to your drinks improve your performance?
- Testosterone and EPO: How Quickly do they Affect Performance?
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] After Tour de France winner Floyd Landis was alleged to have taken testosterone, several physicians were widely quoted in the media as stating that taking testosterone for one day cannot improve performance. They are wrong. After multiple Olympic gold medal winning sprinter Marion Jones tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO), many physicians stated that EPO doesn't help sprinters. They are also wrong.
- Joint Replacement: Hastened by Exercise?
[Health-and-Fitness] Recreational exercisers have a much lower incidence of knee replacements
than their non-exercising peers. However, former competitive athletes have the highest rate of knee replacements. What's the difference, and how does it apply to you?
- Weight Gain During Pregnancy Is Essential
[Home-and-Family:Pregnancy] No woman should ever severely restrict food during her pregnancy, no matter how much she weighs when she gets pregnant. Several studies have shown that babies that are small because they are deprived of food in the uterus are the ones most likely to die in infancy or to suffer heart attacks later in life. Here's what you need to know.
- Blood Type: Functions Beyond Matching for Transfusions?
[Health-and-Fitness] Researchers in England dug up the bodies of people who had died from the 1665 London plague, and made the startling discovery that most of the people who died had type B blood, and that far fewer people have type B blood now than before the plague. What does this mean for you?
- Sunscreens or Veils Cause Vitamin D Deficiency
[Health-and-Fitness] For many years we have been advised to wear sunscreen to help prevent
skin cancer, but what happens if you don’t get any sun at all? Scientists don’t know exactly how much sunlight you need for good health. Here's what you need to know.
- Stress and Recover: The Key to Muscle Growth
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] If you do the same exercises every day and do not feel sore on the next day, you will not become stronger and faster or have greater endurance. Here's why you need to understand the training principle of "stress and recover."
- Muscle-Moving Machines Won't Make You Fit
[Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] If you see ads for equipment that promises to make you fit by moving your muscles for you, save your money. Exercise strengthens your heart only when you do it vigorously enough to increase your heart rate at least 20 beats a
minute above resting. Here's why the passive exercise machines don't make you fit or increase strength.
- Glycemic Index: Should GI Guide Your Food Choices?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The Glycemic Index (GI) is a ratio of how high a food raises blood
sugar in comparison to table sugar. Many popular diet books recommend avoiding foods with a high GI. Is this the magic key to weight loss?
- Colds and Wet Hair: Mother Was Wrong Again
[Health-and-Fitness] Will you catch a cold if you go out with wet hair in cold weather? Being cold or warm, being dressed or undressed, or having wet hair or dry hair have no effect; what determines whether you get a cold is
exposure to the cold virus. Here are the facts to debunk this myth.
- Lightning Strikes During Sporting Events
[Recreation-and-Sports] In the United States each year, lightening kills more than
500 people and injures more than 1000 people. Seventy-four
percent of the survivors suffer permanent injuries. The people who are killed by lightning are often spectators or
participants in sporting events. Here's what you need to know to protect yourself.
- Caffeine During Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Caffeine can help you exercise longer. When a muscle runs out of its stored sugar, it hurts and
cannot contract as effectively. Here's how caffeine can help.
- Walking for Fitness
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Walking is a very safe sport because it rarely causes injuries. If you want to walk to become fit, you should move vigorously enough to increase your heart rate at least 20 beats a minute higher than when you rest. Here's how to get the most out of your walking program.
- Vinegar for Weight Loss?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] One author claims that vinegar helps you to lose weight because oil and
vinegar don't mix, so vinegar and body fat won't either. I hope you
don't believe that. Here's what you need to know.
- Overactive Immunity, Syndrome X and Diet: Two New Studies
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The latest data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) shows that an unhealthy diet causes inflammation, which in turn causes heart attacks. A second study showed that people who suffer from the metabolic syndrome should increase their intake of omega-3 fatty acidsHere's what you need to know.
- Chocolate Milk: Best for Recovery!
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] What should you eat after strenuous exercise or competition? Many studies have shown that eating a protein-rich meal as soon as possible after this hard workout hastens muscle recovery. Here's a new study you will like.
- Exercise, Cholesterol and Statin Drugs
[Health-and-Fitness] Some patients with high cholesterol levels are afraid to take statins because off fear of developing side effects such as muscle pain. How important is exercise if your cholesterol is high? How common are side effects from statin drugs? Two recent studies provide new insight.
- Recovery from Exercise Takes Longer in PM than AM
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] It takes longer to recover from hard exercise in the evening than in the morning. Late-day mental performance improves after napping, and the same may be true of muscle function. Here's what you need to know.
- Slower Pace or Rest Between Races? It's Your Choice
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] If you compete in sports that require repeated short bursts of very fast running, such as in basketball, soccer, or football, will you recover faster by standing still or by continuing to move at a slower pace?
- Hiccups: Causes and Remedies
[Health-and-Fitness] Have you ever wondered what causes hiccups? Read on for an explanation, and some favorite remedies.
- Push-Ups: Train to Win
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] If you want to be able to do 100 pushups in a row, do not try to do as many pushups as possible every day. Follow these instructions and soon you will be ready to compete.
- Pain? Injuries? Know When to Change Sports
[Health-and-Fitness] If your favorite sport causes chronic pain or an injury that does not heal, you should probably switch to another sport. The good news is that switching to a new sport is much easier than starting from inactivity. Here are the findings of two recent studies to help you decide.
- New to Running? Start Out Right for Success
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] If you think you would enjoy jogging or running, here's how to get started. First, check with your doctor and get a good pair of running shoes. Read on for a program that will help you use the training methods of competitive runners.
- Brittle Nails? Gelatin Won't Help
[Health-and-Fitness:Beauty] In one of advertising history's most successful campaigns, the founders of Knox's gelatin claimed that their product would make fingernails stronger, presumably because cow hooves are strong. Many people still believe the old claims, even though there is no evidence that gelatin has any effect on nails. Here's what you can do.
- Does Your Heart Get Tired During Exercise?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Can your heart run out of energy or oxygen while you're exercising? Not if it's healthy. Here's what you need to know if you get tired during exercise.
- Belly Fat: Danger You Should Not Ignore
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] If you store more fat in your belly than in your hips, your cells are likely to be resistant to insulin which puts you at high risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and premature death. Storing fat in your belly causes you to store excess fat in your liver; read on to understand how insulin resistance works and what you can do about it.
- Stretching to Prevent Injuries? Maybe
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] There is little scientific evidence that stretching helps to prevent athletic injuries. However, a survey of high school coaches shows that almost all have their athletes stretch prior to practice or competition. Here's what you need to know.
- Strength Training Builds Stronger Bones
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] When you strengthen your muscles, you also strengthen your bones. If you're not exercising, regardless of your age, you are setting your bones up for osteoporosis. Here's what you need to know.
- Running Intervals Teaches Your Muscles to Use Lactic Acid
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Recent research shows that lactic acid is the most efficient source of energy for muscles. Anything that helps muscles to break down lactic acid faster will make you a better athlete because it will increase your endurance and allow you to move faster when you are tired. Here's what you need to know to get the most from your training program.
- Carry Weights While Jogging or Walking? Pros and Cons
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Should you carry weights while your run, walk or jog? That depends on your goals. Competitive runners should never carry hand weights, but they can help if you want to get more exercise while moving slowly. Here's what you need to know.
- Did Lance Armstrong Cheat?
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] This month, some of the favorites to win the Tour de France endurance bicycle race were prevented from entering because of suspicion that they may have taken drugs or had blood transfusions to raise their red blood cell counts. That brings up the accusation that Lance Armstrong, possibly the most dominant endurance bicycle racer of all time, took blood boosting drugs when he won the first of his seven Tour De France victories. What's the evidence?
- Lichen Planus: Itchy, Purple Bumps
[Health-and-Fitness] If you have itchy, angular, purple bumps on your skin, particularly on your forearms or have white patches in your mouth, check with a dermatologist, you may have lichen planus. The only way to prove a diagnosis of lichen planus is to have your skin biopsy show its characteristic appearance. Doctors don't have the foggiest idea of the cause, although reaction to drugs and infection are possible. Here's what you need to know about the diagnosis and treatment.
- Guillain Barre Syndrome: Caused by Infection?
[Health-and-Fitness] Guillain Barre syndrome is thought to be an auto-immune disease but may be caused by infection with an intestinal bacterium called campylobacter jejuni. A previously healthy person suddenly develops tingling and numbness primarily in the feet which within a couple of weeks spreads through the body to cause loss of muscle control and feeling throughout the body. Read on for more information on the diagnosis and treatment.
- Gilbert's Disease: Harmless, Possibly Helpful
[Health-and-Fitness] Bilirubin is a yellow pigment released from dead red blood cells into your bloodstream. Recent research shows that having high blood levels of bilirubin may help to prevent heart attacks. Here's what you need to know about a diagnosis of Gilbert's disease.
- Hammertoes: Diagnosis and Treatment
[Health-and-Fitness] A hammertoe is a general name for a toe that is bent. Hammertoes are caused by genetics, arthritis, poor-fitting shoes, or feet that are either excessively high-arched or flat. Here's what you need to know about the diagnosis and treatment.
- Athlete's Foot
[Health-and-Fitness] Do you have chronic itching or peeling on your feet, often between your toes? Here's what you need to know about the diagnosis and treatment of athlete's foot.
- Weight Loss Strengthens Your Heart, Lowers Heart Attack Risk
[Health-and-Fitness] More than 40 percent of Americans die of heart attacks and other blood vessel damaging diseases and 35 percent ultimately become diabetic. Two new studies show that weight loss strengthens your heart, and explain why lowering blood sugar levels reduces your risk for a heart attack. Here's what you need to know.
- Legal Drugs, Non-Banned Drugs: Do Any Help? Two New Studies
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Will the nonsteroidal pain medicines help you recover from a workout? Are there any drugs to make you stronger that are not banned by sports authorities such as the Olympic committee? The answers from two new studies may surprise you.
- High Blood Pressure: Salt or Insulin? Exercise? Two New Studies
[Health-and-Fitness] Nowhere in medicine is there more confusion than the issue of salt as a cause of high blood pressure. A new study found that people who lowered blood insulin levels had a significant reduction in high blood pressure even though they also markedly increased their salt intake. Another study may explain why exercise helps control blood pressure. Here's what you should know.
- Leg Clots May Be Caused By Infections
[Health-and-Fitness] Leg clots occur without warning with sudden pain and swelling in a leg muscle, usually the calf. This is a particularly dangerous condition because the clot can break lose from the veins in the leg, travel to the lungs and block blood flow to kill a person. A recent report links these clots to infections. Here's what you need to know.
- Whole Grains: Easy Cooking Instructions
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] If you are serious about healthful eating, learn how to make whole grains a staple in your diet. Whole grains are easy to cook on the stovetop (as you would cook rice or pasta), or in a countertop steamer. Cooke whole grains keep well, refrigerated or frozen. Leftovers can be reheated in a microwave or used in salads. I make my own "instant grains" by packaging ½-1 cup portions in baggies and storing them in the freezer. Here are complete instructions with time charts.
- Lose Weight, Lower Blood Pressure and Cholesterol with the Show-Me! Diet
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] If you would like to find out whether you are one of the 80 percent of people who can control high blood pressure or cholesterol with diet alone, have your doctor give you your current numbers. Follow my SHOW ME! Diet for just two weeks, then have your doctor re-check your cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure. Once you have proven to yourself and your doctor that you can control your blood pressure and cholesterol with diet, you will need to learn how to apply this way of eating for the rest of your life.
- Artichokes Star in Salads, Soups and Appetizers
[Food-and-Drink:Salads] Fresh, canned or frozen, artichokes are one of my favorite vegetables. A big fresh artichoke, steamed and served with lemon juice, stands on its own as a starter course. Far more often, I'll just open a jar of marinated artichokes and use them to dress up a tossed salad. Here are some of my favorite healthful recipes that feature artichokes.
- Whole-Meal Salads: The Perfect Warm-Weather Meal
[Food-and-Drink:Salads] Hearty salads made with whole grains, beans, vegetables and a variety of other ingredients should star on your menus, especially in the warm months. If you're not familiar with whole grains, visit the Nutrition section of my web site (see the link below); I explain all about how to cook them, where to find them, and why they are so important for healthful eating. Try these favorite recipes and then experiment with your own variations.
- Sweet Potato Salads and a Soup!
[Food-and-Drink:Salads] If you think sweet potatoes are only for Thanksgiving, you're missing out on one of nature's most versatile foods! Try these easy, delicious recipes and you'll change your mind. Sweet potatoes are packed with vitamins and minerals, and are such a pretty color that they dress up any table or party buffet. Sweet potato salads make a refreshing, healthful change from ordinary potato salads. The Sweet Potato Bisque is so good that it's bound to become a family favorite.
- Vine-Ripened Tomato Salad Recipes
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Nothing tastes like summer as much as a vine-ripened tomato. Eat one straight out of the garden, as you would an apple. Then take your tomatoes into the kitchen and toss them into these four delicious, easy salad recipes. Nothing could be simpler, better for you, more colorful, more tasty! What more can you ask for?
- Wine Prevents Heart Attacks? The Studies are Flawed
[Health-and-Fitness] Studies proclaiming the health benefits of alcohol are widely promoted by the wine, beer and alcoholic beverage industries, but they have a major flaw. Researchers from the University of Victoria in British Columbia reviewed 54 studies and found that only seven corrected their non-drinking population for people who had to stop drinking for health reasons. Here's what you should know.
- Oxygenated Water Does Not Increase Endurance
[Health-and-Fitness] Have you seen ads for oxygenated water, claiming to cure tiredness, improve memory, and help you to exercise longer and make you a better athlete? A study from Austria shows that oxygenated water offers none of these benefits for humans. Here's what you need to know.
- Loss of Strength With Age: Is It Inevitable?
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] The older you become, the more you need to exercise. With aging, a person loses nerve fibers that cause loss of each connected muscle fiber. However, you can continue to build strength in the remaining muscle fibers into your 90's and beyond. Here's what you need to know.
- Sports Drinks Won't Prevent Dehydration or Hyponatremia
[Health-and-Fitness] Do you believe the ads for sports drinks that tell you they contain everything you need during exercise? Sports drinks contain a small amount of salt, but not enough to meet your needs. Here's what you need to know to prevent collapse or even death during prolonged exercise.
- Exercise Won't Hurt a Healthy Heart
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] A study from Northwestern University shows that running a marathon did not cause any abnormalities in heart function. This does not mean that everyone can go out and run a marathon. People who have damaged hearts can die from over-exertion. Here's what you need to know about your heart and exercise.
- Living High, Training Low
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Athletes in endurance events practice a training technique called "living high, training low". Many years ago, scientists noticed that people who live in the mountains, where the air contains lower levels of oxygen, have higher than normal blood oxygen levels. A limiting factor in events that require endurance is the time it takes to move oxygen from the lungs into the muscles. Here's how you can apply this information to your training program.
- Are Cell Phones Safe?
[Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] Researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life reported that people who use cell phones for more than an hour a day for ten years are at significantly increased risk for brain cancers This study disagrees with the Dutch Health Council study and a British survey, both released this year, that failed to show increased any risk. Most studies so far have failed to show an association between cell phones and brain tumors. Here's what you should know.
- Endurance and Heart Size
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] What laboratory test is the best predictor of finishing times for a running race of 100 kilometers (62 miles, or more than twice the distance of a marathon)? A study from Yokohama, Japan suggests that it is an echocardiogram to measure the size of your left ventricular heart chamber which determines how much blood your heart can pump with each beat. What does this mean for you?
- Pressure on Pedals Tires You More than Spinning Fast
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] Experienced bicycle riders know that fatigue comes from how hard you press on the pedals, not how fast you turn them. Novice racers may try to ride with maximum force on the pedals, but they quickly exhaust themselves and often can’t even finish the race. Here's how to decide on your best cadence.
- Know When to Stop Exercising
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] After you have played a long tennis match on a hot summer day, you feel weaker and less accurate with your shots. The fatigue, muscle weakness, tired aching feeling and decreased coordination that you get in any sport lasting several hours is caused by low levels of fluids, salt or calories. Here's what you need to know.
- Food Label Health Claims: Read Between the Lines
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has loosened restrictions on how much scientific proof is required before possible health benefits appear on food labels. Here's what you can expect to see on labels in the future.
- Dreams and Depression: Was Sigmund Freud Correct?
[Health-and-Fitness:Depression] Psychotherapy, by itself, has not been shown to be an effective treatment for most cases of depression, anxiety or schizophrenia. On the other hand, psychotherapy plus medication is more effective than medication alone to treat anxiety and depression. So Sigmund Freud may have been correct.
- Panic Disorder: Did Charles Darwin Have It?
[Health-and-Fitness] Panic disorder is unexpected attacks of extreme anxiety, with symptoms including rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, sweating, nausea and dizziness. Some victims feel they are losing their minds or are about to die. It affects about 13 million Americans, who can relate to this story of Charles Darwin.
- Coca Cola and Sigmund Freud
[Food-and-Drink] Most people know that Sigmund Freud was the father of modern psychoanalysis, but did you know that he was also the foster father of Coca Cola? The only scientific paper that Sigmund Freud ever wrote was not about psychotherapy. It was about cocaine.
- Teflon Pans Cause Cancer? Rumor and Truth
[Cancer] If you have heard rumors that your Teflon pans will give you cancer, relax. PFOA, a suspected carcinogen, is used to manufacture Teflon, but there is none present in the finished products. However, non-stick pans may release other toxic particles if they are used at very high heats. Here's what you need to know.
- Improve Your Coordination with Strength Training
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Lifting weights to develop large strong muscles can improve coordination, make you faster and more flexible as well as stronger. It will not interfere with the coordination that you need for such fine muscle movements as playing the piano or shooting a basketball.
- Memory Loss: Prevent with Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] Nobody really knows how exercise helps prevent loss of mental function, but every factor that helps protect you from getting a heart attack or stroke also protects you from dementia. The Nurses' Health Study from the Harvard School of Public Health has shown that exercising your muscles improved cognitive function. Here's what you can do.
- Chemistry Course Got You Down? Here's Hope
[Reference-and-Education:Science] If you're struggling through high school or college chemistry, take heart. In 2003, a man who got a D in chemistry in high school won the Nobel Prize, the most prestigious award any chemist could ever receive.
- Will a Clean Colon Prolong Your Life?
[Health-and-Fitness:Alternative] In the early 20th century, many people took enemas regularly because they thought that it would clean out their colons and help to prolong their lives. Some entrepreneurs who try to sell you colon cleansing products still promote these outdated ideas today.
- Will Bed Rest Help You Get Better?
[Health-and-Fitness] Remember the last time you had the flu or a cold? Do you think you heal faster by staying in bed for a day or two or going to work?
- Lead Poisoning, Hair Anaylsis and Beethoven: Solving a Medical Mystery
[Health-and-Fitness:Medicine] Beethoven died in 1827 and no tests were available to prove or disapprove the cause of his deafness and his death. After he died, hair was removed from his head and kept by his admirers; it is still available today. Here's the fascinating story of a medical mystery solved with hair analysis
- Beriberi: Finding the Cause and Cure
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] From 1600 to 1920, one of the most common causes of death in North America was beriberi. Most people don’t even know what it is because it is extremely rare today, but the detective work to find the cause and cure spanned many centuries and countries.
- Stop Breathing While You Sleep? You May Have Sleep Apnea
[Health-and-Fitness:Sleep-Snoring] If your spouse notices that you stop breathing for more than 10 seconds more than 10 times an hour during sleep, you may have sleep apnea. Many overweight people suffer from sleep apnea and have difficulty staying awake during the day because stopping breathing interferes with deep sleep, causing them to wake up tired each morning.
- Overactive Thyroid: Grave's Disease and
[Health-and-Fitness:Thyroid] In May 1991, 66 year old, George Bush, the 41st President of the United States and father of the 43rd president, was diagnosed with Grave's disease, an overactive thyroid. How could the president, his wife and his dog all develop autoimmune diseases that are thought to be inherited from one's parents?
- Typhoid Mary Would Have Had Cancer
[Health-and-Fitness:Medicine] One hundred years ago in New York City, at least 10 epidemics of typhoid fever were traced to a single cook who was later called Typhoid Mary. Recent medical reports tell us how the epidemics could have been prevented and what could have been done to help her. Today, the term Typhoid Mary refers to a person who spreads diseases to other people, even though she has no symptoms herself.
- Olympic History Tidbits: The Marriage of Two Great Athletes
[Recreation-and-Sports:Olympics] If you are envious of great athletes, you'll be interested in the true story of the marriage of two great Olympic athletes. The dominant athlete of the 1968 Olympics was Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia who won 4 gold and two silver medal in gymnastics. Right after the closing Olympic ceremony in 1968, she married Joseph Odlizil, the 1964 Olympic silver medalist from Czechoslovakia in the 1500 meters. Their story is a sad one.
- STD's, Cardiomyopathy and Wilt Chamberlain
[Health-and-Fitness:Diseases-STDs] He was the greatest basketball player and possibly the greatest athlete who ever lived. The 63-year-old Wilt Chamberlain was reported to have died of a heart attack, but that tells you nothing. You are supposed to ask why the world’s greatest athlete would die of a heart attack?
- Skin Cancer and US Politicians
[Cancer:Skin-Cancer] Former President Clinton had a basal cell skin cancer removed from his back while he was in office, attracting national press attention to this common form of cancer. Did you know that Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush all had skin cancers removed when they were president, as did VP's Al Gore and Dick Cheney. There are three main types of skin cancers, explained in this article.
- Stride Length or Cadence: Which Makes You Faster?
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] There are two ways to run faster. You can move your legs at a faster rate, called cadence, or you can take longer steps. A video at the New York City Marathon showed that the top 150 runners had the same cadence, taking 92 to 94 steps a minute. The difference between the top runners and the others was that the best runners took longer strides. Here's how to apply this to your running program.
- Exercise in Air Pollution: Does the Benefit Outweigh the Harm?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] It's healthful to exercise and harmful to breathe polluted air. Many people wonder if they will do more harm than good by exercising on days when the air is heavily polluted.
- Senior Exercise: What's Safest and Best?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] If you are thinking of starting an exercise program late in life, the safest exercises are cycling and swimming. If you have a hard time walking up stairs, or getting out of a chair without using your hands, your thighs are weak and you can strengthen them by pedaling stationary bicycle. Here's how.
- Muscle Building is Not Just for the Young
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Older men and women can enlarge and strengthen muscles in the same way that younger people do. Most young people can lift very heavy weights and continue to lift through the soreness, but older people should stop lifting as soon as they feel the soreness during a workout.
- Growth Hormone and Muscle Strength
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Thousands of athletes in many sports spend millions of dollars on growth hormone and growth hormone promoters in the hope that it will help them grow larger muscles, become stronger and therefore be better athletes. As you age, blood levels of growth hormone drop. Here's what you need to know.
- Strong Muscles for Stronger Bones
[Recreation-and-Sports:Rugby] Exercising to strengthen muscles strengthens the bones on which these same muscles attach. Bones in the arm that holds the racquet of a professional tennis player are much larger and stronger than the bones in the other arm. The arm bones are bigger, denser and stronger in athletes who whose activities involve upper body strength, such as rugby, rock climbing, kayaking, and weight lifting.
- Socks: Do You Need Them?
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Should you wear socks with your running shoes, tennis shoes or any other workout shoes? The main purpose of socks is to keep your feet and shoes from smelling. Foot odor is caused by bacteria or fungi rotting old skin. If your feet smell, read on.
- Prevent Sports Injuries With Strength Training
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Muscles are injured because the force on them is greater than their inherent strength, so they tear. Resistance training makes muscles stronger so that they can withstand greater forces and therefore helps to prevent injuries. Here are more ways to prevent sports injuries.
- Most Athletes Do Not Need to Replace Potassium
[Recreation-and-Sports] Many sports drinks advertise that they contain potassium, but potassium deficiency is not common in athletes unless they are trying to control weight by vomiting. Even with prolonged exercise in very hot weather, potassium needs can be met by eating a normal diet because potassium is found in virtually all foods except refined sugar.
- How to Make Exercise Fun!
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] When you are just starting out, it may be hard to visualize how exercise could ever be fun, because in the beginning it just seems like plain hard work. Here are five ways to make your exercise program more enjoyable.
- Spouse Won't Exercise? Here's What You Can Do
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] How can you get your spouse or other loved one to get more active if they’re not the least bit motivated? It’s always hard to get someone else to get off the couch; the excuses are endless. But couples who exercise together have the lowest drop-out rates of all new exercisers.
- Should You Keep an Exercise Diary?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Competitive athletes keep exercise diaries, and I encourage all my patients to do the same. Here's why it's important, and how to do it.
- How to Buy Exercise Equipment
[Health-and-Fitness:Fitness-Equipment] Selecting a new piece of exercise equipment can be daunting because there are so many possibilities. DON’T give in to high pressure sales people until you know exactly what you want. Here are some tips to make sure you get the most for your money.
- Just Starting? Build Muscle in 20 Minutes a Day ( No Expensive Equipment)
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] You can start a strength-training program at home without expensive equipment, and improve your strength and flexibility in less than 20 minutes a day. Don’t push yourself if any of these moves are difficult for you; start small and build up gradually.
- Stretch to Prevent Back Problems, Falls or Pulled Muscles
[Health-and-Fitness] Three-time Olympian and coach Pat Connolly gave me these tips for building flexibility to help you prevent falls, pulled muscles and back problems. When you stretch a muscle, be sure to loosen or shake it gently after each stretch. Start with these stretches.
- Stress: Cause of Heart Attacks, or "Blame the Victim"?
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] Does stress cause heart attacks? A situation that causes you great distress may be just a minor annoyance for someone else, and vice versa. What should you do?
- Varicose Veins: Exercise is the Best Treatment
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Veins are supposed to contain valves that keep blood from backing up. When the valves cannot close properly, veins become varicose, blood backs up, causing the veins to widen and look like blue snakes underneath the skin. Should you wear support hose? Should you exercise?
- Blood Clots: What You Need to Know
[Health-and-Fitness] You are supposed to form clots only to protect you from bleeding, but any trauma or inflammation in your body can cause clots to form in blood vessels. If a clot breaks off from a blood vessel wall, it can block arteries to cause a heart attack, stroke or pulmonary embolism. Here's what you need to know.
- Gas, Constipation, Belching and Other Digestive Problems
[Health-and-Fitness] From your mouth to your colon, your digestive tract is loaded with bacteria and so is a common site for a variety of infections or inflammations. Other digestive problems, such as constipation and irritable bowel syndrome, are usually caused by a faulty diet. Here's what you should know.
- Know Your Fats: Some Are Good
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] All foods contain a mixture of the three different types of fats: saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. There are no foods that contain only one type. Know which ones are healthful and which are unhealthful, to help you make good food choices.
- Larry King's Heart Attack Saved His Life
[Health-and-Fitness] For ten years, I told Larry King that he was a walking time bomb and should change his lifestyle before it was too late. When he had his heart attack, I was the first person to see him in the emergency room. Now he eats the way I do, exercises regularly, has normal cholesterol and blood pressure, and never felt better. His heart attack saved his life. But some people are not as lucky as Larry and don't get a second chance. Here's what you can do.
- Large Belly: A Warning Sign Even if You're Thin Everywhere Else
[Health-and-Fitness] In Victorian times a large belly was a sign of prosperity and manliness, but now we know that having a lot of fat in your belly increases your risk for heart attacks and diabetes. People who store fat primarily underneath the skin in their bellies also store a lot of fat around their intestines and in their liver.
- Blood Pressure: Understand It, Control It (Preferably with Diet)
[Health-and-Fitness] When your heart contracts, it pushes a huge amount of blood forward to your arteries. Your arteries are supposed to act like balloons and expand to accept the blood and prevent your blood pressure from rising too high. Having plaques in your arteries stiffens them and prevents them from expanding when your heart contracts, causing your blood pressure to rise higher than normal. Most people can control high blood pressure with diet alone.
- Triglycerides: What's Too HIgh? What Can You Do?
[Health-and-Fitness] When you take in more calories than your body needs, your liver converts the extra calories into fat molecules called triglycerides. If your triglyceride level is above the normal 150, it means that you eat too much food or have high blood insulin levels which can cause heart attacks. Here's what you can do.
- Overweight or "Big Boned"? Three Simple Tests to Help You Decide
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Muscle weighs more than fat, and some people have larger, heavier bones than others. You can be heavy and perfectly healthy if a large percentage of your weight is in bone and muscle. However, if a high percentage of your weight is fat, you are at increased risk for diabetes, heart disease, strokes, some types of cancer and other health problems. Here are three simple tests to help you decide whether you should be concerned about your weight.
- Are You Pre-Diabetic? Do Nuts Prevent Diabetes? Two Interesting Studies
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] Will eating nuts keep you from becoming diabetic? Should you be concerned about a high fasting blood sugar if you don't have diabetes? If you're trying to prevent diabetes, you'll want to read the answers to these questions.
- Wrinkles, Memory Loss: Can You Prevent Them?
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] What can you do to prevent wrinkles? A study from Denmark shows that skin wrinkling and aging are influenced heavily by genetic factors. And how about memory loss; will exercise really protect you? Read the findings of two interesting studies.
- Does Viagra Cause Heart Attacks? Is Testosterone Lowered By Marriage?
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Have you wondered whether Viagra really causes heart attacks, and whether testosterone is higher when you're single or married? Two studies give some interesting answers.
- Stress Fractures, Blood Pressure Medications: Common Runner's Health Issues
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] What’s the best way to treat a stress fracture? Will blood pressure drugs interfere with your running program? Read the findings from two recent studies that will help you with your running program.
- Salt Restriction, Statin Drugs: New Heart Health Findings
[Health-and-Fitness] Do people who restrict salt have lower rates of heart attacks?
Are statin drugs the best way to lower cholesterol? If you're concerned about your heart health, you'll want to read the findings from two new studies.
- Nose-less Bicycle Seats Keep You Comfortable and Potent
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] The greatest source of discomfort for cyclists is the nose of their bike seat pressing on nerves and soft tissues. For men, this pain brings the additional worry of impotence. If you feel no discomfort when you ride, keep on riding and stop worrying. If you feel numbness, get a new seat. Here are 8 tips for comfortable riding.
- Older Women Must Exercise Every Day
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Can you explain why a study from Canada showed that exercising three times a week improved insulin sensitivity in younger women but not in older women? The only places that you can store extra sugar in your body are in your liver and muscles. Learn what changes as you age.
- Muscle Fatigue in Endurance Events Is Caused by Muscle Damage
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] When you exercise for a long time, your muscles start to burn and feel sore. This forces you to slow down, because keeping up the pace will make your muscles burn and hurt even more. You call this fatigue and tiredness, but a recent study from Japan shows that muscle fatigue is caused by damage to the muscle itself.
- Why Sled Dogs Have Such Great Endurance
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] How can sled dogs run more than 100 miles a day for weeks on end, while humans can’t possible recover from such abuse of their muscles? A limiting factor in how long you can exercise a muscle is how much sugar you can store in a muscle, how quickly you use it up, and how quickly you can restore sugar the sugar in your muscles.
- Rests Between Intervals Should Not Be Too Short
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Athletes train by breaking down individual workouts into intervals of stress and recovery. The shorter the rest during an interval, the longer it takes to recover. If you are a regular exerciser, you probably have already noticed this in your own body. Here's how to learn your ideal interval rest.
- Whole Grains Make Great "Spanish Rice" and Other Side Dishes
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] If you're trying to include more WHOLE grains in your diet, don't overlook the traditional white-rice side dishes. It's so easy to convert these recipes just by subsituting brown rice, cooked barley or other whole grains for the refined-carbohydrate white rice. Try these 3 recipes, then use the same strategy on your own favorite rice recipes.
- Bean Dips: So Easy and Cheap to Make, You Should Never Buy Ready-Made
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] When I see jars of expensive bean dips for sale in the supermarket, I just shake my head. Nothing could be easier to make. Just open a can of beans and pour it into a blender along with some seasonings. Here are three recipes to get you started; you'll find it's easy to invent more.
- Oatmeal-Fruit Bars Plus a No-Bake "Cookie"
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Dried, fruits, nuts, oatmeal and spices are my favorite ingredients for healthful desserts and snacks to satisfy the sweet tooth. You can vary these recipes endlessly by using different fruits and nuts.
- Beans for Dinner: High Protein, Cheap and Delicious
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Beans provide vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, and are very high in fiber. They are good sources of the essential fatty acids and are the best plant source of protein. Dried beans are usually more economical, but they take longer to prepare. Canned beans are more convenient. They are equally nutritious; it's your choice. Try them in these easy recipes.
- Vegetable Curries: An Easy, Flavorful Way to Eat Your Veggies
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] A flavorful, mild curry powder or curry paste, or a bottled curry sauce, makes just about any combination of vegetables into a gourmet meal. Try these recipes and then experiment with your own favorite vegetables, whole grains and beans.
- Dips Aren't Just For Chips - Make Them Healthful with Veggie Dippers
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Salsas, bean dips, guacamole and other dipping favorites don't need to be scooped up with unhealthful chips. Use strips of red pepper, cauliflower or broccoli florets or that old faithful, celery. For a new veggie dipper twist, peel a raw sweet potato and slice it into thin "chips", and dig in! Try these three great dip recipes to get you started with healthful snacking.
- Desserts from Cooked Whole Grains: If You Like Rice Pudding, You'll Love These
[Food-and-Drink:Desserts] Healthful whole grains can be featured in every part of your meals: breakfast cereals, salads, soups, main dishes, and even desserts. Try these recipes that use cooked whole grains sweetened with fruit and seasoned with fragrant spices.
- Soups Thickened with Oatmeal! Creamy and Healthful, Too
[Food-and-Drink:Soups] You don't need butter or flour to make soup thick and creamy. Instead, stir in a cupful of rolled oats or quick oats, and cook for 20 minutes or more. Then whirl a hand blender in the pot to make the soup smooth and extra creamy. Try this in the delicious recipes below, or invent your own.
- No Time to Cook? Try These Extra-Quick Recipes for Healthful Meals
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Do you think you're too busy to cook your own healthful meals? Take advantage of bags of frozen mixed vegetables, canned beans and other shortcuts with these delicious, super-speedy recipes. If you're not in the habit of cooking your own whole grains, learn how, and learn why whole grains are so important to a healthful diet, in my Good Food Book; it's free -- see the link at the bottom of this article.
- Asparagus: Springtime Bounty
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Fresh asparagus is available year-round, but it's most plentiful and cheapest in springtime. Steam them, add them to any salad, or try one of these easy, healthful recipes. And don't be surprised if your urine smells of asparagus after you eat it. Many foods affect the odor of urine, and asparagus is notorious for this.
- Potato Salads - Three Easy, Healthful Recipes
[Food-and-Drink:Salads] Potato salads are not just for picnics! They're good year-round, and the variations are endless. I never peel potatoes for salads. The skins of the red ones are pretty in a salad and if you throw them away, you waste their fiber. Just scrub the potatoes with a plastic scouring pad.
- Vegetarian Chili - Three Recipes for Healthful Meals the Whole Family Will Love
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Chili seasonings bring out the best in vegetables and beans; your family and friends will never miss the meat. You can improvise with these recipes, using whatever type of beans you like, and adding or subtracting other ingredients to match your personal preferences. You can always freeze any leftovers.
- Lentil Soups: Easy, Filling and Delicious
[Food-and-Drink:Soups] Have you made a pot of lentil soup lately? It's healthful cooking at its best: easy, hearty, tasty and loved by young and old. Lentils come in one-pound bags in the dry beans section of your supermarket. Usually you will find two kinds: ordinary greenish-brown lentils, and orange lentils which are actually just the ordinary lentils with their skins removed. All cook quickly and make wonderful soups.
- Seafood Stews: Healthful Recipes from Around the World
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] I love the seafood stews that come from almost every region that borders on an ocean! They’re wonderful served over whole grains instead of white rice or pasta. Here are some of my favorites to get you started.
- Salads with Whole Grains and Fruit
[Food-and-Drink:Salads] Cooked wild rice, barley, brown rice or other whole grains make wonderful salads when combined with fruits, vegetables and seasonings. Here are four recipes to get you started. Experiment with your own combinations and favorite flavors; it's hard to go wrong!
- Beans and Other Legumes: Nutritional Powerhouses
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Legumes are our second most-important food source (grains rank first). The huge legume family includes the many varieties of beans, as well as lentils, peas and peanuts. Seeds contain everything necessary to bring a new plant to life, so they are nutritional powerhouses for us as well. They provide vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, and are very high in fiber.
- Minerals: Plants Need Most of Them, Too
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Most of the minerals we need are the same ones plants require for their own growth. If any of their 16 essential elements is not available, the plant withers and dies. If you buy a tomato or a red bell pepper, you know that the plant grew successfully and had all of the minerals it needed.
- Vitamins: The Basics from Food and Sunshine
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] You can get all the vitamins you need from the food you eat plus some sunshine. A daily multi-vitamin for extra "insurance" won’t hurt you, but an unhealthy diet with vitamin pills is still an unhealthy diet. Don’t be misled by high-priced supplements that make extravagant promises.
- Healthful Diet Rule #1: Stay Close to Nature
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] For most of human history the struggle has been to get enough food, so the survivors were those best equipped to cope with deprivation and scarcity. For most North Americans today, the problem is too much food that is too cheap, too convenient and too tasty to resist.
- Omega 3's From Plants May Be Best
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The omega-3 fatty acids in seeds such as flax and whole grains may be even more important in maintaining your health than the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish. Fish oils are extremely low in vitamin E, while virtually every seed or plant source of omega-3s also has vitamin E, so your body stores far more short chain omega-3s from plants in your body fat.
- Flax Seeds: A Rich Source of Omega-3's
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] If you are trying to restore the balance between Omega-6 and Omega-3 essential fatty acids in your diet, you may want to eat a tablespoon or two of whole flax seeds each day. Flax seeds are the richest commonly available plant source of alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3's).
- Sugar Cravings and "Carbohydrate Addiction"
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Sugar cravings can be caused by the high rises and rapid drops in your blood sugar which occur when you eat any refined carbohydrates, not just sugar. But no one should try to avoid them completely. Here's the difference between "good carbs" and "bad carbs."
- Is Diabetes Genetic?
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] If you think you are doomed to become diabetic because it "runs in your family," take heart. You inherit a susceptibility to Type II diabetes; you do not inherit diabetes. Read on to find out how to protect yourself.
- Will Hard Exercise Damage Your Heart Muscle?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Many researchers have been concerned that very hard exercise would damage heart muscle in the same way it damages skeletal muscles. A study from Freiburg University in Germany shows that hard exercise does not damage a healthy heart. Here's why.
- Isometric Exercises
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Isometric exercise means that you push against something that doesn't move, such as a wall. Thirty years ago, most weightlifters and athletes is sports requiring strength used isometric training to make themselves stronger. But athletes don't use isometric training much anymore.
- Mitral Valve Prolapse: Usually Harmless
[Health-and-Fitness] One in ten Americans suffers from mitral valve prolapse and the vast majority have no symptoms and will never know that they have it. The vast majority of people with mitral valve prolapse do not need any treatment, but those who are bothered by irregular heart beats or chest pain are often given beta blockers, such as propranolol to control symptoms.
- Tonsils and Adenoids: Should They Be Removed?
[Health-and-Fitness] Removing tonsils and adenoids has little, if any, effect in preventing recurrences of ear infections, yet doctors still remove more than 400,000 tonsils each year. Tonsils should never be removed before age four, because prior to age four they are a major supplier of the cells and proteins that help to protect you from being infected with viruses and bacteria.
- Iron: Too Much Can Harm You
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] High blood levels of iron are associated with an increased risk of suffering heart attacks and certain cancers. People who eat a lot of meat, fish and chicken have higher blood levels of iron than vegetarians. Should you be concerned?
- Monoglycerides and Diglycerides
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Monoglycerides and diglycerides are fats, but people who are trying to lose weight do not need to worry about restricting them. They are added to foods to make bakery products taste smooth and to prevent the oil from separating out in foods such as peanut butter.
- Food Additives and Preservatives
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Anything that doesn't occur naturally in a particular food is considered an additive. But you should be more concerned about what's taken out of your food than what's added in. "Enriched" means vitamins, minerals, other nutrients and fiber were been removed during processing, and what is added back may be only a small part of what was taken away.
- Green Tea, Black Tea, Herbal Tea: Healthful Beverage Choices
[Food-and-Drink] The health benefits of tea have been trumpeted in the media recently. Even though the claims may be exaggerated, if you're going to drink much of any beverage other than water, tea is probably your best choice.
- Blue-Green Algae: Wonder Food or Waste of Money?
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Algae are abundant, high in minerals, and depending on the species, a good source of protein, carbohydrates, fiber, essential fatty acids and vitamins. But it makes no sense to buy blue-green algae in pills. A pound of dried soybeans costs 89 cents; a pound of dried blue-green algae in pill form costs over $1000. Read this before you spend your money.
- Scurvy: Vitamin C Deficiency
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Vitamins are parts of enzymes you can't live without, and your body can't make. We take them for granted today, but vitamin deficiency diseases plagued our ancestors and took a long time to figure out. Vitamin C is found in fruits and vegetables, and Scurvy, caused by lack of vitamin C for many weeks or months, wasn't identified until people were separated from plants for long periods of time.
- Chelated Minerals: Worth the Extra Cost?
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Drug stores, supermarkets and internet sites sell chelated calcium and iron pills that are advertised to be absorbed better than cheaper non-chelated minerals. Are they worth the price?
- Ephedra: Should It Be Banned?
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Ephedra is a stimulant that is sold to help people lose weight, get bigger muscles, keep them awake when they drive long distances, and a host of fraudulent reasons such as to prevent and treat cancers, allergies, and certain diseases and make you more sexual. This drug has been sold over-the counter, without need for prescription, for more that 30 years primarily for weight loss, energy and sports supplements. Should it be banned?
- YoYo Dieting is Harmful
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Most people who try to diet by restricting calories lose and regain weight only to make themselves fatter. Food restriction causes binging. Healthy people do not willingly leave the table hungry or go to bed hungry. Studies on rats show that each time that they regain fat, they do so at a faster rate.
- Peanut Butter: Check for Trans Fats
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Many of the major brands of peanut butter contain partially hydrogenated oils, which we recommend that you avoid. They try to fool you because if the amount is less than .5 grams per serving, they can say "0 grams of trans fats" or "no trans fats." A serving of peanut butter is two tablespoons -- so they can put as much as 8 grams of trans fats in a 16-ounce jar and still attach a label that says "No Trans Fats"!.
- Salt, Sea Salt or No Salt?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] You need to eat foods that contain iodine for your body to be able to make thyroid hormone. The best sources are iodized salt and seafood. Plants can be a good source, but only if they are grown on iodine-rich soil.
- Syndrome X Puts You at Risk for Heart Attacks and Diabetes
[Health-and-Fitness] Syndrome X describes people who have low blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol and high blood levels of triglycerides, which puts them at high risk for heart attacks. Excessive amounts of triglycerides cause a condition called fatty liver that interferes with liver function.
- Fear of Pesticides Should Not Keep You From Eating Your Fruits and Vegetables
[Food-and-Drink] If you avoid fruits and vegetables because of fear of pesticides, you're harming yourself. People who eat the most produce, which is the highest source of insecticides, are the ones least likely to suffer cancers and heart attacks. Almost all the pesticides that we eat were placed in fruits and vegetables by nature, not by man.
- To Peel or Not to Peel?
[Food-and-Drink:Cooking-Tips] Vegetable and fruit skins are loaded with fiber and nutrients. You don't want to throw them away unless you have to. Recipes in many cookbooks tell you to peel potatoes, apples, eggplants and everything else, whether you need to or not.
- Ear Tubes for Toddlers?
[Home-and-Family:Babies-Toddler] Should your toddler have ear tubes inserted to help prevent ear infections? The inner ear is full of air and is connected to the outside through the eustachian tube that opens into the back of your mouth. Young children have narrow eustachian tubes that can close and fill with fluid that causes ear pressure and pain.
- Hard-Easy Training Principle Applies to Any Sport or Fitness Program
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] You will not become a better athlete by doing the same training regimen each day. Athletes train by taking hard workouts on one day, feeling sore on the next, and not taking another hard workout until the muscles stop feeling sore. It's called the hard-easy principle. Here's how to apply it to YOUR fitness program.
- How Old Should a Child Be to Start Serious Athletic Training?
[Home-and-Family:Parenting] Do you think your child is an exceptionally fast runner or swimmer? Outstanding in gymnastics, skating or little league baseball? Young children can start training for athletic competition at a very young age as far as their bodies are concerned, but they should not start before they want to accept the regimented lifestyle required for athletic competition.
- Osteoporosis Caused by Vitamin D Deficiency?
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Do you believe that lack of calcium is the most common cause of osteoporosis? Vitamin D deficiency may be even more important; a study from Amsterdam shows that 64 percent of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis lack vitamin D.
- How Diabetes Causes Heart Attacks
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] The heart muscle of diabetics uses a much higher percentage of fat for energy than that of non-diabetics, markedly increasing risk for heart attacks. Many people discover that they are diabetic only after they have had a heart attack.
- Vigorous Exercise Treats Diabetes
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] An exciting study from Yale shows that intense exercise is far more effective in preventing and controlling diabetes than exercising at a leisurely pace. The diabetic who exercises hard enough to sweat and raises his heart rate above 80 percent of its maximum will be far less likely to suffer the terrible consequences of uncontrolled diabetes.
- Muscle Cramps During Endurance Events
[Recreation-and-Sports] If you’ve ever developed severe muscle cramps during long-term exercise, the odds are that you never found out why it happened.
Doctors in South Africa studied triathletes and found that most of the time, the muscles cramps were not caused by dehydration, thyroid disease, blocked blood flow, nerve damage, or mineral abnormalities. Here's what they found...
- Fat Thighs May Be Good For You
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Do you hate your heavy thighs and hips? If you are woman who is thinking about getting liposuction to rid yourself of the fat in your thighs, think again. Thigh fat may be good fat.
- Aspirin Can Cause Hyponatremia
[Health-and-Fitness] Several recent studies how that aspirin, Indocin, Celebrex and other arthritis pain medicines may cause some cases of hyponatremia, a condition that can kill novice athletes in ultra long endurance events. These medications, often taken to relieve muscle and joint pain, cause the body to retain fluid during exercise.
- Blood Pressure and Heart Size in Athletes
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] In 1976, 413 high school runners in Finland competed in a 2000-meter race. At the time of the race and in a follow-up study twenty-five years later, the faster runners had much lower blood pressures than the slower ones.
- Why Diabetes Can Be Caused By Obesity
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] We've known for many years that being overweight increases risk for diabetes, but researchers now are explaining why and at the same time, offering new hope for a cure.
- Diabetics Should Eat Fruits and Root Vegetables
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] Root vegetables and fruits are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and fiber. Many studies show that diabetics who do not eat fruit and root vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots or beets, are at increased risk for heart attacks and strokes.
- Warming Up and Stretching Can Impair Performance in Competition
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Have you watched football players, sprinters and other athletes warming up and stretching before competitions? Two new studies show that they may be harming their performance.
- Low Fat Diets Fail the Test?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] You should not be surprised by the latest three studies showing that low-fat diets do not prevent breast or colon cancers or heart attacks. The women in the study did not lose weight. That means that they did not eat fewer calories, even though they were instructed to avoid the most concentrated sources of calories.
- Margarines to Lower Cholesterol: Do You Need Them?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Eating plant sterols and exercising lowers cholesterol, blood pressure, body fat and weight, but you don't have to eat special plant sterol margarine. You can get plenty of plant sterols in nuts, seeds, vegetables and beans. Many of the special cholesterol-lowering margarines are still made with partially hydrogenated oils.
- Beginning Weight Lifter? Get the Most from Your Workout
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Do you know how to get the most from your weight-lifting workouts? A recent study shows that you benefit either from increasing the number of sets of repetitions or from training faster, but not both.
- Healthful Diet: Include Lots of Seeds
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Seeds have been the staple of the human diet for millions of years. They come in many sizes and shapes, but they share the same basic design: a tiny germ, or baby plant; an energy supply of carbohydrates or fat to fuel the first stages of growth; and a protective outer skin, husk or shell. Everything necessary to start a new life is packaged in each seed, so for humans and other animals, seeds are nutritional powerhouses.
- Whole Grains? How Can You Tell What You're Buying?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] When the label says "Whole Wheat Pasta" or "Stone Ground Wheat Bread", does that mean it's healthy? How can you tell if a food is made from whole grains or refined grains? It's not always easy, but here are some tips.
- Lactose Intolerant? Have a Healthful, Calcium-Rich Diet with No Milk
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Fifty percent of North Americans are lactose intolerant. They lack the enzyme to split the double sugar, lactose, found in milk and other dairy products. Since you can only absorb single sugars, if you can't split the double sugar, it passes to your large intestine where it is attacked by bacteria and fermented, causing gas and cramping. You can eliminate all dairy products and still have a perfectly healthy diet.
- Ringing in the Ears: Tinnitus
[Health-and-Fitness] Tinnitus means that you hear a sound that no one else hears. It can be a buzzing, roaring or ringing and it can even sound like a heart beat. It's almost always the result of damage to the nerve that carries hearing messages back to the brain, but there is no specific treatment and drugs are ineffective.
- Gout: A Painful Big Toe?
[Health-and-Fitness] If you have recurrent pain and swelling behind your big toe or in your ear, you may have gout. Gout occurs when uric acid crystals precipitate out from your joint fluid to cause pain, swelling and heat. The only way to prove that a hot painful joint is caused by gout is for the doctor to remove joint fluid and to see crystals in it under the microscope.
- Hives: An Itchy Mystery
[Health-and-Fitness] Allergies can cause hives, itchy red splotches on your skin that come and go, but being evaluated for allergies as a cause of chronic hives is almost always a waste of time and money. Often doctors can't find a cause for chronic hives, but when they do, it's usually a hidden infection, tumor or an autoimmune disease.
- Bad Breath Can Usually Be Cured
[Health-and-Fitness] Bad breath can be caused by food rotting in the mouth, stomach acid regurgitating up to the mouth and infections releasing chemicals that smell. Your doctor should look for white dots on your tonsils, that are often pieces of food that your saliva has turned white.
- Don't Let an Injury Set You Back: Use Cross Transference
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Injuries upset competitive athletes because they know their competitors are still training. They can maintain fitness by using a training technique called cross transference, and so can you. Exercising one leg or arm helps to maintain strength, endurance and power in the other limb.
- Carbohydrate Loading Slows Sprint Performance
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] For more than fifty years, athletes in sports requiring endurance have used a training technique called carbohydrate loading. A recent study from South Africa shows that this technique slows sprint performance of cyclists.
- Couples Stay Together on a Tandem Bicycle
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] Many couples don't exercise together because one partner is much more fit than the other. Riding a tandem bicycle is a great equalizer. The amount of work you do on a bicycle depends on how hard you push on the pedals.
- Interval Workouts: How Long Should You Rest?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] To become stronger and faster, athletes use a technique called interval training, in which they exercise very intensely, rest and then alternate intense bursts of exercise and rest until their muscles start to feel heavy. You can apply this principle to your own exercise program, To become stronger and faster, athletes use a technique called interval training, in which they exercise very intensely, rest and then alternate intense bursts of exercise and rest until their muscles start to feel heavy. You can apply this principle to your own exercise program, but the rest period between intervals is not the same for every sport.
- Memory Loss, Nerve Damage Caused by Vitamin B12 Deficiency: Pernicious Anemia
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Pernicious anemia is due to lack of vitamin B12, which causes progressive nerve damage, forgetfulness, loss of ability to concentrate, and abnormal sensations such as burning, itching and loss of feeling. However, many people with pernicious anemia do not have abnormally low blood levels of vitamin B12.
- Salt Sensitivity: Will Salt Raise YOUR Blood Pressure?
[Health-and-Fitness] Eating salt does not raise blood pressure in most of us, but it will for some people. A study in the Journal of Hypertension showed that salt-sensitive people can be detected by finding increased amounts of protein in their urine.
- Canker Sores (Aphthous Mouth Ulcers)
[Health-and-Fitness] Millions of people suffer from recurrent painful mouth ulcers or canker sores. A blister forms in the mouth and the top is quickly sloughed off, leaving a punched out whitish circular area that hurts to touch, particularly when food is in the mouth. Among the causes are infections including herpes, cytomegalovirus, yeast, and other viruses that have not even been identified.
- Burning On Urination: Treat Even If No Cause Can Be Found
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] If you have burning on urination or discomfort when your bladder is full, and your doctor can't find a cause, you and your sexual partner(s) should be treated with antibiotics anyway. Practicing physicians cannot order dependable tests for mycoplasma and ureaplasma, two of the most common causes of venereal diseases in North American today.
- Cholesterol: Can It Be Too Low?
[Health-and-Fitness] Can your cholesterol be too low? Many of my patients recall old news reports of studies that linked very low cholesterol with
liver cancer, lung disease, depression, alcoholism and suicide.
The latest studies shows that a low cholesterol may be associated with cancer, but does not cause it.
- Sex After A Heart Attack?
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Making love is extremely unlikely to cause a second heart attacks in men, and the men most likely to suffer a second heart attack during lovemaking are those who do not exercise. The best way to prevent a heart attack during lovemaking is to stay with your regular partner.
- Cortisone Injections Into Joints Can Help or Harm
[Health-and-Fitness] Doctors often inject cortisone-type medications into painful damaged joints and tendons. Single injections can relieve pain and swelling and appear to be safe, but repeated injections can damage joints and delay healing.
- Joint Pains Can Be Caused by Venereal Diseases or Other Infections
[Health-and-Fitness:Arthritis] Bacteria and viruses can cause arthritis, and antibiotics are often effective in controlling symptoms. Retroviruses can be found in joint fluid of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Venereal diseases, such as chlamydia, mycoplasma, ureaplasma, gonorrhea and Gardnerella cause arthritis, and the practicing physician has no available tests that are dependable in diagnosing these infections.
- Homocysteine Causes Heart Attacks and Birth Defects
[Health-and-Fitness] More than 10 percent of all heart attacks and most cases of a birth defect called spina bifida are caused by a buildup of a chemical called homocysteine. Homocysteine causes heart attacks by punching holes in arteries, starting plaque formation and then causing clots to form in the plaques. Lack of folic acid is more likely than B12 or pyridoxine to be the cause of heart attacks.
- Venereal Warts are Common and Treatable
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Sixty percent of female students in one university were infected with venereal warts, a virus that causes 100 percent of cancers of the cervix, but only one in 200 women with warts will get cervical cancer. Of the women who are infected with warts, the vast majority will get rid of them, while the ones who have them persistently are those who are at increased risk for cancer.
- Why I Prescribe Antibiotics
[Health-and-Fitness:Medicine] I am often asked why I prescribe antibiotics to my patients with rheumatoid or reactive arthritis, late-onset asthma, Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia and other so-called "autoimmune diseases". Before I prescribe any medication, I ask myself whether it will help or hurt.
- Hair Loss in Circular Patches: Alopecia Areata
[Health-and-Fitness:Hair-Loss] Alopecia areata affects one out of every 100 people, causing loss of scalp hair in well-demarcated patches, usually in a circular pattern. Most doctors feel that alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease caused by a person's immunity that is supposed to be killing gems attacking the hair follicles and causing the hair to fall out.
- Rickets: Vitamin D Deficiency in Infants
[Home-and-Family:Babies-Toddler] Many people believe that rickets (soft bones and other developmental problems)is no longer a problem, but has shown up in children who are breast fed and dark skinned. It's caused by lack of vitamin D.
- Garlic Pills: No Odor, No Effect
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] In 1844, a German chemist distilled a pungent substance from garlic and called it allyl, the Latin name for garlic. Four years later Louis Pasteur in Paris showed that allyl could inhibit the growth of bacteria. Entrepreneurs now sell garlic pills claiming that they kill germs and have no smell. The research that I have found shows that if it doesn't smell, it isn't allicin and therefore it hasn't been shown to kill germs.
- Why You Need More Omega-3 Fatty Acids
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Polyunsaturated fats are classified by their structures into omega-3s and omega-6s, and you need both types; these are called the essential fatty acids because you cannot make them in your body and must get them from your food. For most of the time humans have been on earth we have eaten foods containing omega-6's and omega-3's in a ratio of about 2:1. However, over the last 50 years in North America, the ratio has changed to from 2:1 to 10-20:1. Here's why you should get more omega-3's in your diet.
- Sugar is Sugar; Honey is Not More Healthful
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Some people believe that honey is more healthful than sugar. They tell us that honey is a quicker source of energy and a richer source of minerals, and is less fattening. All of these clams are nonsensical. As far as your body is concerned, there is no difference between honey and table sugar. Your body handles white granulated table sugar in the same way that it processes brown sugar, turbinado sugar, maple syrup, fructose, and all other sugars.
- Large Doses of Antioxidants Can Harm You
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Many people take large doses of antioxidant vitamin pills, even though there is little evidence that large doses of antioxidant pills prevent disease, and there is some evidence that they may cause disease.
- Dieting? Glycemic Load is More Important Than Glycemic Index
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Many popular diet books give you a list of foods based on the Glycemic Index, and recommend avoiding all foods that have a high glycemic index. If you look at the glycemic index lists, you will see things that should bother an intelligent person. A carrot has almost the same glycemic index as sugar, which is ridiculous. That's why nutrition scientists developed a new measure to rank foods called Glycemic Load.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Obesity
[Health-and-Fitness:Obesity] High fructose corn syrup is the leading sweetener in the United States today, with 4.5 billion dollars worth sold each year. High-fructose corn syrup first appeared in the American market in 1966, and now the average American takes in 62.6 pounds per year. Evidently there is something in soft drinks makes people eat more food than they would otherwise, and high fructose corn syrup may be that factor.
- Soybeans: Too Much of a Good Thing?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The soybean industry has generated so much publicity on the health benefits of soybeans that some people eat soy products at every meal. Virtually all plants contain some chemicals that make us healthy and some chemicals that can harm us. Soybeans are a good example; here's why.
- How Refined Carbohydrates Can Harm You
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] I advise my diabetic patients and people who are trying to lose weight to avoid all foods made with refined carbohydrates because they cause a high rise in blood sugar. Even if you are not diabetic (yet) and are not concerned about your weight (yet), you should understand why the large amounts of refined carbohydrates in the typical Western diet can harm you.
- Coenzyme Q10 in Pills Cannot Get Into Cells
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Do you believe that coenzyme Q10 pills prevent heart attacks, allergies or cancers or prolong your life or make you a better lover? For coenzyme Q10 to improve health and energy, it must get into the cells, particularly the mitochondria, where it functions. Studies show that coenzyme Q10 pills get into the bloodstream, but cannot be recovered in the cells. Here's why you should save your money.
- Lack of Vitamin D Causes Cancer?
[Cancer] Lack of vitamin D interferes with immunity and a person's ability to kill germs and cancer cells. My advice is for you to think about your vitamin D status. You will be protecting yourself from cancer and infections. Don't wait for the medical community to agree on this.
- Juices Are Not Health Foods
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Contrary to the ads that you may see on television, juices are not more healthful than whole fruits or vegetables. Diabetics shouldn't drink fruit juices because they drive blood sugar levels too high, nor should people who are trying to lose weight drink fruit juices because a rise in sugar calls out extra insulin that makes you hungry.
- Cooking and Human Evolution
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] For years, anthropologists have told us that humans dominate the earth because they learned to make tools that could kill big animals that would give them more food so that they could survive. Dr Richard Wrangham of Harvard thinks they are all wrong. He thinks that man dominates earth because he learned how to cook.
- Understanding Carbohydrates: Some Help, Some Harm
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] You want to eat carbohydrates that release their sugars slowly and restrict carbohydrates that release sugars rapidly. The easier it is to break carbohydrates down into single sugars, the higher your blood sugar level rises and the more insulin you produce. The most healthful carbohydrates are those left with fiber where nature puts it in seeds, nuts, beans, whole grains and vegetables. The most dangerous carbohydrates for diabetics and people who are trying to lose weight are foods made from flour, white rice or milled corn; or with added sugars.
- Body Temperature During Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Heat stroke is a concern primarily during hot weather, but in the relatively cool environmental temperature of 50 F, healthy marathon runners can have body temperatures as high as 103.8 F. Weight lifters often have temperatures of 101 F during workouts in a warm gym. To protect yourself from heat stroke when you exercise, start out slowly and gradually increase your pace. This gives your body time to circulate the heat to the skin where heat can be dissipated.
- Housework is Not Good Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Do you believe that housework, gardening or slow walking will make you fit? The theory is that people are more likely to achieve a goal of using small chunks of time doing leisurely activities than performing a scheduled vigorous exercise program. Many doctors felt that this would provide more health benefits to more people, especially older people. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), there is no evidence that housework is good exercise.
- Lack of Muscle Increases Cancer Risk
[Cancer] Researchers at the American Cancer Society have found that excess fat may account for 14 percent of all cancer deaths in men and 20 percent of those in women. I think the researchers should have concluded that lack of muscle, rather than just having too much fat, causes cancer. Here's why.
- Lifting Weights Won't Make You Musclebound
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Training for strength improves coordination. Your brain is a master switchboard that coordinates your muscles. Lifting weights does not interfere with brain function; it improves coordination in all activities that require strength. Violin players and watchmakers, who require extraordinary coordination and dexterity, lift weights because they know that there is no such condition as "musclebound".
- Does a Mile of Running Equal Four Miles of Cycling?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Although running requires the same amount of energy per mile at any speed (110 calories per mile), riding is affected by wind resistance so the faster you ride, the more energy you use. So you have to compare running and cycling at different cycling speeds. Here's how to make the calculation.
- Exercise to Delay Aging
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] The only mechanism ever found to prolong life and delay aging is exercise. There is no data whatever to show that antioxidants, vitamins, or anything else prolong life. All tests that are used to measure aging really measure physical fitness. A fit 70-year old will score younger on aging tests than an out-of-shape 20 year old.
- Fatigue is Not Necessary for Strength Gain
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Training that causes fatigue is not necessary to grow large strong muscles. What is the difference between lifting a weight 40 times in a row with 30 second rests between each lift, and lifting a weight ten times in row, resting 30 seconds and doing 3 more sets of ten, since both groups lift the heavy weights 40 times? There is no difference in strength gain, but there is a great difference in fatigue, pain and time spent lifting.
- Older Runners Postpone Disability
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] How long you live is not as important as the quality of your life while you are alive. Most Americans over 70 cannot run or even walk fast. Most Americans over 70 can't lift a 25 pound weight over their heads. Most Americans over 70 cannot do common household tasks that require strength, but regular runners over 70 could do all of these tasks and much more.
- Is Hard Exercise Helpful or Harmful for Children?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Children who start training while they are still growing will have a great advantage over athletes who start training after puberty. There is no data to show that hard exercise damages growth centers in bones to interfere with growth. There is no evidence that growing larger muscles stunts growth. However, there is great concern that some children will be subjected to abusive coaches and inconsiderate parents who place athletic training above the child's own wishes and desires.
- Which Minerals Do You Need During Exercise?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Do you believe that exercisers need to take potassium, magnesium or any other mineral? The only mineral that you need to take during prolonged exercise is sodium, found in salt. If you don't take salt and fluids during extended exercise in hot weather, you will tire earlier and increase your risk for heat stroke, dehydration and cramps.
- Sex Before Competition Does Not Harm Performance
[Recreation-and-Sports] Muhammad Ali wouldn't make love for six weeks before a fight and many football players won't make love on the night before a game. An article in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness shows that sexual relations on the night before competition have no effect on endurance to exhaustion on a treadmill, strength, the ability of the body to transport oxygen to muscles and the amount of blood pumped by the heart.
- Orchestra-Conducting is Good Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Pablo Cassals, Nadia Boulanger, Arturo Toscanini, and Leopold Stokowski all conducted major orchestras into their nineties. Nobody knows why many orchestra conductors live longer than people in other professions, but the very act of conducting may be the reason. The odds are that you will never conduct a major orchestra, but you can turn on the radio, pick up a stick, wave your arms around and become fit.
- Canned Seafood: An Easy Way to Get Your Omega-3's
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] One easy way to increase the amount of omega-3 fats in your diet is to eat canned fish two or three times a week. The richest sources of omega 3's in seafood are the fatty fish that live in cold, deep water. Tuna, salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel and anchovies are all in this category. With recipes.
- Fiber: Soluble and Insoluble (You Need Both)
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] You should eat at least 30 grams of fiber per day, and the average North American gets only 11 grams. There's very little fiber in the typical diet of hamburgers, pizza, fried chicken and coke. Foods made from animal products never have any fiber, and processed foods made from grains, vegetables or fruit frequently have most of the fiber removed. How can YOU get enough of both kinds?
- Food-Combining Diets
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Books and programs on food combining have been on and off the best-seller lists for years. They should be in the fiction section. Your digestive system has evolved to deal with mixed foods, and the enzymes secreted by your pancreas can digest them all in any combination.
- Breast Enlargement Products are Scams
[Womens-Interests:Cosmetic-Surgery] Don't waste your money on creams that are supposed to enlarge your breasts. Eighty-five percent of a woman's breast is fat, so the only way to make your breasts larger is to make you fatter, but most women don't want to gain weight. Here's why the products don't work.
- Potassium Supplements Don't Treat Fatigue in Exercisers
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Tiredness and cramps in athletes can have many causes, but lack of potassium in their diets is not one of them. The kidneys and sweat glands conserve potassium so well that you don’t lose much. If an athlete develops potassium deficiency, it is usually caused by drugs, such as diuretics or corticosteroids, or by diarrhea or repeated vomiting.
- Cross-Training for Fitness
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] You can exercise vigorously on one day and easy on the next few days or until your muscle soreness disappears, OR you can train in two or three sports. This is called cross-training, and it can make you very fit and help to prevent injuries.
- LDL Cholesterol Should Be As Low As Possible
[Health-and-Fitness] Can your LDL cholesterol be too low? Cholesterol is a necessary part of surface membranes in your body and also functions in making many different chemicals in your body, so there is concern whether you can drive your LDL cholesterol low enough to harm you. In a new study from Harvard Medical School, the participants who lowered their LDL cholesterol the most had the fewest heart attacks and strokes and did not suffer any obvious bad side effects.
- Cancer Risk Affected By Your Lifestyle Choices
[Cancer] One in three of the seven million cancer death worldwide is caused by nine potentially modifiable risk factors, according to a study from Harvard Medical School. You can improve your odds against cancer by avoiding overweight, eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, exercising, avoiding smoking and alcohol, practicing safe sex, and avoiding indoor and outdoor air pollution whenever possible. Avoid injections unless they are necessary for health.
- Frequent Urination At Night Can Be Treated
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] When you go to sleep at night, your brain produces a hormone called anti-diuretic hormone, or ADH, that shuts down your kidneys so you can sleep at night. The brains of most younger people produce enough antidiuretic hormone to shut down the kidneys for a full night of rest. However, as men age, most have to get up at night to urinate. A simple nasal spray controls nighttime urination in men who are not helped by drugs usually prescribed by physicians today.
- Impotence Predicts Heart Attacks
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] It's common for men over 60 to have difficulty maintaining erections. Two studies, one from Italy and one from the US, show that men who are impotent before that age are at significantly increased risk for heart attacks. Don't just take Viagra; make sure you understand the cause of your impotence and heed its warning signals.
- Alzheimer's May Be Another Form of Diabetes
[Health-and-Fitness] Like the pancreas, the brain produces insulin. A recent study from Brown University showed that brain levels of insulin and insulin receptors fall during the early stages of Alzheimer's and continue to drop progressively as the disease progresses. Other features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and tangles in the brain, could be caused by abnormalities in insulin functions.
- Good Carbohydrates and Bad Carbohydrates
[Health-and-Fitness] Some people increase their risk for heart attacks, cancers and other diseases by markedly restricting all carbohydrates because they think that all carbohydrates are harmful. Bad carbohydrates are ones that cause an immediate high rise in blood sugar levels. Good carbohydrates do not do this. Here's how to tell the difference.
- Sports Injuries Can Be Forever
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Many sports injuries cause a progressive permanent osteoarthritis that will prevent a person from exercising to cause the very diseases that a regular exercise program is supposed to prevent. A twisted ankle can change an active person into a sedentary one. A torn anterior cruciate ligament or meniscus of the knee has a greater than 50 percent chance of causing permanent pain within five years, regardless of the treatment.
- Lower Blood Pressure with Exercise and Diet
[Health-and-Fitness] If your blood pressure is above 120/80 consistently, particularly in the evening, you have high blood pressure and are at significant risk for serious disease. Whether or not you take medication, you can improve blood pressure with lifestyle changes: diet and exercise. More than 80 percent of hypertensive Americans can bring their blood pressures to normal within a few weeks just by following the DASH diet (NIH Publication No. 03-4082.)
- Endurance Cyclists Should Strengthen Their Legs
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] Top-level competitive cyclists train for endurance by riding for three to eight hours a day. They usually cannot push heavy weights with their legs because their cycling schedule does not give them time to recover from strenuous weightlifting workouts. An Australian research team has shown why training for strength is important for cyclists.
- Bird Flu: Should You Stock Up on Medicines?
[Health-and-Fitness:Medicine] At this time the only drugs we have to threat bird flu are Tamiflu and Relenza. If you hear that bird flu has mutated and is causing an epidemic among humans, you will want to get Tamiflu pills and have them ready if you need them. At this time it does not make sense to stockpile the drugs as there may never be a bird flu epidemic, the drugs are very expensive, and they have a limited shelf life.
- Osteoporosis: Exercise; Watch the Alcohol
[Health-and-Fitness] If they live long enough, almost every woman and most men will suffer from osteoporosis. Bones are not static. Cells called osteoblasts constantly bring calcium into bones to make them stronger and osteoclasts take calcium from bones. Exercise increases the rate that osteoblasts strengthen bones. Inactivity slows osteoblastic activity to weaken bones.
- Leading Cause of Death in Women Prevented with Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Women who exercised 12 months a year during high school years were more than twice as likely to exercise when they became middle aged and were also almost half as likely to suffer a heart attack as women who did not exercise in later life. So if you have young daughters, encourage them to start an exercise program that they can keep the rest of their lives. If you are a middle-aged woman and are not exercising regularly, get started now.
- Should Diabetics Drink Coffee?
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] An extensive survey reported in JAMA showed that drinking coffee reduces risk for developing type II diabetes. However, two recent studies suggest that once you have diabetes, drinking coffee may be unwise.
- DOMS: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] The good soreness that makes you stronger is called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) and is caused by microscopic tears in your muscle fibers. It's relatively easy to tell the difference between DOMS and an impending injury. DOMS is usually symmetrical, involving muscles equally on both sides of your body.
- Diabetic? Exercise Is Essential
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] Three studies show why virtually all diabetics should exercise. The first study shows that exercising before a meal markedly reduces the rise in blood sugar that usually peaks 20 minutes after you eat. The second shows that exercise lowers HBA1C in diabetics, while the third shows that exercise lowers high blood pressure. The only places that your body can store sugar are in your muscles and your liver. If your muscles are empty from exercise, sugar can pass from your bloodstream into your muscles.
- Aspartame: Cancer Risk?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Researchers in Italy recently published a study demonstrating that aspartame causes cancer in animals. On the same day, the Calorie Control Council, an international non-profit association representing the low-calorie and reduced-fat food and beverage industry, came out a report stating that: "Overwhelming Scientific Evidence Confirms Safety of Aspartame." Whom do you believe?
- Intervals to Improve Endurance
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Most coaches and researchers are convinced that you have to do a series of short bursts of very fast speed training to improve long-term endurance, but they do not know why. The most offered explanation is that muscle fatigue caused by many hours of cycling is associated with a reduction in muscle fibers’ ability to contract with force. Now a study from France shows that short bursts of very fast cycling improve endurance for cycling competitions that take many hours.
- Getting Fatter Every Year? Don't Diet, Get More Active
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Most people become fatter with aging because they are less active, not because they eat more. Thirty minutes of exercise a day may be enough for heart fitness, but it is not usually enough to lose or maintain weight. If you have a sedentary job, you need an exercise strategy that includes very vigorous exercise, more time spent in physical activity, or (preferably) both.
- Spinning Classes Make Vigorous Exercise Fun
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Whether you’re out of shape or very fit, spinning classes can help you keep your New Year’s resolutions. You ride a stationary bicycle in a group, with a leader who tells you what to do and plays lively music to set the tempo. Many health clubs and gyms offer these classes, and I recommend them to all of my patients.
- Resolve to Get In Shape and Prolong Your Life
[Health-and-Fitness] Being out-of-shape is almost as strong a risk factor for a heart attack as smoking. We have known for many years that any kind of exercise or activity helps to prevent heart attacks, but more recent data show that the more vigorous the exercise, the better the protection.
- 30 Minutes of Exercise? Listen to Your Body
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Many people injure themselves because they are so obsessed with trying to reach 30 minutes of continuous exercise that they do not stop exercising when they feel pain. If you're out of shape, you should start out by exercising in each session only until your muscles feel heavy or hurt.
- Brain Power: Lifestyle Choices to Keep Your IQ
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] If you feel you are losing your ability to reason or think clearly, or if you suffer mood disorders such as depression, ask your doctor to do blood tests for homocysteine, folic acid, pyridoxine and vitamin B12. If these tests are normal, you should get tests for thyroid function, cholesterol and other causes of arterial damage.
- Rope-Jumping for Fitness
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] The fitness benefit from any exercise depends on how fast you move, whether it’s jumping, running, cycling or any other activity. Jumping rope has to be a vigorous sport, because you must spin the rope at least 80 times a minute to keep it from tangling. Most people use more energy when they jump rope than when they run.
- Cooking Does Not Destroy Important Nutrients
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Don't believe claims that cooking destroys the nutritional value of your food, or that you must take enzyme pills to replace the enzymes lost in cooking. The enzymes in food that are destroyed by heat are of no use to you anyway; you make your own enzymes for digestion of your food.
- Slow Lifting: Become Very Strong with Less Risk of Injury
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] If you want to become very strong, you have to lift weights heavy enough to make your muscles burn. It doesn't make any difference whether you move the weights slowly or rapidly; you just need to exercise intensely enough so your muscles feel sore the next day. When you move very slowly with a weight, your muscles fatigue and weaken so that the weight feels much heavier than it is.
- Colon Cleansers Can Harm
[Health-and-Fitness] Colon cleansers are foods and laxatives that loosen your stool and make you go to the bathroom. The latest research shows that regular use of laxatives or colon cleansers can harm you by blocking the absorption of healthful nutrients from your colon into your bloodstream.
- Out of Shape? Resolve to Exercise Injury-Free
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] If your New Year's Resolution is to get in shape, pick an activity that you can enjoy and do safely for the rest of your life. Sixty-five percent of people who start an exercise program drop out in the first six weeks, often because of injuries.
- Chronic Muscle Aches Should Not Be Ignored
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Regular exercisers should expect their muscles to feel sore on the day after they exercise intensely, but if the soreness doesn't go away, they need a medical evaluation. The soreness you feel should usually disappear within 48 hours, and even with the most severe workouts, it should disappear within a week or two. If the soreness remains, you may have an infection anywhere in your body, an autoimmune disease or other treatable condition.
- Fit Teens Become Healthy Adults
[Kids-and-Teens] A study from Finland shows that teenagers who are out of shape are at increased risk for having high blood pressure later in life. If you exercise regularly when you are young, you will be more likely to continue exercising regularly when you are older which can prolong your life. There are many other reasons to encourage your child to be active in sports.
- Sports Drinks Can Cause Stomach Cramps During Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] A study from the Netherlands shows that sugar in sports drinks slows absorption and increases stomach cramping in running races shorter than 12 miles. Another study reported in the same journal shows that taking a salty drink just before exercise increases endurance.
- Stretching Can Make You a Better Athlete
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] There is no good evidence that stretching prevents sports injuries. However, stretching can make you a better athlete. Competitive athletes need to stretch to makes muscles and tendons longer and more flexible. A longer muscle can exert a greater torque on a joint to help you run faster, lift heavier, throw further and jump higher.
- Bio-Mechanics Can Solve Many Running Injuries
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Many common running injuries have bio-mechanical causes. For example, pain in the side of the right knee is often treated just by getting the runner to stop running on the roads. To facilitate drainage, roads slope a few degrees from the middle to the sides. Running on the side of a road, facing traffic, causes the right leg to be higher than the left and a larger proportion of the force of the foot strike to be transmitted up to the lateral part of the knee of the higher leg.
- Eat Before You Exercise? Mother Was Wrong
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Whenever your stomach fills with food, its muscles contract and require large amounts of blood. When you exercise vigorously, your heart pumps large amounts of blood to your skeletal muscles. Most people can exercise after eating without suffering cramps because their hearts are strong enough to pump blood to both their exercising muscles and their stomach muscles.
- Chest Pain During Cold Weather Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Exercising in cold weather can cause chest pain in some people who have no problems when they exercise in warm weather. When cold wind blows on your face, your heart rate slows down. This decreases the blood flow to the heart and can cause pain in people with blocked coronary arteries.
- Fructose: No Advantage in Sports Drinks or for Diabetics
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Fructose is not better for you than table sugar, and drinks that contain lots of fructose can cause intestinal gas. Fructose can get into cells without insulin, so some people incorrectly recommend that diabetics eat foods made with fructose. However, in the intestines and the bloodstream, fructose is converted into glucose, and the diabetic gets no benefit. Not only is fructose of no benefit to a diabetic, it can cause harm.
- Cross Country has High Injury Rate
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Cross country running has the highest rate of injuries of all high school sports. The injury rate is even higher for girls than for boys. The extremely high injury rate is caused by asking runners to train and race in the same week.
- Do You Burn More Calories in Winter or Summer?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] You burn fewer calories when you exercise in cold weather than you do when it's hot. The hotter it is, the more extra work your heart has to do to prevent you from overheating. More than 70 percent of the energy produced by your muscles during exercise is lost as heat.
- Blisters Can Be Prevented
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Blisters don't happen without warning; you'll feel pain before they appear. If you feel pain in the skin of your feet while you're exercising, take off your shoes and look for a cause. Usually, your sock will be wrinkled or your shoe will be rubbing because it doesn't fit properly. If it's your socks, straighten the wrinkle. If it's your shoes, take them off.
- Cool Down After Your Workout
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] You should not stop suddenly after running very fast or doing any other very intense exercise, because it may cause you to get dizzy or pass out. When you exercise, your legs drive your heart, your heart does not drive your legs.
- Who Wins Bodybuilding Contests?
[Recreation-and-Sports:Bodybuilding] If you think that you win bodybuilding contests by taking supplements and eating special diets, you've been reading too many magazines for bodybuilders. Champion body builders are born, not made; and exercising against resistance, not eating, enlarges muscles. Many bodybuilders also use steroids or other banned substances, even though they will deny that in public.
- Hit a Punching Bag for Fitness
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Would you like a sport that gets you respect and complements most team sports and activities that stress primarily your legs, such as running, cycling, skiing, skating or dancing? Try hitting a punching bag. Cross training prevents injuries by allowing your muscles at least 48 hours to recover. Hitting a punching bag is an excellent upper body exercise that you can alternate with any lower body exercise.
- Premature Ejaculation Can Be Treated
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Men who came to a urology clinic with a chief complaint of premature ejaculation had the same time to ejaculation as normal men who had no such complaint. The study showed that premature ejaculators do not understand human physiology. They think that they are inadequate because their female partners do not come to climax with conventional penile-vaginal lovemaking.
- Power Bars Are Just Expensive Candy Bars
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Do you think an Energy Bar will make you energetic, or that a Power Bar will build muscle? That's what their marketers want you to believe. If you're running a marathon, cycling 100 miles or hiking all day, energy bars are a convenient way to get the calories you need. But if you're sitting at a desk feeling sleepy, the last thing you need is an "Energy Bar"! The blast of refined carbohydrates and sugar will raise your blood sugar, causing you to pump out insulin, store the calories as fat and feel tired and hungry again in half an hour.
- Spot Reduction is a Myth
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Sit-ups, crunches and other exercises can strengthen your belly muscles, but there is no such thing as spot reduction. Exercising a muscle does not get rid of fat over the specific muscles that are exercised. If it did, tennis players would have less fat in their tennis arms, but they don't.
- Soybeans: Healthful or Unhealthful?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] All plants contain chemicals that are healthful and chemicals that can harm us. If you eat very large amounts of one food, you can poison yourself, even though reasonable amounts are harmless or beneficial. For example, soybeans contain genistein, a weak estrogen that may help to prevent breast cancer. But they also contain small amounts of trypsin inhibitors that increase risk for pancreatic damage and cancer in animals.
- Don't Lose Height As You Age
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] The bones of your spine are separated by pads called discs. As you age, these discs dry out and become smaller. However, regular exercise compresses and relaxes these discs as you move up and down. This helps to keep the discs from shrinking and maintains your height.
- Warts? Try Duct Tape
[Health-and-Fitness] Duct tape, or any other tape, macerates a wart so that blood vessels grow into it, allowing the body's immune system to kill the wart. However, when a person has more than four warts, any destructive procedure to get rid of the warts usually fails. After your skin is damaged by cutting, scraping, freezing or burning, the wart virus usually grows back into the healing tissue and the wart returns.
- Chronic Stuffy Nose? Fungus May Be the Culprit
[Health-and-Fitness] If you have a chronic stuffy nose, a sinus cat scan will tell whether you have a sinus infection. If the cat scan is positive, your doctor should order a fungus culture of the nose. If the culture is positive for fungi, the doctor should consider treatment with antifungal medication, even though there are no good studies to show the fungal medicines cure sinusitis.
- Casual Sex: Know the Risks
[Relationships:Sexuality] If you have unprotected sex with a person who is having sex with someone else, you are at extraordinarily high risk for getting venereal diseases. Fifty percent of young people with more than three sexual partners a year have sexually transmissible diseases and 40 percent of sexually active adolescent females in one large American city have chlamydia or gonorrhea.
- Calcium Supplements Deplete Vitamin D
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Many people take calcium supplements to help prevent osteoporosis. They may be increasing their risk for certain cancers and infections. Taking extra calcium uses up vitamin D and lack of that vitamin impairs immunity, which can cause cancer and infections.
- Dental Fillings: Should You Be Concerned About Mercury Poisoning?
[Health-and-Fitness] Many people have had fillings removed from their teeth because they thought that mercury from the fillings was poisoning them and causing them to be exhausted and their muscles to hurt. The mercury in dental amalgam combines with other metals to form a stable dental filling, similar to the way that sodium and chlorine (both hazardous in their pure state) combine to form harmless table salt. A minute amount of mercury vapor may be released by amalgam fillings during vigorous chewing or grinding, but there is no scientific evidence that this negligible amount will harm you.
- Massage to Help Muscles Recover
[Health-and-Fitness:Massage] A 30-minute massage after a hard workout lessens next-day muscle soreness and allows athletes to recover faster so they can perform more work and compete at a higher level. Most coaches and trainers recommend massage therapy to their athletes, but many physicians are still skeptical about its health benefits.
- Organic Does Not Mean Healthful
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The USDA has issues a uniform standard for labeling foods with the word Organic, with symbols to tell you that the food is grown without artificial pesticides, genetic engineering, growth hormones or irradiation. But "organic" does not mean healthful. There are organic white flours, organic sugars, organic partially hydrogenated oils. Organic junk food is still junk food.
- Heavier Weights Make You Stronger Than More Repetitions
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Lifting a heavy weight causes much more muscle damage than lifting lighter weights continuously for a long time. And this means that you will become far stronger from lifting very heavy weights a few times than from lifting light weights many times.
- Training is Specific
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] The best way for an athlete to become stronger for a specific sport is to do strength training using the muscles in the same way that they are used in that sport. The heaviest weight that you can lift ten times in a row is about 78 percent of your one-repetition maximum. That means that a person who can lift 100 pounds once, can lift 85 pounds six times and 78 pounds ten times in a row.
- Lack of Exercise Kills
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Whenever I see people who are out-of-shape, I wonder whether they are uninformed or they just don't care. Even eighty and ninety-year-olds should be able lift weights, cycle long distances and compete in athletic competitions. Yet most people are in pathetic shape and suffer the consequences.
- Caveman Diet? Not If You Plan to Live More Than 30 Years
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Some popular books tell you that because some prehistoric humans lived on large amounts of meat and ate no grains, you should do the same. That's lousy advice. The authors focus on groups who had fire and domesticated dogs, hunting weapons, and sparse vegetation – primarily grasses. These people ate mostly meat, but earlier humans, and those living in more tropical areas, ate huge amounts of plants. Their normal life-span was 20-35 years.
- Natural Does Not Mean "Good For You"
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Smart consumers know that "All Natural" on a food label doesn't mean it's nutritious or healthful. Tobacco, cocaine, vodka, marijuana and opium are All Natural, but you wouldn't want to feed them to your six-year-old. Many manufacturers try to use only "natural flavors" because they know critical consumers believe they are healthier. But the distinction between natural and artificial flavors is arbitrary and absurd.
- Spaghetti Squash: A Wonderful, Fun, Healthful Alternative to Pasta
[Food-and-Drink:Pasta-Dishes] I recommend avoiding pasta and other refined carbohydrates if you are diabetic or are trying to lose weight. You'll find a perfect substitute in in the produce department of your supermarket: spaghetti squash! You can use it with any of your favorite pasta sauces, in salads or soups. Diana tells you how to prepare it and gives you three easy recipes to get you started. Enjoy this fun vegetable even if you're not dieting (kids love it, too.)
- Knee Injuries Limit Future Athletic Activity
[Health-and-Fitness] athletes who tear the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in their knees will have permanent knee damage if they return to competitive sports. The ACL runs from the top bone of the knee to the bottom one and prevents the top bone from sliding forward when the foot hits the ground during running and walking. If it is torn, the knee becomes so unstable that a person will have difficulty walking, so all torn anterior cruciate ligaments must be repaired.
- Salmon Recipes Star in a Healthful Holiday Buffet
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Salmon shows up in many of Diana’s favorite recipes for entertaining. Almost everyone likes the flavor, and its pretty color adds eye-appeal to your buffet. Here are three healthful, easy dishes to get you started: an appetizer, a salad and a main course.
- Sweating: How Much is Too Much?
[Health-and-Fitness] Excessive sweating can be a sign of infection, stress or a decline in sex hormones, or it can be normal for you. When your body temperature rises, hot blood flows to your brain, which sends signals to increase the flow of blood to your skin and start you sweating.
- Herpes: More Common Than You Think
[Health-and-Fitness] One of eight North Americans (30 million) has genital herpes, even though only one in five knows that he or she has it. Herpes is classified into type I that affects primarily the mouth, and type II that affects primarily the genitals, although both types can go both places. Virtually everyone in North America has had herpes, but only seven percent get it recurrently.
- Shingles: Get Immediate Treatment for Sudden Severe Pain
[Health-and-Fitness] If you suddenly develop severe pain in a limited area on one side of your body, you may have shingles and need treatment immediately to prevent that pain from lasting for the rest of your life. Shingles is Chicken Pox the second time around.
- Heartburn: Don't Blame Stress; It's Usually an Infection
[Health-and-Fitness] If you belch or have burning in your stomach or chest, particularly when your stomach is empty, you have either an infection, a tumor, or a condition called GERD. At least 24 different bacteria have been shown to cause stomach ulcers. All people with belching and burning in the stomach should be given the one-week course of antibiotics that is used to treat the most common cause of stomach ulcers, called Helicobacter Pylori.
- Frostbite and Hypothermia
[Health-and-Fitness] Hypothermia is a sudden drop in body temperature that can kill you. Frostbite means that your skin is frozen. Take the warning signals seriously; if you have slurred speech or difficulty using your hands, take action or you may not get another chance.
- Sports Drinks: A Better Solution?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Exercisers spend millions of dollars on special sports drinks, even though none increase endurance more than the food from which they are made. You become tired during exercise because you run low on fluids, salt and calories. As long as you replace these three components, you do not need to pay extra for a sport drink.
- Heat Stroke Should Never Happen to You
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Nobody should ever die of heat stroke, a sudden uncontrolled rise in body temperature that causes you to pass out, because your body sends you warning signals as your temperature rises.
It's normal for intense exercise to make your muscles burn, but hard exercise does not cause painful burning that feels like fire. Furthermore, the burning of hard exercise is relieved by slowing down. The muscle burning of impending heat stroke does not go away when you slow down.
- Anabolic Steroids
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Anabolic steroids help you recover faster so you can lift heavy weights more often. This makes you stronger and a better athlete, but it also can increase your risk for heart attack, cause liver damage, shrink your testicles, make you infertile, make you act crazy, and eventually cause an injury that never heals. Is it worth it?
- Knee Pain: Runner's Knee
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] The most common long-term running injury is runners knee, pain behind the knee cap during running. You probably have runner's knee if your knee cap hurts when you walk or run, particularly when you walk down stairs; and it hurts a lot when you push the kneecap against the bone behind it. It usually does not hurt to pedal a bicycle.
- Overtraining: How to Avoid It, How to Recover From It
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] One of the most serious problems in training for athletic competition is to know when you are training too much. Your joints, muscles and tendons ache. You feel tired. You can still run with the soreness in your muscles and tendons, but the soreness prevents you from running fast. Each succeeding day, the soreness increases and you think that you are sick.
- Flesh Eating Bacteria
[Health-and-Fitness] Over the last several years, you've heard stories about a flesh-eating bacteria that can dissolve muscles and skin, leading to amputations and even death. Here are the progressive warning signals that tell you that you could have this type of infection.
- Wheat Intolerance: Celiac Sprue
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Sprue means that you cannot absorb nutrients from the food that you eat, causing vitamin and mineral deficiency, diarrhea and cramping. There are two major types of sprue. Celiac sprue means that a component of food called gliadin or gluten causes your own immunity to attack and damage the inner linings of your intestines so that you cannot absorb many components of food.
- Body Odor
[Health-and-Fitness] All people smell when they don't bathe often enough. Sweat doesn't smell when it first reaches your skin. The odor comes only after bacteria or fungi on the skin's surface break down the fat in sweat to form chemicals that smell. If you follow my tips and still have an odor, something is wrong.
- Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue
[Health-and-Fitness] Fibromyalgia means that a previously healthy person develops unexplained exhaustion, fatigue and muscle aches and pains that last for more than six months, all blood tests are normal and doctors can't find a cause. The diagnosis of fibromyalgia should be made only after all other causes have been ruled out.
- Iron Pills Can Harm
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] You should not take iron pills without a specific diagnosis. Several studies have shown that iron deficiency can be healthful.
Iron deficiency does not make you tired unless you are also anemic, but it can tire athletes exercising at their maximum.
- Endurance: Fuel During Long Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] If you are going to exercise for more than an hour, you can increase your endurance by eating every 15 to 20 minutes. A feeling of general tiredness during exercise is usually caused by low levels of stored sugar in your liver, while a feeling of muscle fatigue is usually caused by low levels of stored muscle sugar.
- Muscle Loss with Aging: Inevitable?
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] With aging, it takes more effort and time to walk up stairs, mow the lawn, fix a faucet or wash the dishes. The loss of aerobic capacity with aging explains why older people cannot compete effectively against younger ones in endurance events. The good news is that a regular exercise program can increase your maximum heart rate.
- Bent Penis: Peyronie's Disease
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Three of 100 men suffer from Peyronie's disease, a bending of the penis during erection. Usually this is a harmless condition that requires no treatment, but if it causes problems for you, discuss these options with your doctor.
- Does Cycling Cause Impotence?
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] Exercising regularly helps to keep arteries healthy, so bicycling helps prevent impotence, as long as it does not damage arteries and nerves. Three percent of regular male bicycle riders become impotent and virtually all felt pain or numbness when they were riding.
- Exercise During Pregnancy: Is It Safe?
[Home-and-Family:Pregnancy] Of course you should check with your doctor, but many studies have shown that exercise is not harmful during pregnancy. Marathon runner Ingrid Christianson, a former world record holder, gave birth to a healthy baby after winning the Houston Marathon when she was five months pregnant.
- Impotence in Diabetics
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] More than 50 percent of diabetic men suffer from impotence, and almost all complain bitterly that it has destroyed something that is very important to them. Impotence caused by diabetes can be prevented in almost all men whose bodies can still make insulin. All diabetics should get a blood test called C-peptide to tell if their bodies can make insulin.
- Depression and Diet: Lack of Omega 3's?
[Health-and-Fitness:Depression] In some people depression may be caused by omega-3 deficiency which results from not eating enough nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans or deep-water fish. Women with the lowest blood levels of omega-3s are the ones most likely to suffer post-partum depression.
- Muscles and Protein: How Much Do You Need?
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Many body builders and weight lifters are overly concerned about what they eat and what food supplements they take. If you want to grow larger and stronger muscles, you should concentrate on lifting weights, but you can help muscles grow larger by understanding how what you eat affects how you recover from hard exercise.
- Is Accutane Safe?
[Health-and-Fitness:Acne] Isotretinoin, sold under the brand name Accutane, is the only drug that can cure acne, but it can cause horrible birth defects when taken by pregnant women. Reports from Britain and Israel show that Accutane otherwise is much safer than we used to think.
- Does Chocolate Prevent Heart Attacks?
[Food-and-Drink:Chocolate] Will a chocolate bar a day keep heart attacks away? The candy industry keeps trying to convince us that chocolate is a health food by sponsoring and publicizing studies. One of the latest, in the medical journal Hypertension (July, 2005), shows that eating dark chocolate lowers high blood pressure.
- Good Bacteria: Probiotics and Prebiotics
[Health-and-Fitness] There are two absorption systems in your body. Food that is easily broken down is absorbed into your upper intestinal tract. If you cannot absorb a particular food, it goes to the lower intestinal tract (colon), where bacteria (in your colon) ferment it to smaller products that can be absorbed.
- Low Blood Sugar: Hypoglycemia
[Health-and-Fitness] When you feel exhausted and your doctor can't find any other cause, you may be told that you have hypoglycemia. When blood sugar levels drop, you may feel anxious, shaky, sweaty, hungry, a tingling in your skin or your heart may beat rapidly. More severe symptoms include confusion, a sensation of warmth, weakness or fatigue, loss of memory and in its extreme, seizures and passing out. Low blood sugar is the result of something going wrong in your body; it is not the cause.
- Diet Gimmicks: Save Your Time and Money
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Before you waste your money and your time on the latest diet gimmick, use the old rule, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Here are 10 tips to help you separate fact from fiction.
- Kids and Healthful Foods: Impossible?
[Home-and-Family:Parenting] How can you teach your children about healthful eating? Children learn about food best by seeing the adults around them eat in a healthy way. Meals should not be a battleground. Keep junk out of the house, offer lots of choices, and don't make an issue over food likes and dislikes. Read on for lots of helpful tips.
- Restaurant Meals Can Be Healthful
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] If you eat in restaurants several times a week, you need to devise ways to make healthy choices and avoid the temptation to over-eat. If you are trying to control weight, diabetes, cholesterol or high blood pressure, you need to must find ways to meet your special requirements. Try using these tips.
- Why Whole Grains Are Better Than Any Flour
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Carbohydrates are long chains of sugars, and only single sugars can be absorbed from your intestines into your bloodstream. The foods that cause rapid rise in blood sugar are those that are digested most quickly; the worst offenders are sugar and anything made from flour. When you eat whole grains (seeds), it takes a long time to break apart the capsule, separate the carbohydrates from the fiber, and completely digest each grain.
- Is Bread Healthful? Six Tips to Help You Choose
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The best way to assure that you are getting a bread that is made from whole grains, with nothing removed, is to bake your own bread made from flour you grind yourself, or buy from local bakers who grind their flour fresh every few days. Not many people are going to be able to do that, so here are my rules for picking the best of the commercial breads.
- Breakfast Cereals: Healthy Choices
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] The healthiest breakfast is whole grain cereal. If you're trying to lose weight, control cholesterol or diabetes, or just need a lot of energy, your best bet is a hot cooked cereal of whole grains, such as oatmeal. If you prefer cold cereal, you need to check the list of ingredients carefully.
- Shin Splints
[Health-and-Fitness] Some very good bicycle racers develop painful shin splints on the front inside of the lower legs when they tried to train for triathlons. The injury is also common in women who take up aerobic dancing. Shin splints occur when you damage the posterior tibial muscles in the inside back of your lower leg, or the soleus that helps to raise you up on your toes.
- Ankle Pain: Achilles Tendinitis (Heel to Calf)
[Health-and-Fitness] Achilles tendinitis means you feel pain in the large tendon that extends from in the back of your heel to your calf muscle. It hurts most when you get up in the morning and when you start to walk or run. It will heal only if you stop running and find another sport that doesn't hurt when you do it.
- Heel Pain: Plantar Fasciitis
[Health-and-Fitness] One of the most common injuries in runners, joggers and tennis players is plantar fasciitis, pain on the bottom of the heel.
When you run, you land on your heel and raise yourself on your toes as you shift your weight to your other foot, causing all your weight to be held up by your plantar fascia. This repetitive force can tear the fascia from its attachment on your heel.
- Elbow Pain: "Tennis Elbow"
[Recreation-and-Sports:Tennis] You don't have to play tennis to develop tennis elbow. It can be due to any movement that puts excessive force on the wrist muscles. Tennis elbow refers to elbow pain as the result of an injury to the elbow tendons that bend and straighten the wrist.
- Shoulder Pain: Rotator Cuff Injuries
[Health-and-Fitness] The rotator cuff muscles hold the head of the long bone of your upper arm tightly in the socket of your shoulder. Sports that require moving the arm over the head repeatedly can cause tearing and swelling of the tendons of these muscles. Chronic irritation can cause pain, swelling and tearing of the rotator cuff. If you continue to exercise in spite of the pain, you will tear the tendons from their attachments.
- Pain in the Butt: Piriformis Syndrome
[Health-and-Fitness] If it hurts to touch a point that's in the middle of one side of your buttocks, you probably have piriformis syndrome. This injury is thought to be caused by an innate tightness of the piriformis muscle or a structural abnormality in the path of the sciatic nerve.
- Stress Fractures
[Health-and-Fitness] Stress fractures usually start out as a minor discomfort in the foot or leg, that occurs near the end of a long run. Usually the pain goes away as soon as the athlete stops running. On the next day, the pain returns earlier in the run. The most common sites for stress fractures are the bones in the front of the feet, and the long bone of the lower leg, but running can cause stress fractures anywhere, even in the pelvic bones.
- Fungus Toenails? Maybe Not
[Health-and-Fitness] Fungus infections cause less than five percent of deformed nails. Drying of skin and skin conditions such as psoriasis are more common causes. Most deformed nails are caused by skin conditions such as psoriasis or seborrheic dermatitis. If you have thickened toenails, check with your doctor, a podiatrist or dermatologist who will clip off a piece of the nail and culture it for fungus.
- Intestinal Gas: Causes and Remedies
[Health-and-Fitness] Carbohydrates are made of sugars either alone or in combinations (starches) and before they can be absorbed, they must be broken down into single sugars. If they are not absorbed in the intestines, they pass to the colon where bacteria ferment the carbohydrates to release gas. Half of the world's population develops gas after drinking milk because they lack the enzyme to break down the double sugar in milk called lactose.
- Heart Attack Risk: Five Tests Your Doctor Should Do
[Health-and-Fitness] If you want to learn your chances of suffering a heart attack, ask your doctor to draw blood for C-Reactive Protein (CRP), the good HDL and the bad LDL cholesterol, small low-density lipoprotein, Lp(a), homocysteine. He will also check your blood pressure.
- Yeast Infections
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] When a woman develops a white discharge and vaginal itching, her doctor often diagnoses yeast infection, even though he may be wrong because every healthy woman has yeast in her vagina and cultures of the vagina almost always grow yeast, even in women who have no symptoms at all. Yeast infections often follow taking antibiotics or birth control pills, but when yeast cause a rash on the genitals, it often is acquired through sexual contact or it can be caused by immune defects.
- Infertility: First Treat for Infection
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Several recent studies show that before you consult an infertility doctor to help you become pregnant, you should be given antibiotics to treat a possible hidden infection. Of women being evaluated for infertility, 40 percent are infected with chlamydia, mycoplasma or ureaplasma. An infection can prevent pregnancy by blocking the uterine tubes. It can damage sperm, so they can't swim toward the egg, and it can cause miscarriage, premature birth or low birth weight.
- Vasectomy or Tubes Tied?
[Home-and-Family:Pregnancy] Whether the husband gets a vasectomy or the wife gets a tubal ligation is usually decided by who has the strongest will. Vasectomies and tubal ligations are safe surgeries, but the operation on a man is a simple cutting under the skin in an office, while the operation on a woman requires going into her belly in an operating room. Over the long haul, they both are safe and effective in preventing pregnancies.
- Prostatitis Can Be Cured
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Prostate infections are extremely difficult to diagnose and treat because many doctors do not order the right tests and even when they make the correct diagnosis, they often fail to treat the condition long enough or they fail to treat infected partners. Symptoms include discomfort during urination, terrible discomfort when the bladder is full and having to get up many times each night to urinate.
- Baldness Linked to Diet?
[Health-and-Fitness:Hair-Loss] Men who are at high risk for male-pattern baldness have the same characteristics as those who are likely to develop diabetes. They store fat primarily in their bellies, rather than their hips, have high blood triglyceride levels, have low blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol that prevents heart attacks, have a family history of diabetes , and are at high risk for suffering a heart attack and eventually developing diabetes.
- Sagging Breasts Are Not Caused by Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Women can wear bras when they exercise if they want to, but there is no medical evidence that exercising braless will harm them or cause breasts to sag. A breast is made up of skin on the outside, fat underneath and muscles under that. Breasts are held in place by skin and small ligaments that go from the skin to muscles underneath the breasts. The intermittent stretching that occurs during exercise does not stretch out the skin or ligaments.
- Bras Do Not Cause Breast Cancer
[Cancer:Breast-Cancer] Women should continue to wear bras if they want to because there is no evidence whatever to associate bras with breast cancer. This myth was circulated by the authors of a book called Dressed to Kill. However, despite the authors' clains, there is no data in the scientific literature to show that women with larger breasts are more likely to suffer breast cancer; that wearing bras is associated with breast cancer; that constricting breasts causes pesticides to accumulate in breasts; or that avoiding bras gets rid of cysts or lumps in the breast.
- Baseball Season: How to Prepare Your Child
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] Parents often ask me what their children can do to prepare for their baseball season. It's hard to get in shape in one month, but there are several rules of training that they should follow. Before you can throw a baseball or hit a baseball hard, you have to throw and hit easy.
- Pregnant? Don't Try to Lose Weight!
[Home-and-Family:Pregnancy] All women should gain at least 20 pounds when they are pregnant. If unborn babies do not get enough calories in the uterus, they shunt all their calories to the brain and away from other organs in their bodies. No woman should ever severely restrict food during her pregnancy, no matter how much she weighs when she gets pregnant.
- Diet During Pregnancy
[Home-and-Family:Pregnancy] The latest research show that pregnant women should eat lots of nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables, restrict added vegetable oils and and avoid foods that contain partially hydrogenated fats. Both mother and child need essential fatty acids that are classified into omega-3s and omega-6s. Several recent studies show that post-partum depression is caused by low levels of omega-3 fatty acids.
- Dry Skin: Can Creams Harm?
[Health-and-Fitness:Skin-Care] Dry skin means lack of water, not lack of oil. All lotions and creams work the same way, no matter how much they cost or what special ingredients they claim to contain. Daily use of some skin creams can make the skin even more sensitive to irritants such as soaps and alcohol.
- Skin Cancer: Clarifying the Three Types
[Cancer:Skin-Cancer] There are three main types of skin cancers. Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in moles and can spread rapidly through your body and kill you. Moles that have irregular borders and multiple colors should be removed to be checked for melanoma. Moles that have smooth circular borders and are of one color are almost never melanoma cancers.
- Antidepressants: Know Your Side Effects
[Health-and-Fitness:Depression] Drugs to raise brain levels of serotonin are far more effective in treating depression than just psychotherapy and talking, because depression is associated with low brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. The most used and effective antidepressants raise brain levels serotonin, but high brain levels of serotonin often reduce sexual desire.
- MarathonTraining: Take Off Before Your Race
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] The best way to train a couple of days before a marathon is to stop training altogether. There is no evidence that a single hard workout on the week before a race will help a runner during that race. Hard training tears down muscles and it take several days for the muscles to heal sufficiently to improve performance.
- Walk For Fitness Without Injuries
[Health-and-Fitness:Aerobics-Cardio] Walking is one of the safest and most effective sports for fitness, but to become fit, you have to move fairly fast. You should exercise vigorously enough to increase your heart rate at least 20 beats a minute more than when you rest. Learn how you can increase your speed by taking longer steps or by moving your feet at a faster rate.
- Creatine: No Way to Know What You're Taking
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Creatine can help to strengthen muscles, but athletes who take these supplements need to know how much they can take safely before they harm themselves. No good studies have been done to show what amounts are safe to take beyond what your own body makes, so let the buyer beware. The industry that distributes creatine is unregulated and you have no way to know what you are actually buying.
- Depression and Thyroid Hormones
[Health-and-Fitness:Depression] If you are tired or depressed much of the time, your doctor should order blood tests for the two thyroid hormones called T3 and T4 and for the brain hormones called TSH and prolactin. If your TSH is high and your prolactin is normal, you are probably hypothyroid and need to take thyroid hormone to give you more energy and prevent heart and blood vessel damage.
- Fitness Prevents Impotence
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Lack of physical fitness is a major cause of impotence. Men who run for three or more hours per week, or play tennis five hours a week, have a 30 percent lower risk for impotence. Now that the information is out, women will be even more likely to seek out men who are fit.
- Exercise with Flu or a Cold, or Stay in Bed?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] It's OK to exercise when you have a cold, as long as you don't have a fever and your muscles don't hurt when you exercise. However, it's probably better to stop exercising altogether when you have an infection.
- Side Stitches: Cause and Cure
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Suddenly a runner develops pain in the right upper part of the belly, just underneath the ribs in the front. With each step the pain worsens.
- Should Exercisers Restrict Salt?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Athletes must be very cautions about salt restriction. Since sweat contains huge amounts of salt, athletes who restrict salt are in danger of developing fatigue, muscle damage and cramps caused by low salt levels. The most common cause of muscle cramps in exercisers is lack of salt.
- Running Injuries and Your Arches
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Runners with high arches are at increased risk for suffering stress fractures, small cracks in the bones of their feet and lower legs; and those with low arches are at increased risk for knee cap pain.
- Skiing: How to Prepare When There's No Snow
[Recreation-and-Sports] The best way to train for skiing is to ski, but snow isn't always available. To prepare for a skiing vacation, you need to strengthen both your heart muscles and your skeletal muscles. Since you ski by bouncing up and down on your knees and shushing forward from your hips, the best sports to prepare for skiing are those that stress primarily your thigh and upper leg muscles.
- Growth Hormone Releasers: Forget About Supplements; Exercise!
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Products that are sold as "growth hormone releasers" are just amino acids, the building blocks of protein, that are the same as the protein you get in your food. Anything that you eat can be called a growth hormone releaser because all foods raise blood levels of growth hormone temporarily. Exercise can also be called a growth hormone releaser because every time that you exercise, blood levels of growth hormone rise. Exercise raises growth hormone levels more than and longer than eating does.
- Clementine Recipes: Not Just for Snacking
[Food-and-Drink:Recipes] Clementines are the small citrus in boxes or mesh bags that appear in markets during the winter months. This year's crop is tasty, juicy and plentiful (prices are low!). Clementines make a wonderful addition to almost any green salad, or in hearty salads with whole grains and beans. Here are five recipes to get you started.
- Bonking: Don't Run Out of Blood Sugar
[Recreation-and-Sports:Cycling] If you don't get enough food during a race, you can fall off your bike, lie unconscious and start to shake in a massive convulsion. This is called bonking: passing out from low blood sugar. Your brain gets almost all of its fuel from sugar in your bloodstream. When your blood sugar level drops, your brain cannot get enough fuel to function properly, you feel tired and confused and can pass out.
- Run Faster with Interval Training
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] To become stronger and faster, athletes use a technique called interval training, in which they exercise very intensely, rest and then alternate intense bursts of exercise and rest until their muscles start to feel heavy. Intervals are a fixed number of repeats of a fixed distance at a fixed pace with a fixed recovery time.
- Avoiding Cholesterol in Foods Won't Lower Your Cholesterol
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] If you avoid all foods that contain cholesterol, will your high cholesterol return to normal? It's not that simple. Your blood cholesterol level is influenced far more by how many calories and how much saturated and partially hydrogenated fat you eat, than by how much cholesterol is in your food.
- Dizziness in Athletes
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Athletes and other very fit people may feel dizzy when they change position because of their slow pulse rates. When you raise yourself from lying to sitting, or from sitting to standing, the force of gravity pulls blood down from your brain towards your feet and your blood can't get back to your brain until your next heart beat.
- What Causes Hot Flushes at Menopause?
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Hot flushes are caused by a down-setting of the temperature-regulating part of the brain. A hormone called norepinephrine causes a woman's brain to think that her body is overheating, even if it isn't. She then flips open the blood vessels in her skin, giving her the feeling of a rush of heat, and she starts to sweat.
- Training Tips from Competitive Athletes
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Knowledgeable competitive athletes plan their training programs months in advance, using a technique called background and peaking. First they spend many months in background training, in which they work out for long hours, mostly at low intensity, followed by a shorter period of peaking training in which they do far less work, but at a much greater intensity. You can do the same.
- Knee Surgery to Repair Cartilage is Worthless
[Health-and-Fitness] A report in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that knee surgery to remove cartilage is worse than doing nothing. When surgeons remove cartilage, they leave less cartilage than the person had before the surgery. Eventually the knee joint runs out of cartilage and when bone rubs on bone, it hurts all the time and a peson must have a knee replacement just to be able to sleep at night. Surgery to remove cartilage just hastens knee replacement.
- Stress Does Not Increase Your Need for Vitamins
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Do you remember the ad about vitamin pills helping to relieve stress from the "complications of everyday life"? The company was forced to stop their deceptive advertising, but many people still believe this claim. There is no evidence that stress increases your needs for vitamins or that taking vitamins will help you handle stress.
- Zero Trans Fats? Check the List of Ingredients
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Many products that advertise zero grams of trans fat on their labels in fact have partially hydrogenated oils in their ingredient lists, and so contain trans fats. Labeling laws allow a manufacturer to claim ZERO if there is less than .5 grams of an ingredient per serving. That doesn't sound like much, but if a serving size is one teaspoon or one cracker, it can add up to a lot of trans fats in a tub of margarine or a bag of chips.
- Heart Rate Monitors: Don't Be Limited by the MHR Formula
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Some people enjoy using a heart rate monitor and find that it helps to motivate them, but you don’t need one. You can tell how fast your heart is beating just by paying attention to how you breathe. The standard "maximim heart rate" formula is wrong because your legs drive your heart; your heart does not drive your legs.
- Too Skinny? Gain Muscle, Not Fat
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] If you think you're too thin and want to gain weight, don't just sit on the couch and stuff yourself with food. Weight gain should always be in the form of muscle, not fat. To build muscle, start a weight-bearing exercise program. Go to a gym and learn how to do the weight training circuit.
- Should Your Child Train to be a Champion Athlete?
[Recreation-and-Sports] The best time for future Olympic athletes to start training is before they start puberty. Champion gymnasts, runners, swimmers, and power athletes usually start training before age 10 and specialize in their chosen sport 12 months a year. Before you expose your child to such intense specialization that it limits his other interests, it is reasonable for you to see how he compares to other children at the same age and experience.
- How to Run Faster
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] If you don't run very fast in practice, you won't be able to run very fast in races. When I trained seriously for marathon running, I thought that the runner who ran the most miles would be the best. I didn't become a great runner, but I did become an expert on injuries. My patients seldom come to me with a running injury that I haven't had. The ability to run fast in races depends more on how fast you run in practice than on how many miles you run each week.
- How to Jump Higher
[Recreation-and-Sports] To be able to jump higher, you have to exercise your muscles against resistance in the same way that you use them when you jump. How high you can jump is determined by the force that you can exert when you contract your leg muscles against gravity. You strengthen muscles by exercising them against progressively greater resistance, such as lifting heavier weights.
- Hair Loss in Women
[Health-and-Fitness:Hair-Loss] Women lose their hair as often as men do. They just don't lose as much.
All women lose hair when they have a sudden loss of estrogen after stopping birth control pills, after giving birth and after entering the menopause. They also lose hair after various illness, after suffering a high fever, and after losing weight rapidly.
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Diverticulitis) Can Usually be Cured with Diet Changes
[Health-and-Fitness] When you complain of belly cramps and alternating constipation and diarrhea, and all tests are normal, your doctor tells you that you have irritable bowel syndrome or diverticulitis. He should also tell you that you eat too much flour and other refined carbohydrates.
- Eight Glasses of Water a Day: A Common Misunderstanding
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Drinking eight glasses of water a day just means you will spend a lot of time running to the bathroom. Why do so many people believe this rule? All foods contain water. Even the driest nut or seed has a lot of water in it. Furthermore, when food is digested, it is converted to energy, carbon dioxide and water.
- Live Longer With Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] As people age, they lose muscle, their immunities weaken and they are more likely to die of cancers or infectious diseases. The immune system declines because of lack of muscle. When germs get into your body, you must make white blood cells and proteins called antibodies to kill them. Antibodies and cells are made from protein and the only place that you can store extra protein is in your muscles.
- Burn Fat While You Sleep? Forget It
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Please don’t be taken in by ads that claim theit product will cause you to burn fat instead of sugar while you sleep. Even if the pills worked, you burn so few calories during sleep that it is irrelevant whether you are burning sugar or fat. You use the lowest percentage of fat when you exercise and the highest percentage when you sleep.
- Fat Belly Increases Risk for Diabetes and Heart Attacks
[Health-and-Fitness:Obesity] Storing fat primarily in your belly increases your chances of suffering heart attacks and diabetes. People who store fat primarily in their bellies are called "apples", while those who store fat primarily in their hips are called "pears". Fat cells in your belly are different from those on your hips.
- Jogging for Fitness
[Recreation-and-Sports:Running] Most runners should train the same way that competitive runners do, even if they jog only for fitness. Here's a program that you can follow even if you do not plan to compete.
- Gingko or Ginseng-Fortified Foods: Save Your Money
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] How much gingko-fortified cereal do you have to eat to improve your mind? What happens if your child likes the flavor and eats the whole box? Foods that truly contain medicines would harm you if you ate too much. Of course the food manufacturers are not stupid, so they put in so little of the substance that it cannot possibly harm you and therefore also cannot have any benefit.
- Exercise for Weight Loss
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] When people start an exercise program, some lose a lot of weight, while others lose nothing. An effective exercise program for weight loss should 1) be continuous, 2) use all of your major muscle groups, 3) include one intense workout a week for each muscle group, and 4) be done on land, rather than in the water.
- Do 'Grow Taller' Supplements Work?
[Health-and-Fitness:Supplements] Bones do not grow throughout their length; they grow from growth centers near their ends. When a person reaches puberty, growth centers close one after the other until all the growth centers are closed forever and a person's bones can never grow again. After that, a person can grow wider, but not taller.
- Strong Heart: How to Become Very Fit
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Fitness refers to your heart muscle. The stronger your heart, the more fit you are. The harder you exercise, the more blood is pumped by your legs to your heart, and in turn, the harder your heart has to work to push it out towards your body, so your heart has to beat faster and with more force to do more work.
- How to Become Very Strong in 30 Minutes a Week
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Some body builders lift weights for more than six hours a day, but you don't have to waste that much time to become very strong.
Lowering a weight slowly, called negative lifting,is a greater stimulus to make you stronger than raising it. You can lower much heavier weights than you can lift.
- Insulin Resistance: Change Your Diet
[Health-and-Fitness:Diabetes] Late onset diabetes usually means that a person has too much insulin because his cells cannot respond to insulin. The Insulin Resistance Syndrome puts you at very high risk for a heart attack and is associated with storing fat in the belly, rather than the hips; having high blood triglyceride levels and low level of the good HDL cholesterol; and high blood pressure.
- Hyponatremia: Too Much Water
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Hyponatremia should never happen to you. It's caused by drinking too much fluid and is not caused by excessive loss of salt in sweat or by exercising. It has been reported almost exclusively in less-fit, slower and novice athletes, and is far more common in women.
- Muscle Soreness: Your Key to Improvement
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] All improvement in any muscle function comes from stressing and recovering. On one day, you go out and exercise hard enough to make your muscles burn during exercise. The burning is a sign that you are damaging your muscles. On the next day, your muscles feel sore because they are damaged and need time to recover.
- Weight-Lifting Benefits All
[Health-and-Fitness:Build-Muscle] Almost everyone should lift weights. Weight lifting strengthens bones, muscles ligaments and tendons; and increases coordination for tasks requiring strength. Just exercising doesn't strengthen muscles or bones; you have to exercise your muscles against progressively greater resistance.
- Get the Most from Your Warm-Up
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Competitive athletes in sports requiring speed and endurance know they perform better after they warm up with increasing intensity. Warming up slowly does not increase the maximum amount of oxygen that you can bring to muscles that you need during competition.
- Lactic Acid Build-up in Muscles
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Is lactic acid buildup in muscles harmful? Most exercisers are taught that lactic acid causes muscles to hurt and interferes with their ability to contract, so you feel tired. New research shows that muscles may contact more efficiently when lactic acid accumulates in them.
- How to Start an Exercise Program
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] If you’d like to start a new exercise program, pick any sport or activity that uses continuous motion (such as running, fast walking, cycling, swimming, skating, rowing, dancing) that you think you might enjoy. Start out at a relaxed pace until your muscles feel heavy and then stop. For the first several days or weeks you may be able to exercise only for a few minutes.
- Drink Water to Lose Weight?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Drinking extra water with meals will not reduce the amount of food that you eat. If you drink several glasses of water with your meals, the extra water will distend your stomach and make you feel full for a minute or two, but the water leaves your stomach so quickly that you feel hungry again.
- Awkward Running Form
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] What can you do to correct awkward running form?
If a coach criticizes a team member for poor running form and doesn't correct the underlying causes, the person is likely to become self-conscious about how he or she looks, and run even more slowly. Running form can improve markedly if you can correct muscle imbalances and structural abnormalities with appropriate exercises and perhaps mechanical devices.
- Eat for Endurance
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] It takes a lot of energy to run, cycle or ski long distances. Hunger during exercise is a very late sign of not getting enough calories. Most people who exercise for more than an hour will improve their endurance if they start replenishing energy reserves as soon as they start to exercise.
- Arthritis and Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Should you exercise if you have arthritis? Most people with arthritis think they should rest their muscles and joints, but resting is the worst thing you can do. When you move around, the cartilage in your joints acts like a shock absorber. Resting weakens cartilage and increases its likelihood to break.
- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Belly Fat, Irregular Periods?
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] How can you tell if you have polycystic ovary syndrome, and how is it treated? The symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are fat stored in the belly, dark facial and body hair, infertility, acne and irregular periods. When these women are given a diabetic medication, and placed on a diabetic diet, their periods become regular, they lose weight, their acne and facial hair disappear and they become fertile.
- High Blood Pressure During Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Is high blood pressure during exercise a concern? People with normal resting blood pressures who develop very high blood pressure during exercise are the ones most likely to develop high blood pressure later on. If your blood pressure rises much above 200 during vigorous exercise, you are at increased risk for developing high blood pressure.
- Best Sport for Overall Fitness
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] What’s the best sport for overall fitness? You become fit by exercising vigorously enough to increase the circulation of blood. It makes no difference to your heart how you increase your circulation.
- Why do I Sweat More After I Stop Exercising?
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] It's normal to sweat more after you finish exercising than you do while you exercise. Athletic competition can drive your temperature as high as 105 degrees without harming you.
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