Healthy Options

Time to stand up and move! Sitting Can Increase Your Risk of Cancer By Up to 66% By now we’re pretty familiar with the biggest cancer-triggers in our lives - processed meats, smoking, and tumor-causing pollutants in the air, to name a few. But it turns out there’s another hidden cancer contributor that occupies much of our daily lives: sitting. In a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers report that people who spend more hours of the day sitting have up to a 66% higher risk of developing certain types of cancer than those who aren't as sedentary. Sedentary [...]

How are the New Year's Resolutions going? If you are finding it hard to focus on healthy eating, here are 5 ways to cope with food cravings: Use your mind to curb a craving. Sniff! A 2012 study found that smelling jasmine (a non-food odor) reduced chocolate cravings, so this suggests that smelling something that doesn't remind you of, or is similar to food, may help you reduce cravings, at least for chocolate. Just Chew It! Researchers found that when the subjects chewed gum during the three hours following lunch, they ate 10 percent less of a snack than when they didn't chew [...]

A new French study lends support to the concept that cutting down on meat and dairy products, including cheese and egg yolks, and replacing them with fruits and vegetables could decrease the risk of diabetes. Meat and dairy products trigger stomach acids linked to the development of diabetes. Fruits (such as peaches, pears, apples, bananas, lemons, oranges) and vegetables diminish the effect of stomach acid by creating alkaline precursors that neutralize the acidity. Chronic acidosis, caused by increased acidity in blood and body tissues, reduces insulin sensitivity. Researchers followed nearly 66, 500 women over a period of 14 years, and found [...]

Over and over again the benefits of regular exercise are being touted, and yet so many fail to take action for one reason or another. We know that just a brisk walk a day (moderate intensity for 2.5 hours a week) can help lower the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. How about exercising so as to avoid taking medication, specifically in regards to heart disease and diabetes? Researchers from the London School of Economics, Harvard Medical School and Stanford University School of Medicine wanted to find out if exercise was as effective as medication in preventing and [...]

Sticking to a Mediterranean diet may not just be good for your heart, it may be good for your brain as well, according to a new study. Researchers in Spain followed more than 1,000 people for six and a half years, and found that participants who were on a Mediterranean diet and supplemented that diet with extra nuts or olive oil performed better on cognitive tests at the end of the study period than the control group, which followed a lower-fat diet. The study was published Monday in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. "We found that a Mediterranean diet with olive oil [...]