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Healthy Sleep: Understanding the third of our lives we so often take for granted is a Web site that aims to help the general public understand sleep and to get the sleep they need. It is based on the belief that sleep is of equal importance to two other key aspects of health: proper nutrition and regular exercise. Together, these three—nutrition, exercise, and sleep—form the three pillars of health. 

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Do you sit in an office chair or on your couch for more than six hours a day? Then here are some disturbing facts: Your risk of heart disease has increased by up to 64 percent. You're shaving off seven years of quality life. You're also more at risk for certain types of cancer. Simply put, sitting is killing you. That's the bad news. The good news: It's easy to counteract no matter how lazy you are.

health computing workplace

Some do-gooders stuck up signs noting that one bottle of soda takes "50 minutes of jogging" to burn off, and look what happened: When researchers taped signs saying just that on the drink coolers in four inner-city neighborhood stores, sales of sugary beverages to teenagers dropped by 50 percent. That tactic was more effective than a sign saying that the drinks had 250 calories each, or a sign saying that a soft drink accounts for 11 percent of recommended daily calories.

health food exercise

Often, the blame for our pain rests on the simple choices we make every day. The Cleveland Clinic Florida's David Westerdahl, MD, shares a few examples –- starting with flip-flops and foam-soled sandals. They provide poor arch support, leading to pain in the feet, ankles, and knees.

health pain

Many people, especially young adults, feel a sense of attachment to their phones and view the devices as a social lifeline that they can't do without, even when the anxiety the phones produce keeps them up at night, say researchers studying students' use of cellphones. Sue K. Adams, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Rhode Island, wasn't thinking about cellphones when she asked her students to keep sleep journals—she was just curious about their sleeping habits. But through those journal entries, she began to notice the effects phones were having on their sleep.

technology health

"For centuries, people have known that exercise remodels muscles, rendering them more durable and fatigue-resistant. In part, that process involves an increase in the number of muscle mitochondria, the tiny organelles that float around a cell’s nucleus and act as biological powerhouses, helping to create the energy that fuels almost all cellular activity. The greater the mitochondrial density in a cell, the greater its vitality. Past experiments have shown persuasively that exercise spurs the birth of new mitochondria in muscle cells and improves the vigor of the existing organelles. This upsurge in mitochondria, in turn, has been linked not only to improvements in exercise endurance but to increased longevity in animals and reduced risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease in people. It is a very potent cellular reaction."

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The posture of sitting itself probably isn’t worse than any other type of daytime physical inactivity, like lying on the couch watching “Wheel of Fortune.” But for most of us, when we’re awake and not moving, we’re sitting. This is your body on chairs: Electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” Hamilton says — leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises. So does the risk of being obese. The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides — for “vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream,” as Hamilton puts it — plunge, which in turn causes the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol to fall. Hamilton’s most recent work has examined how rapidly inactivity can cause harm. In studies of rats who were forced to be inactive, for example, he discovered that the leg muscles responsible for standing almost immediately lost more than 75 percent of their ability to remove harmful lipo-proteins from the blood. To show that the ill effects of sitting could have a rapid onset in humans too, Hamilton recruited 14 young, fit and thin volunteers and recorded a 40 percent reduction in insulin’s ability to uptake glucose in the subjects — after 24 hours of being sedentary.

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James Levine, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., has an intense interest in how much people move — and how much they don’t. He is a leader of an emerging field that some call inactivity studies, which has challenged long-held beliefs about human health and obesity. To help me understand some of the key findings, he suggested that I become a mock research trial participant. First my body fat was measured inside a white, futuristic capsule called a Bod Pod. Next, one of Dr. Levine’s colleagues, Shelly McCrady-Spitzer, placed a hooded mask over my head to measure the content of my exhalations and gauge my body’s calorie-burning rate. After that, I donned the magic underwear, then went down the hall to the laboratory’s research kitchen for a breakfast whose calories were measured precisely.

nytimes health

"Here's another reason to eat your greens. As well as helping to prevent cancer, broccoli may also help the immune system to clean harmful bacteria from the lungs. A compound found in the vegetable is now being trialled as a treatment for people with lung disease. To ensure that the lungs function correctly, white blood cells called macrophages remove debris and bacteria that can build up in the lungs and cause infection. This cleaning system is defective in smokers and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – a combination of emphysema and bronchitis – who suffer from frequent infections. Now, researchers have figured out that a chemical pathway in the lungs called NRF2, involved in macrophage activation, is wiped out by smoking. They also found that sulphoraphane, a plant chemical that is made by broccoli, cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables when damaged, such as when chewed, can restore this pathway."

science chemistry health

"University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram has discovered 34 new beneficial compounds in pure maple syrup and confirmed that 20 compounds discovered last year in preliminary research play a key role in human health. "We know that the compounds are anti-inflammatory agents and that inflammation has been implicated in several chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancers and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's," Seeram said. As part of his diabetes research, Seeram has collaborated with Chong Lee, professor of nutrition and food sciences in URI's College of the Environment and Life Sciences. The scientists have found that maple syrup phenolics, the beneficial anti-oxidant compounds, inhibit two carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes that are relevant to Type 2 diabetes management."

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"Higher education could help you live longer, according to a study. It found people who went to college or university had lower blood pressure as they aged than those whose education finished when they left school in their teens. With high blood pressure doubling the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke, according to the Blood Pressure Association, the finding suggests a good education could save your life. The biggest health benefits were found among those with master’s degrees or doctorates, and were stronger for women, the journal BMC Public Health reports."

higher_education health

"This information was developed by the National Eye Institute to help patients and their families search for general information about vitreous detachment. An eye care professional who has examined the patient's eyes and is familiar with his or her medical history is the best person to answer specific questions."

health medicine biology

"The task set by a food blogger seemed deceptively simple: Eat real food for a month. More than 900 people signed up for the challenge, and some were confident that it would not be difficult to avoid processed foods for 28 days. But in the age of potato powders, cheese in a squirt can and microwaveable meals, eating only "real food" turned out to be much more difficult."

health food

"Airborne allergies affect millions of Americans. It's a fact. And the cause of all this suffering can be linked to the plants and trees around us. Researchers and sufferers are actively seeking information and relief. Tens of thousands of people depend o

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