Six Pack Abs

Ever wonder what your ideal weight loss rate per week is? Here's how to figure out how fast you should lose weight.

Wondering how many calories you need to eat per day to lose weight? Find your ideal daily calorie intake right here.

I bet the big drug companies wish they had invented cherries — they’ve proven to be the most powerful medicine in the world for eliminating gout and reducing the pain and inflammation of arthritis.

Cherries are such powerful medicine for gout and arthritis, in fact, the FDA went out of its way to try to muzzle cherry growers, preventing them from linking to scientific studies on cherries as a way to censor the information you’re about to read here.

It’s not just American adults who are faced with an epidemic of obesity. Children and adolescents are becoming overweight at an alarming rate. In fact, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics show the prevalence of obesity among children between the ages of 6 to 11 has more than doubled in the past 20 years.

But now a study just published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine concludes there’s a simple and effective way to reduce the excess intake of calories causing childhood overweight and obesity, as well as contributing to cavities and other health problems.

Around 26 million Americans have chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to the National Kidney Foundation. And some 200,000 of them have such limited or failed kidney function they have to go through dialysis, a several-times-a-week procedure that filters waste from the blood. CKD patients on dialysis also are subjected to more prescription medications than most other people with chronic diseases. In fact, they often are given a mind-boggling number of pills to take daily. And while these drugs are prescribed to help control kidney disease, a new study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN) concludes the more pills dialysis patients take each day, the worse their health-related quality of life becomes , including the ability to simply enjoy daily activities.

A raw food diet is a healthy and nutritious natural way of eating. Followers of raw food diets finally have some support as to the health benefits, as mainstream studies have recently shown some considerable benefits associated with following a raw food diet.

Typically followers of a raw food diet consume at least 75% of their diet as uncooked and otherwise unprocessed plant based foods including but not limited to fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds. Nothing is to be heated above 115 degrees F in order to preserve the integrity of the enzymes associated with digestion and absorption.

While most people in the United States now know that they should avoid trans fats, only 20 percent actually know which foods are likely to contain the dangerous ingredients, according to a survey conducted by researchers from the University of Colorado-Denver and published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Trans fats, also known as hydrogenated oils, are artificially produced in the laboratory by adding extra hydrogen atoms to unsaturated vegetable oils. They have long been a favorite of the food industry for their increased shelf life over conventional oils. Unlike natural fats, however, trans fats have no nutritional value and drastically increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Like saturated fats, they increase the body’s levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, but unlike those fats they also lower its levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol.

Most people take the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke seriously, but a study published in the January 2009 edition of Pediatrics shows this is not enough. A newly discovered hazard, labeled “third-hand smoke,” poses considerable risk, even more so because it is not always obvious.

A cigarette in the hand or a room full of smoke is conspicuous and easy to avoid. But what about after the cigarette’s been put out and the smoke disappears? Doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston say the dangerous toxins are still present, even if they are no longer visible. Smoke from tobacco products leaves a residue behind which exposes you to carcinogens, heavy metals and radioactive materials.

Unfortunately, there’s no cure for the serious motor system disorder Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and now a new study shows some current treatments may have surprising and potentially life-wrecking side effects. The Mayo Clinic has just reported that one in six patients receiving therapeutic doses of certain drugs for PD develops potentially destructive behaviors, notably compulsive gambling or hypersexuality, they never experienced before taking the medications.

This class of drugs, called dopamine agonists, includes pramipexole and ropinirole — and they are also used, in lower doses, to commonly treat restless legs syndrome.

Nothing brings up the images of summer breezes and relaxation like pineapple, the sweet juicy treat from the tropics. While thoughts of fun in the sun ease the mind, eating pineapple can greatly ease the body. Bromelain, the key enzyme in pineapple, banishes inflammation as effectively as drugs. It reduces swelling, helps against sore throat, treats arthritis and gout, and speeds digestion of proteins. New research is even showing pineapple to be highly effective at cancer prevention and treatment.

Bromelain keeps cancers from getting started and shrinks tumors