Health Tips,Health Food ,kids Health Tips,Health

1. Get fit with friends or family. Being active is much more fun with friends or family. Encourage others to join you and plan one special physical activity event, like a bike ride or hiking, with a group each week. 2. Eat more grains, fruits and vegetables . These foods give you carbohydrates for energy, plus vitamins, minerals and fiber. Besides, they taste good! Try breads such as whole-wheat, bagels and pita. Spaghetti and oatmeal are also in the grain group. Bananas, strawberries and melons are some great tasting fruits. Try vegetables raw, on a sandwich or salad. 3. Join in physical activities at school. Whether you take a physical education class or do other physical activities at school, such as intramural sports , structures activities are a sure way to feel good, look good and stay physically fit. 4. Foods aren't good or bad. A healthy eating style is like a puzzle with many parts. Each part -- or food -- is different. Some foods may have more fat, sugar or salt while oth

Winter temperatures are dropping rapidly, so staying warm and dry can be a challenge. Extremely cold weather is expected for the days ahead and the Indiana State Department of Health recommends Hoosiers take steps to plan for the cold. Serious health problems can result from prolonged exposure to the cold. The most common cold-related problems are hypothermia and frostbite. Hypothermia occurs when people are exposed to cold temperatures. A person’s body begins to lose heat faster than it can be produced and prolonged exposure to the cold will ultimately use up a body’s stored energy. This results in hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature. Body temperature that is too low affects the brain, making the victim unable to think clearly or move well. This makes hypothermia particularly dangerous because a person may be unaware it is happening and won’t be able to take protective measures. Frostbite is an injury to the body that is caused by freezing. Frostbite causes a loss

Improve Your Health While Enjoying the Season's Colorful Produce Summer is a great time to enjoy everything the season has to offer, including an abundance of fresh, tasty produce at its peak! As part of a nutritious, seasonal dinner, try cutting up and grilling fresh peppers, sweet onions, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and more. For dessert, follow up with a fresh fruit salad of melon, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, cherries, and other fruits. The vibrant colors will liven up your meal, and the appealing flavors and aromas will tantalize your taste buds! Why Fruits and Vegetables? • Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, fiber, and other nutrients that are important for good health. • Compared to people who eat only small amounts of fruits and vegetables, those who eat more generous amounts — as part of a healthy diet — are likely to have a reduced risk of chronic diseases. These diseases include stroke, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, and

1. Start your day with breakfast. Breakfast fills your "empty tank" to get you going after a long night without food. And it can help you do better in school. Easy to prepare breakfasts include cold cereal with fruit and low-fat milk , whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, yogurt with fruit, whole-grain waffles or even last night's pizza! 2. Get Moving! It's easy to fit physical activities into your daily routine. Walk, bike or jog to see friends. Take a 10-minute activity break every hour while you read, do homework or watch TV. Climb stairs instead of taking an escalator or elevator. Try to do these things for a total of 30 minutes every day. 3. Snack smart. Snacks are a great way to refuel. Choose snacks from different food groups - a glass of low-fat milk and a few graham crackers, an apple or celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins, or some dry cereal. If you eat smart at other meals, cookies, chips and candy are OK for occasional snacking. 4. Work up a swea

Researchers find fat-fighting properties in the lab and in mice. Not only is vinegar low in calories, but it might actually help avoid weight gain, a new study suggests. In a study in mice, Japanese researchers fed one group a high-fat diet along with acetic acid, a main component of vinegar, for six weeks. The others were fed a high-fat diet and given water. Mice in both groups gained weight, but the mice who consumed acetic acid gained up to 10 percent less than those given water, the study found. The results are in the July 8 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. In the lab, researchers found the acetic acid inhibited the accumulation of body fat and hepatic lipids, which include cholesterol and triglycerides, by increasing the expression of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation. The genes produce proteins that help break down fats, preventing the fat from being stored by the body. Vinegar, used throughout the world as a condiment and a preservative, has been use

Survey of nine countries finds improvements over 10-year period. People in the United States and around the world who are trying to lower their "bad" cholesterol have been succeeding more often in the past decade, new research suggests. The look at almost 10,000 patients from nine countries found that, overall, 73 percent had reached their target level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) -- nearly double the number since the survey was first conducted in 1996-1997. Three-quarters of those surveyed were on a statin drug to lower cholesterol (for an average duration of about two years), while others either used different medications or made only lifestyle changes, such as improved exercise and nutrition regimens, to try to bring down their LDL levels, the researchers found. In the United States, patients of all levels of risk for coronary heart disease showed improvement from their initial 38 percent success rate in 1996-1997. Of those considered at low risk, 86 percent met their

80% of U.S. cases occur in just 20% of counties, report finds. Your chances of getting infected with HIV may largely depend on where in America you live, a new report finds. The HIV/AIDS Atlas found that 80 percent of U.S. cases are clustered in 20 percent of counties -- typically comprised heavily of gay, black, Latino and other minority populations. The new data doesn't mean that anyone should relax their guard in protecting themselves against the AIDS-causing virus, experts said, but it may alert people and policymakers to the level of danger closest to home. "If we think of the AIDS pandemic as a global wildfire, the way that you fight wildfires is to identify the hot spots," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "The reality right now is that we have not focused on geographies in this country and we know that you can't fight the disease if you don't know who has it. And we know that in every disease early detection is the

Yet medical experts stress that men shouldn't take them with just this in mind. Taking over-the-counter painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen might help men avoid prostate problems. But even so, medical experts are quick to caution men not to self-dose or to take more than the recommended amounts of these medications, because harmful side effects can result. "Our data suggest if men are taking these [medications] for another problem, it might prevent urological problems as well," said Jennifer St. Sauver, an epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota who led a study that found that men who took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) daily had a reduction of about 50 percent in enlargement of the prostate gland. The condition, called benign prostatic hyperplasia, affects many men after age 40. The gland, about the size of a walnut, is below the bladder and surrounds the urine-carrying canal or urethra. The gland often enlarges in older men, making urination

Improved care and overall better health are credited with improved survival odds. People having a heart attack for the first time are more likely to survive these days than they would have decades ago, researchers have confirmed. But now doctors are trying to puzzle out why heart attacks have become more survivable -- what doctors, hospitals and individuals are doing right, and how to keep that trend headed in the right direction. "There are several possible reasons why heart attacks are not killing as many people," said Dr. Merle Myerson, director of the cardiovascular disease prevention program at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. "We need to look at those and determine how we should train the next generation of health-care providers to continue this progress." Myerson co-authored a study, published this year in Circulation, that reviewed more than 10,000 first heart attacks in four widely separated areas of the United States. Her team found onl

Researchers eye tissues that are normally discarded after surgery. Fallopian tubes removed from fertile women of child-bearing age during hysterectomies or other procedures might prove to be a new source of highly sought-after stem cells. Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil found that human fallopian tubes are rich in mesenchymal stem cells. The team isolated and grew these cells in a laboratory and differentiated them into muscle, fat, cartilage and bone cell lines without producing problems in the cell chromosomes, according to a report in the Journal of Translational Medicine . "In addition to providing an additional potential source for regenerative medicine, these findings might contribute to reproductive science as a whole," study leader Tatiana Jazedje, of the university's Human Genome Research Center, said in a news release from the journal's publisher. Past studies have also shown success with isolating and differentiating mesenchymal stem

Rise of Facebook, Twitter coincides with 30% drop in hours spent together, report finds. American kids and their parents are now spending more hours huddled alone around computer screens and cell phone displays, seriously eroding the amount of time families spend together. That's according to a new report that found the time per week that families interact as group has fallen by nearly a third between 2005 and 2008. "Family face-to-face time has decreased in a substantial way. There's been a fairly abrupt drop in family time, a process which is usually glacial," said Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. "Families are the social building blocks of virtually every society, and this can't be a good thing." In a new survey from the center, researchers found that in 2008, 28 percent of people said that being wired has resulted in them spending

Consumption of bone-building dairy products declines in late teens, research shows. Young people tend to cut down on bone-strengthening dairy products as they enter their 20s -- just when their body needs it most, new research finds. In a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, a majority of the 1,500 participants reduced their calcium intake in high school and the years immediately following high school. More than half of the males and more than two-thirds of the females consumed less than the daily recommended level of calcium at the end of each of those time periods, the researchers found. The study findings are published in the July issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. Because human bone mass peaks when a person is in their 30s, consuming sufficient amounts of calcium, protein and vitamin D -- all found in dairy products -- during the teen and young-adult years is considered key to lowering the risk of osteoporosis and some other he

Study highlights need to get on list quickly, experts say Nearly one of every two people over the age of 60 who are hoping for a kidney transplant will die while on the waiting list, new research shows. The study also found that other factors, such as having diabetes, being black, having certain blood types, being older than 70, or waiting for a transplant in certain areas of the country increased the odds that someone would die while waiting for a donated kidney. "The prognosis, particularly for older patients waiting for a kidney transplant, has deteriorated rapidly over the past decade," said study author Jesse Schold, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "Wait-list times have increased, but the rate of transplant hasn't increased markedly," he explained, adding that this leaves "older candidates at a significantly greater risk, because they have a higher risk of mortality in general." Results of the study

London (PTI): It be often said that alcohol goes to one's head really fast. But, guess how fast? In just six minutes, say researchers. A new study by Heidelberg University has found that six minutes after consuming the equivalent of three glasses of beer or two goblets of wine, changes actually start taking place into people's brain cells. It has also shown that men's and women's brains react to alcohol consumption the same way with the harmful effects of alcohol on the brain might be shortlived, but over time cells take longer to repair themselves. The researchers have based their findings on an analysis of an experiment in which eight male and seven female volunteers took part also drank a specified amount of alcohol through a 90cm-long straw while lying in a MRI brain scanner, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported. The goal be to reach a blood alcohol content of 0.05 to 0.06 per cent -- a level that impairs ability to drive, but does not induce severe intoxication

The recent increase into teen births appears to be primarily the result of a decrease during contraceptive use, especially condoms, according to new research out today. After declining for 14 years, the teen birth rate increased in 2006 and then again into 2007, causing alarm that one of the nation's most successful public health campaigns was faltering. In an effort to understand why the teen birth rate is creeping up again, John Santelli of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and his colleagues analyzed data collected by the federal government's Youth Risk Behavior Survey from young women nationwide into grades 9 through 12. In an article being published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, Santelli with his colleagues report that the increase does not appear to be the result of a rise into sexual activity. Although teen sexual activity might have risen slightly between 2001 and 2003, it appears to have remained fairly flat since then, t

Anxiety about Gujarat falling victim to the swine flu pandemic has continued to grow as another suspected case of swine flu is reported on Thursday, this time from Ahmedabad city itself. The suspected case, a 30-year-old woman, has been admitted to VS hospital where she has been kept into the isolation ward. Sources at the hospital said the woman had returned from the US some two days back, also had fallen ill with symptoms of swine flu. She consulted a local physician who referred her to the VS hospital. After a primary investigation of her symptoms, she was admitted to the hospital . Samples of her blood and a swab have been sent near the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi, for tests. The woman is being given Tamiflu with other antibiotic medicines which are the first general purpose medicines given to anyone suspected to be suffering from swine flu. VS Hospital does not have any isolation wards left for more suspected cases of the flu. The deputy commissi

NEW DELHI: Fresh cases of swine flu have been reported from Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, taking the total number of positive cases across the country just before 44 on Thursday. Five cases have been reported from Delhi, three from Bangalore also one case tested positive in Hyderabad on Thursday, a Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry official said. All the patients are undergoing treatment into isolation facilities. Three of the isolated patients in Delhi had arrived from the United States, Japan and Australia. The other two cases in Delhi have not travelled abroad plus are family contacts of the two positive cases reported on Wednesday. The cases in Bangalore have travelled from the U.S. and Thailand. The case during Hyderabad has travelled from the United States. So far samples of 370 people include been tested; of which 44 have tested positive for swine flu. Of these, only four are indigenous cases who got the infection from the positive cases that have come to India from ab

Bhubaneswar, June 18 (PTI) Owing to the "effective" and "extraordinary" measures adopted by the Centre against the spread of the H1N1 virus, Swine flu is under control in the country, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said today. "Swine flu is totally under control and presence of H1N1 virus is very negligible into the country. Its spread has also been effectively checked as we took extraordinary precautions," Azad told reporters here. Spread of the disease was checked following strict screening at all the entry points, including airports with sea ports, the minister said. While the US, whose population is about one fourth of ours, has recorded around 18,000 cases of swine flu and 45 deaths, into India only 35 cases have been reported so far. Of these 35, 12 patients have been discharged after treatment and 23 are undergoing treatment at various hospitals, he said. These patients were those who had come from foreign countries, particularly the US, wit

Giving antibiotics before operation might improve safety, study finds. Holes in surgical gloves increase the risk of surgical site infection among patients who aren't given antibiotics before their surgery, Swiss researchers say. In procedures lasting more than two hours, the rate of glove perforations ranges from 8 percent to 50 percent, according to a study published in the June issue of the Archives of Surgery. Sterile gloves worn by surgical staff can be perforated by needles, bone fragments and sharp surgical instruments, and the resulting holes enable skin-borne pathogens to travel from the hands of surgical staff into patients. In the study, Dr. Heidi Misteli and colleagues analyzed 4,417 surgical procedures performed at University Hospital Basel between 2000 and 2001, and found that sterile glove perforations occurred in 677 of the surgeries. Antibiotic therapy given before surgery to prevent infection was used in 3,233 of the surgeries, including 605 of the surgeries invol

Expert thinks pre-pregnancy mood could partly explain disparity in birth rate. Black women are twice as likely to give birth prematurely as white women, and a greater likelihood of depression may play a role in that, a new study suggests. Researchers looked at birth-rate data collected over six years from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study, which included health information from about 5,000 young adults living in four metropolitan areas. Of the 555 women who gave birth between 1990 and 1996 in the larger study, 18.1 percent of black women gave birth prematurely compared with 8.5 percent of white women, according to the study, which appears in the June online issue of the Journal of Women's Health . Premature birth was defined as any birth before 37 weeks of gestation. Normal gestation ranges from 38 to 42 weeks. "Preterm births are one of the most significant health disparities in the United States, and the overall number of these births increased from

New York City officials on Tuesday reported seven extra deaths from A/H1N1 flu, bringing the city's total to 23. The city health department didn't identify the victims or say when they died during an update posted on its web site Tuesday. It only said the victims are between the ages of 25 to 64 and most had been hospitalized late last month. City health officials said that on least 16 of the patients that died had established underlying risk factors for severe influenza or complications. New York has led the nation into deaths from the new virus since the outbreak began in late April. The federal Centers for Disease Control also Prevention on Friday said there have been 45 flu deaths in the U.S., 13 of which were confirmed in New York, not including three additional fatalities reported Monday by city health officials. New York state health officials said Tuesday to 1,448 cases of A/H1N1 flu have been confirmed statewide. As of June 15, there were

AHMEDABAD: Private Doctors in the state have been directed to details any person showing symptoms Of H1N1 who may have missed the surveillance System on the international airport terminal. This is possible because the virus has an incubation of seven to 10 days. "Over 2,000 reporting units have been created across state to keep a tab on the swine flu patients. Apart from government setups, we are in touch with leading medical practitioners during state to keep a tab on people who may have cleared the screening at international airport," a senior health and family department official told TOI. Officials said that a team of eight doctors headed by a Chief District Health Officer (CDHO) or regional deputy director has been deputed at the airport for monitoring screening of persons arriving through an international flight. If the traveller doesn't show symptoms, his details are taken down also he is given a leaflet containing complete information about symptoms including stat

Use of antidepressants and other medications raise risk, study says. Here's more bad news for men turning 50: After their half-century mark, about 4 percent of males develop dry eye disease, making it one of the most common eye conditions and reasons for seeing an eye doctor in the United States, researchers say. Dry eye disease causes a persistent dryness, itching or burning sensation in the eyes, according to the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society. Some people with dry eye disease also say that it feels like they have sand or grit in their eye. While research has shown the condition is more common among women, about 1.68 million men over age 50 in the United States have it, Debra A. Schaumberg of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and colleagues noted in the June issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology. Among men, increasing age, high blood pressure, benign prostatic hyperplasia (a noncancerous enlargement of the prostate) and the use of antidepressants increase th

Ignorance could hamper doctor-patient communication, expert says. Despite access to the Internet and advances in health education, people still don't seem to know their bodies very well. A study by British researchers found that many people are ignorant of basic human anatomy and unable to pinpoint the location of several major organs, including the heart and lungs. This was true even if the organ was related to a person's current medical treatment. The researchers expressed concern that the finding, which duplicates the results of a similar study done 40 years ago, might be another factor that hampers critical doctor-patient communication, causing delays and confusion in diagnosis and treatment. "Recent evidence has shown that when doctors' and patients' vocabulary are matched, significant gains are found in patients' overall satisfaction with the consultation as well as rapport, communication comfort and compliance intent," study leader John Weinman, a p

A new study suggests to people who undergo bariatric surgery, or weight loss surgery, have almost twice the expected risk of breaking a bone ,And an even higher risk of a foot or hand fracture. Studies conducted in the past have shown that bariatric surgery results in an increased bone turnover, the speed of bone breakdown and bone formation. They, however, have not completed it clear whether this change is clinically relevant. Dr.Jackie Clowes, assistant professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn, suspected that the accelerated bone turnover after weight loss surgery would increase fracture risk. "This finding is unexpected. The established opinion be that obesity protects against osteoporosis and, therefore, fractures," she said. For the study, the researchers reviewed the medical records of patients who had bariatric surgery toward treat medically complicated obesity, performed at Mayo Clinic between 1985 and 2004, and looked at data, including postoperative fra

In animal study, hormonal changes in pregnancy have long-term impact on offspring's development. Postpartum anxiety may delay puberty in biological and adopted daughters, research on mice has found. The study found that mice with low levels of the hormone prolactin in early pregnancy had substantial anxiety after giving birth and that their female offspring had delayed onset of puberty. Prolactin, which is associated with lactation, is believed to protect against anxiety, according to a news release about the study from the Endocrine Society. In the study, the researchers divided mice into four groups: mothers with normal prolactin and their offspring; mothers with low prolactin and their offspring; and two mixed groups, mothers with low prolactin raising female offspring of mice with normal prolactin levels, and mothers with normal prolactin levels raising the female offspring of mice with low levels of prolactin. Puberty was delayed for the young mice in the low-prolactin group a

'High-glycemic' carbs like these hamper blood vessel function, study shows. Eating a diet rich in carbohydrates that boost blood sugar levels -- foods such as cornflakes or white bread -- may hamper the functioning of your blood vessels and raise your risk of developing cardiovascular disease, a new study suggests. And another study, released Thursday at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., found that people might actually feel fuller -- and might therefore eat less -- if they cut back a bit on carbohydrates in their diet. In the first study, researchers from Israel's Chaim Sheba Medical Center and elsewhere evaluated 56 healthy but overweight or obese men and women, aged 35 to 60. None had diabetes or a history of hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease. The researchers fed the men and women on four different mornings, following overnight fasts. They were served either glucose, cornflakes, high-fiber cereal or water, in descending order of gl

Israeli researchers find short-term use during pregnancy should be safe. A new study suggests that women who experience morning sickness early in pregnancy can safely take the medication metoclopramide to relieve their symptoms. The study, which included nearly 3,500 pregnant women who took metoclopramide (Reglan), a drug developed to treat gastrointestinal (GI) problems, found no significant increases in the risk of birth defects, premature delivery, low birth weight or fetal death. "It appears that metoclopramide is safe for short-term use to control GI problems in pregnant women when used as prescribed," said the study's senior author, Amalia Levy, a senior lecturer in epidemiology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. "Physicians are reassured about the safety of metoclopramide use in pregnancy in recommended doses." Results of the study appear in the June 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. In Europe and in Israel, metoclopramide is

'Don't go to bed angry' can be age-old advice, but it's true, study says. Happy at home along with sleeping well? New research shows that relationship satisfaction and sleep quality might be linked. The study included 29 heterosexual couples who didn't have children. Each partner completed sleep diaries for seven days with also recorded interactions with their partner six times a day. Among men, a good night's sleep be linked with positive ratings of relationship quality the next day, the researchers found. Among women, negative daytime interactions among their partner resulted in poor sleep quality that night for both them and their partner. "When we look at the data on a day-by-day basis, there seems to be a vicious cycle in which sleep affects next-day relationship functioning, and relationship functioning affects the subsequent night's sleep," principal investigator Brant Hasler, a clinical psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Ari