Life Changes
Healing Through Storytelling: Lessons from The Odyssey
The journey of Odysseus in Homer's 'The Odyssey' offers profound insights into healing...
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- Written by: David Orenstein-Brown University
Researchers report that the children of mothers who experienced higher levels of exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid while pregnant had higher body fat and faster weight gain through age 8. The participants live downstream from a chemical plant that used PFOA.
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- Written by: Lee Milteer
There is clearly a Mind-Body Connection and when you start to feel something coming on always visualize yourself as being healthy, strong, and confident. Imagine yourself feeling good when you suddenly realize that you are being challenged. I always carry an “Emergency Kit” when I travel and...
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- Written by: Carl Thompson
Looking for a great workout partner who can get you through bouts of low energy, help you recover faster, and keep you healthy? Elderberry's got you covered. Concentrated elderberry extract has long been known for its immune-boosting, cold and flu-fighting abilities — an athlete's best ally for keeping healthy all season.
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- Written by: Melissa Osgood-Cornell University
People of healthy weight and those who are obese consume, on average, nearly identical amounts of candy, soda, and fast food, according to a new study.
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- Written by: Dorsey Griffith-UC Davis
A new study helps answer questions debated for many years: How often should women be screened, will some women benefit more from a shorter screening interval, and can others safely be screened less frequently?
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- Written by: Lisa Garr
When it comes to the best plan, I can’t tell you what’s right for your body. The truth is you have to figure that one out on your own because everyone is different. For instance, I don’t eat red meat because . . . well, I’ve never really eaten it. I just don’t like the taste of it.
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- Written by: Ash Stevens
When we think cravings, we tend to think potato chips, pizza, and sweets, and nights of gorging ourselves with foods saturated with salt from our tears of remorse. It may sound ridiculous to suggest that cravings can be used to benefit our bodies, but I’d say the problem isn’t cravings themselves, but how we view them.
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- Written by: Ken Nosaka, Edith Cowan University
It’s normal to experience muscle pain after exercising if it’s been a while since you were active or performed a certain movement. This type of pain – called delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS – generally develops several hours later and exacerbates over the next few days.
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- Written by: George Lowery, Cornel University
![bowls of apples & oranges on counter Share This Article facebook twitter Action Beyond the usual advice about less food and more exercise, the study suggests that consciously replacing unhealthy cues with healthy ones in the home could have a real impact on a person's BMI, especially for women. (Credit: Abi Porter/Flickr) How the kitchen counter can predict your weight Cornell University rightOriginal Study Posted by George Lowery-Cornell on October 20, 2015 You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. The types of ready-to-eat foods on a kitchen countertop could also hint at the weight of the people in the home, particularly women. The study looked at photographs of more than 200 kitchens in Syracuse, New York, to test how the food environment relates to the body mass index (BMI) of the adults at home. The women in the study who kept fresh fruit out in the open tended to be a normal weight compared with their peers. But when snacks like cereals and sodas were readily accessible, those people were heavier than their neighbors—by an average of more than 20 pounds. “It’s your basic See-Food Diet—you eat what you see,” says Brian Wansink, professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and lead author of the paper in the journal Health Education and Behavior. [Would you take food advice from a heavier blogger?] The study finds that women who kept soft drinks on their counter weighed 24 to 26 pounds more than those who kept their kitchen clear of them. A box of cereal on the counter lined up with women there weighing an average 20 pounds more than their neighbors who didn’t. “As a cereal-lover, that shocked me,” says Wansink. “Cereal has a health-halo, but if you eat a handful every time you walk by, it’s not going to make you skinny.” When unhealthy foods are the most visible options in the kitchen, falling into habits that lead to weight gain becomes easier. Keeping those foods out of sight by sequestering them in pantries and cupboards reduces their convenience, making it less likely that they will be grabbed in a moment of hunger. Clearing the counters of the cereals, sodas, and other snack items and replacing them with healthier visible cues like fresh fruit could help, the study finds: Women who had a fruit bowl visible weighed about 13 pounds less than neighbors who didn’t. [Could a bribe entice you to eat less?] The study also finds that normal-weight women were more likely to have a designated cupboard for snack items and less likely to buy food in large-sized packages than those who are obese. The findings provide new insights into the role environmental factors play with obesity and offer remedies to rid the home of unhealthy cues while promoting the healthy ones. Rather than just the usual dietary advice prescribing less food and more exercise, the study suggests that consciously replacing unhealthy cues with healthy ones in the home could have a real impact on a person’s BMI, especially for women. “We’ve got a saying in our lab, ‘If you want to be skinny, do what skinny people do,'” Wansink says. Source: Matt Hayes for Cornell University](/images/2015/540/apples_and_oranges.jpg)
Beyond the usual advice about less food and more exercise, the study suggests that consciously replacing unhealthy cues with healthy ones in the home could have a real impact on a person's BMI, especially for women.
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- Written by: Mike Williams, Rice University
"It's kind of ironic. In our laboratory, working with carbon nanotubes, we wear facemasks to prevent exactly what we're seeing in these samples, yet everyone walking around out there in the world probably has at least a small concentration of carbon nanotubes in their lungs," says Lon Wilson.
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- Written by: Jay Walljasper
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently released a call to action detailing the benefits of walking for at least 20 minutes a day. Of course, all exercise is good for you, but Murthy says walking tends to be the easiest for people to stick with .
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- Written by: Stephanie Desmon, Johns Hopkins University
Nearly four in 10 older adults say managing their health care needs is difficult for them and their families. They also say medical appointments or tests get delayed or don’t get done, or that all of the requirements of their health care are too much to handle.
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- Written by: Jaume Padilla, Ph.D.
Many workplaces are sedentary environments, and researchers say it's important that people understand the effects of sitting on their vascular health. By breaking up desk time with a short walk, workers can offset the harm caused to vascular blood vessels.
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- Written by: Daniel Zadik, University of Leicester
Food intolerance is often dismissed as a modern invention and a “first-world problem”. However, a study analysing the genomes of 101 Bronze-Age Eurasians reveals that around 90% were lactose intolerant.
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- Written by: Faith Dawson, Tulane University
A new study of more than 500,000 Chinese adults over seven years finds that participants who ate foods flavored with chili peppers every day reduced their risk of premature dying by 14 percent, as compared to people who ate chili peppers less than once a week.
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- Written by: Michael Purdy-WUSTL
Cancers have many strategies for avoiding attacks from the immune system. And now scientists have identified a new one.
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- Written by: Paige Miller-Stanford
The uptick in plastic packaging is a result of schools' efforts to streamline food preparation and meet federal nutrition standards while keeping costs low. "If this is an avoidable exposure, do we need to risk it? If we can easily cut it out, why wouldn't we?" says Jennifer Hartle.
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- Written by: InnerSelf Staff
Drinking concentrated beet juice, which is high in nitrates, increases muscle power in patients with heart failure, a new study shows. “It’s a small study, but we see robust changes in muscle power about two hours after patients drink the beet juice,”
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- Written by: InnerSelf Staff
"Yoga may be especially well-suited to people with arthritis," says Susan J. Bartlett. "It combines physical activity with potent stress management and relaxation techniques, and focuses on respecting limitations that can change from day to day."
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- Written by: Ewald Kliegel
In this excerpt, Ewald Kliegel provides reflexology techniques for one of the most common human ailments – the headache. The head is prone to different problems – from throbbing temples with the sensation of being trapped in a vice, while a jackhammer is busy at work in the background, to having a brain that feels as though it is made of cotton wool.
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- Written by: Mark Nickel, Brown University
"Everybody believes that heat is dangerous but not for them," says Gregory Wellenius. "One of the messages is that this is really across the age spectrum. Heat remains one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths."
