Category Archives: Health Facts

Brain Exercise Preserves Memory in Old Age

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Greg Asseff

Your brain needs exercise just like your body, according to a new study that finds that keeping your brain active and sharp during your teen and adult years will mitigate mental decline as you grow older. In fact, even if you’re experiencing the preliminary signs of dementia, brain exercise can still reduce mental decline. Preliminary signs include having trouble solving problems, forgetting things that were recently learned, trouble completing familiar tasks and poor judgement, especially with money. The researchers behind the study found that about 33% of mental decline experienced later in life can be attributed to physical damage to the brain, such as happens with a stroke or the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. However, they also found that about 10% of old-age cognitive decline is directly dependent on the level of brain activity that person engaged in earlier in life.

Posted in Exercise, Health, Health Facts, Medical, Mental Health, News, Studies | 17 Comments

Fast Food Fish Platter Named America’s Worst Restaurant Meal

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Greg Asseff

Fast food is generally considered to be very unhealthy, but some meals are worse than others. So, what’s the least-healthy restaurant meal in the United States? Although you might expect it to be some enormous triple bacon and cheese combo from one of our many fast food burger joints, it’s actually one that includes a main course typically thought of as healthy: fish. But according to the CSPI, or Center for Science and the Public Interest, the organization that rated the meals, this particular meal is unhealthy not because it includes fish, but because of how the fish is prepared and what comes with it.

Posted in Diet, Food, Health, Health Facts, News, Nutrition, Studies, Weight Loss | 234 Comments

Breast Cancer Risk Drops with Omega-3 Fatty Acids from Fish

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Greg Asseff

Chinese researchers recently conducted an extensive, comprehensive review of 26 studies, concluding that the more omega-3 fatty acids from fish that a woman consumes, the lower her risk for breast cancer plummets. The studies involved a total of 880,000 adult women from countries across the world, 20,000 of whom were diagnosed with breast cancer. Overall, the researchers found that women in the studies who consumed the greatest amounts of omega-3s from fish were about 14% less at risk for developing breast cancer than women who consumed the least.

Posted in Food, Health, Health Facts, Medical, News, Nutrition, Studies, Women | 6,307 Comments

An Aspirin a Day Keeps Colon Cancer Away

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Greg Asseff

In addition to aiding with headaches, fever and body aches, aspirin has increasingly been found to have preventative health benefits. By thinning your blood and interfering with your body’s clotting mechanisms, regularly taking aspirin might help prevent heart attacks and strokes. Recently, a new study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital indicates that individuals can also reduce their colon cancer risk by taking aspirin on a regular basis. Subjects in the study who took aspirin no less than twice weekly realized a 27% reduction in their colon cancer risk over the course of the study’s 28 years in comparison to subjects who didn’t take aspirin this often. Unfortunately, aspirin regimens appeared to have no effect on colon cancers with a BRAF mutation, which applies to up to 15% of colon cancer cases.

Posted in Health, Health Facts, Medical, News, Studies | 464 Comments

Thirdhand Smoke Causes DNA Damage

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Greg Asseff

You don’t smoke and you stay away from people who are smoking, thereby avoiding both firsthand and secondhand smoke. You should be 100% smoke-free, right? Wrong, according to a new study by researchers at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory which indicates the dangers of thirdhand smoke. Thirdhand smoke actually isn’t airborne, gaseous smoke at all, but rather the residue that’s left on clothing, room surfaces and dust after the visible smoke is long gone from the room.