Healthtips , Health News, Health Care and Fitness,Health and Nutrition Tips

Can’t resist those tempting cookies? Well, that means you don’t consider those sweet temptations as big a threat as you should be, according to a new study.  Researchers at   University of Texas  at   Austin   found that your ability to resist that   temptation   depends on how a big a threat you perceive it to be.   Authors Ying Zhang,   Szu-Chi Huang   and   Susan M. Broniarczyk   studied techniques that enable us to resist food and other temptations.   "Four experiments show that when consumers encounter temptations that conflict with their long-term goals, one self-control mechanism is to exaggerate the negativity of the temptation as a way to resist, a process we call counteractive construal," wrote the researchers.   For example, in one study, female participants were asked to estimate the calories in a cookie. Half the participants were told that they have the option of receiving the cookie as a complim...

Social  stress  could lead to heart disease by causing the body to deposit more fat in the abdominal cavity and could also speed up harmful plaque build-up in blood vessels, according to new research.  The researchers found that the stress of social subordination results in the release of stress hormones that promote the deposition of fat in the viscera.   Visceral fat, in turn, promotes coronary artery atherosclerosis, the build up of plaque in the blood vessels that leads to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the world today.   "Much of the excess fat in many people who are overweight is located in the abdomen, and that fat behaves differently than fat in other locations," said Carol A. Shively, principal study investigator,   Wake Forest University School of Medicine   (WFUSM).   "If there's too much, it can have far more harmful effects on   health   than fat located in other areas," said Shively.   Shively a...

Food, as we all know, is a definite food booster.  So how about having a delicious lunch which is highly nutritious and has all the ingredients too make us feel good about life...without padding our already rounded curves.   Start with complex carbohydrates that are high in fibre, such as whole grain breads and cereals, dried beans and peas, Brussels sprouts, oranges, and prunes. These will help keep blood sugars steady throughout the day by slowing digestion.   Pair carbs with a little fat, mostly unsaturated. Dietary fat helps you maintain energy levels and absorb certain nutrients. Fat also slows gastric emptying and glucose release. Try corn tortillas topped with avocado and salsa or walnuts on a mixed-greens and beans salad tossed with olive oil and lemon juice.   Add lean protein to the mix; it has a low glycemic index and can help balance out the effects of quickly processed carbs.   Try skinless poultry, lean meat, fish, tofu, eggs, dairy produ...

As kids, our lives used to be so uncomplicated. All we did was eat, sleep, finish our homework and play, and yet there was something which kept us fit.  Those extra flabs, which refuse to leave us now, had somehow ignored us throughout our childhood. Fitness trainer Pawan Patodia answers, “Most of us have grown up playing for hours, swimming and running. Before we even knew, we had finished with our workouts. But today, childhood running has gone, and a workout has become a task. The best solution is going for activities, which kept you in shape as a kid. Swim, jump on the trampoline or just grab a colourful hula hoop and get it swinging around. These are very effective and fun ways of loosing those extra flabs.”   After a long, stressful day, nothing works better for getting your heart rate up, than playing dodgeball or cycling. Fitness trainer, Nitin Gaikwad agrees, “If you don’t feel like visiting the gym, make sure you get your regular doses of running, skipping and sp...

Although vegetable intake is known to provide significant health benefits, still eight out of 10 people worldwide fall short of the daily recommendation  .   Now, a new study has revealed that addition of vegetable juice in daily intake can help cover the gap. Researchers from University of California-Davis have revealed that addition of vegetable juice in people’s diets was a successful strategy to help them reach the vegetable guidelines (at least 4 servings per day).   The addition of a portable drink, such as V8, 100pct vegetable juice, was more successful than an approach that focused solely on nutrition education, or offering dietary counseling on ways to increase vegetable intake.   For the study, the team recruited adults aged 40-65 years, who drank at least two cups of vegetable juice. It showed that those with borderline high blood pressure who drank one to two servings of V8 juice lowered their blood pressure significantly.   The vegetable jui...

When it comes to selecting the best exercise for fitness, aerobic exercise provides better health benefits than walking, according to a new study.  In the study,   University of Alberta  researchers compared fitness training to a pedometer-based walking program, measuring the fitness and health outcomes of each. Programs were designed so participants would expend the same amount of energy in each regimen.   The six-month study, published by exercise physiologist, Gordon Bell, in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, recruited 128 physically inactive men and women between 27 and 65 years of age with no known cardiovascular or other diseases. "Physically inactive" was defined by researchers as taking fewer than 5500 steps per day over a seven day period and not participating in any form of regular exercise.   Comparing fitness and walking groups, researchers found that after six months those in the supervised fitness program showed significantly ...

One hour of moderate to vigorous exercise a day can help teens beat the effects of a common obesity-related gene with the nickname ``fatso,'' according to a new European study.  The message for adolescents is to get moving, said lead author Jonatan Ruiz of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.   ``Be active in your way,'' Ruiz said. ``Activities such as playing sports are just fine and enough.''   The study, released Monday, appears in the April edition of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.   The research supports U.S. guidelines that tell children and teenagers to get an hour or more of physical activity daily, most of it aerobic activity such as running, jumping rope, swimming, dancing and bicycling.   Scientists are finding evidence that both lifestyle and genes cause obesity and they're just learning how much diet and exercise can offset the inherited risk.   One gene involved with obesity, the FTO gene, packs on the pounds when i...