Diet & Nutrition

I love spicy foods and typically enjoy 1-2 habanero peppers a day. If you like spicy food, there’s good reason to indulge your cravings, as the spicy chemical in peppers – capsaicin – and other compounds in spicy food can improve your health.

Chili peppers, one of the main sources of capsaicin, are regarded as a staple in Central America, Asia, and India, but even in the US there are many devotees to spicy food whose mantra is “the spicier the better.”…

The Fantastical World of Hormones is a compelling new film exploring the history and discovery of hormones, including enormous advances in this area of medical science that have occurred over the past 10 years.

Recent discoveries about how the endocrine system works have transformed our understanding of the critical roles hormones play in health and disease…

Waking up during the night to urinate (nocturia) is the most common lower urinary tract symptom in men, and is thought to affect more than half of men aged 45 and over. Nocturia is more than just a nuisance; it interferes with quality sleep, leaving you irritable, fatigued, and at risk of the myriad of health problems related to insufficient sleep.

If you regularly wake up two or more times a night to urinate (if you wake up three or more times, this is defined as “severe” nocturia), you might…

If you want to alter your body composition, you cannot overlook exercise. However, some forms of exercise are clearly more effective than others in this regard.

Most people who exercise are still focusing on slow endurance-type exercises, such as running on a treadmill, which is not only time consuming but ineffective as well—especially for weight loss…

Up to 43 percent of older adults use benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax, Ativan, etc.) for anxiety and insomnia, often chronically, even though their long-term effectiveness and safety remain unproven.1

International guidelines recommend short-term use of benzodiazepines, because they cause withdrawal symptoms that make discontinuation problematic. Despite this, many seniors take them for years instead of a few weeks, as is recommended…

More than one out of three Americans aged 20 and older has prediabetes,1 a condition in which your glucose, or blood sugar, levels are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as full-blown diabetes.

For those with prediabetes (86 million Americans in all), 15 percent to 30 percent will go on to develop type 2 diabetes within five years. This is virtually always preventable if you change your diet and exercise, however, which is why a diagnosis of prediabetes can be viewed…

It should be obvious that patients need unbiased advice when it comes to making decisions that can impact their health.

With that in mind, it stands to reason that physicians and scientists with financial ties to the drug industry should not be permitted to participate in broad policy and public health recommendations. But this is exactly what happens, and it happens more or less routinely…

For most people who don’t feel well, a visit to the doctor can diagnose and fix the problem. Simple, right?

But some diseases can be silent predators, offering few or no warning signs to alert you early on that help is needed. One such disease is diabetes.

Not only does diabetes affect almost 24 million people in the United States, but 25 percent don’t even know they have it….

Little in life is as scary as the idea of forgetting our loved ones, our histories, and ourselves. Yet that is exactly what is happening to the more than 5 million people in North America suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Mild forgetfulness in the early years of the disease slowly expands to include serious problems with memory, language, and abstract reasoning until eventually this brain disorder robs its victims of the ability to function…

Fortification of foods with additional nutrients does have an impact on kids’ intake of vitamins and minerals, but many children and teens are still not getting adequate nutrition, according to a new US study.
Based on a large national dietary survey, the researchers found that without fortification, the diets of a large number of children and teens would be nutritionally inadequate. With fortification the picture is better, but not perfect…