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Studies have shown that the Mediterranean Diet can help protect against cardiovascular disease. The study reviewed here assessed the association between the Mediterranean dietary pattern and the risk of depression (Sanchez-Villegas A., et al. 2009). A total of 10,094 participants who were healthy at the beginning of the study were...

Homocysteine is an amino acid, which can build up in your body and cause problems if you are deficient in folic acid, vitamin B-12, and vitamin B6. The study reviewed here followed 2009 participants for an average of 11.95 years documenting homocysteine levels and how it affected the risk of...

      The risk for osteoporosis and bone loss is increasing with age. The more bone density we build in younger years, the better off we are as we get older. Especially women, but also men are at risk for increased bone loss leading to osteoporosis and risk of...

  The study reviewed here examined the effects of short term supplementation with the active compounds in green tea on serum bio markers in patients with prostate cancer (McLarty J, et al. 2009). Participants with positive prostate biopsies scheduled for radical prostatectomy were given 1.3 g of green tea polyphenols...

Macular degeneration is a condition which results in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field. With increasing age it is common to detect a build up of extracellular material in a certain area of the eye, this is termed drusen. Numerous and larger drusen in the...

  Even your eyes can get protection from the food you eat. An interesting study done over eight years and including 2924 participants documented the benefits from eating a low glycemic index diet and the essential fatty acids EPA and DHA (Chiu CJ, et al. 2009). EPA and DHA is...

Would you spend 3 minutes, 3 days per week exercising if it gave you the same cardiovascular and metabolic benefits as exercising for 1 hour also 3 times per week? In 2008 three studies were conducted evaluating the effects of extremely low volume high-intensity interval training on cardiovascular and metabolic...

Soy food contains substances called isoflavones that has both anti-estrogenic and anti-carcinogenic properties. The study reviewed here investigated the association between breast cancer risk and the intake of soy food in adolescents and adults (Lee S.A., et al. 2009). Food frequency questionnaires were used and 73,223 women participated. The follow...

Highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is a marker for low-grade systemic inflammation. Low grade systemic inflammation is the type of inflammation you may not be aware of, but it is a risk factor for chronic disease. Cardiovascular disease, Cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease are some examples where low-grade inflammation plays a...

Habits that are healthy for the prostate tend to also provide other health benefits and are beneficial for the whole family if implemented. One of the studies reviewed here investigated the association of plant foods and the impact these nutrients may have on prostate cancer risk and survival (Lewis JE,...

Everybody wants to have good cognition, memory. As more people are living longer there is a growing concern about impaired cognition with increasing age. Researchers in Finland recently published a study where they had followed participants for an average of 21 years (Eskelinen MH, et al. 2008). The participants were...

Getting enough sleep is important for many reasons. The quality of sleep as well as the amount of sleep affects our immune system. An interesting study just published, investigated whether sleep duration and efficiency in the weeks preceding viral exposure are associated with susceptibility to getting a cold (Cohen S....

It has been suggested that prostate cancer might be an aspect of the metabolic syndrome, a co ndition which includes insulin resistance, high blood pressure and weight gain. Insulin resistance means that the insulin is not as effective as it used to be in transferring the blood sugar into the...

  In the last few years a lot of research has documented the benefits of vitamin D. Vitamin D is important for a variety of functions. The study reviewed here investigated the link between vitamin D levels and cognition in 3369 men aged 40 to 79 years (Lee D.M. et...

  The evidence for how important vitamin D is keeps increasing. The study reviewed here examined the association between breast cancer and plasma 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels (Crew KD. et al, 2009). 25-hydroxy vitamin D is the most common blood test used to check the status of vitamin D. When...

Everybody is aware that exercise provides cardiovascular benefits, but it may not be that well known that exercise can also be effective in the prevention of cancer. The two studies referred to here examined the association between physical activity and breast cancer risk ( Martina E., et al, 2008, Suzukis.,...

  Previous research has linked sugar-sweetened beverages to weight gain and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. The study reviewed here investigated the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and the risk for coronary heart disease in 88,250 women aged 34-59 years (Fung T.T. et al, 2009). These women were free...

Getting enough quality sleep is important for the immunity and health in general. The interesting thing is that sleep can affect the blood pressure drastically. 1741 men and women participated in a recent study to evaluate how insomnia and poor sleep affected blood pressure (Alexandros N., et al. 2009). The...

A low salt diet is usually recommended for people who have high blood pressure. The study referred to here investigated the effect of salt reduction on vascular function by measuring artery flow-mediated vasodilation (widening of blood vessels) (Dickinson KM, et al, 2009). The researchers compared measurements after 2 weeks of...

This may not be what you want to hear, but there are some interesting evidence why it makes sense to reduce the intake of red meat and processed meat. The study reviewed here investigated the relations of red, white and processed meat intake to the risk for total and cause...