Recent Blog Posts

  Your Willpower is Like a Muscle … How to Train Yours to be Strong   You've been good all day -- whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast, a salad for lunch, fresh veggies as a snack … but now come dinner that cheeseburger and fries is calling your name. Or maybe you got to work early, stayed late finishing up a major project and now feel like going home to veg on the couch instead of hitting the gym. Challenging your willpower regularly will help to keep it strong. Is it coincidence that when we've been pushing our willpower to the max, urging ourselves to keep going on that diet, work schedule, exercise routine, cleaning schedule or you name it … it seems we can only go so long before we need a break? Not at all. In fact, you only have so much willpower so when you use it for one task you have less leftover to use on the next. What Science Says About Willpower Researchers from McMaster University used a Stroop test designed to deplete the self-regulatory capacity [...]

  Allergies: Serious Hidden Health Risk for Obese Children   Sixteen percent of U.S. children and young adults aged 2 to 19 are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of overweight and obese kids has been growing steadily since the 1970s, to the extent that the CDC's Healthy People initiative identified overweight and obesity as 1 of 10 leading health indicators and called for a reduction in the proportion of children and adolescents who are overweight or obese. Allergy is the third most common chronic disease among children under 18 years old, and obese kids have a 26 percent greater risk of having some type of allergy than kids of average weight. Unfortunately, the United States has made little progress toward that goal. As children get older, losing weight can become increasingly difficult, as according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, a child who is obese between the ages of 10 and 13 and who is obese has an 80 percent chance of becoming an obese adult. These extra pounds can [...]

  Why Choose a Smile Makeover? There are many reasons why your teeth and smile are important. When you feel good about yourself, you naturally want to smile. When you have a healthy smile to show the world, you feel self-confident and you are happy to let the world know it. Trading a set of unhealthy or discolored teeth in for a set of nice, healthy white teeth makes a lot of sense when you understand exactly how your smile can positively affect life. Achieving a beautiful smile with a smile makeover can improve your self-confidence and make you feel better about smiling in public. If your teeth are stained, crooked, decaying or just have an unhealthy appearance, investing in a smile makeover can be one of the best decisions you ever make. Why Are More People Choosing Smile Makeovers Today? In a recent study conducted by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD), 99.7% -- that's practically 100%! -- of American adults admitted they feel like a smile is an important social asset. In addition, 74% of those people [...]

  Health Clue: Heart Concerns to Look For     Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 26 percent of deaths each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Further, each year 785,000 Americans will have a first heart attack, while another 470,000 will have a second (or third, fourth, etc.) attack. Shortness of breath during exercise or activity (or even while at rest) is a common warning sign of heart disease. Needless to say, a staggering number of people are being affected by this disease, to the tune of over $316 billion in costs for health care services, medications and lost productivity. Of course, if you suffer from heart disease or a heart attack, the impact on your life can take a toll that's much greater than that, in the form of serious disability or even death. Knowing the warning signs for heart disease is essential for all Americans, as the sooner you notice there may be a problem, the sooner you can take steps to fix it. [...]

  Want to Improve Your Immune System? Then Here's What You Need to Know about Flavonoids   For the first time ever, a study has proven that eating flavonoids, a type of antioxidant that's especially concentrated in fruits and vegetables, may boost your immune system. If you eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, you're likely getting plenty of flavonoids. Be aware, however, that cooking and processing greatly reduces these healthy compounds in your food. How did the researchers come to this realization? By watching birds. Researchers from the University of Freiburg and the Max Plank Institute for Ornithology in Germany offered blackcaps a choice of two foods; they were identical except one contained more flavonoids. Sure enough, the birds chose to eat the foods that contained the extra antioxidants. Next, they looked into what impact the flavonoids had on the birds' health. Compared with birds not fed flavonoids, those that ate modest amounts of the healthy antioxidants for four weeks had stronger immune systems. "We fed the birds an amount of flavonoids that they would obtain by eating [...]

  Is Howie Mandel’s Closed-Fist Greeting Brilliant or Bonkers? Howie Mandel does it. President Obama has done it. And so have countless athletes and celebrities: The closed-fist greeting! It’s a trend for some, but Howie Mandel does it for a different reason … to avoid germs! Might his OCD closed-fist greeting be a gift in disguise for us all? And might his approach be suddenly changing from being seen as bit weird to being the mainstream preferred greeting? Actually, it could be a way to HELP PREVENT the Flu!      Howie's "Closed-Fist Greeting" Could Soon Replace Handshaking the World Over Soon Stopping much of the Transfer of the Flu! While some used to see Howie Mandel's OCD as a tragedy, his fist greeting is a fast growing trend and could become recognized soon as a very good idea for us all to replace the handshake (which is simply a tradition that goes back several hundred years meant then to show the person you were greeting that you had no weapon in your right hand). The perceived "lethal weapon" greeting has, [...]