As you read this, you’re probably sitting — a motion done by all of us countless times a day. We sit to eat, to work, to relax, to converse, to socialize … to engage in infinite moments of our lives.
Yet as research would have it, this very simple and often necessary act could be insidiously harmful to your health in a surprising number of ways.

“Chair time is an insidious hazard because people haven’t been told it’s a hazard,” Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, told Ivanhoe Broadcast News.

According to Hamilton, numerous studies show rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity are doubled and even tripled in people who sit a lot. Part of the problem with sitting is that it stops the circulation of lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fats. So instead of being burned by your muscles, when you’re sitting fat recirculates in your bloodstream where it may end up stored as body fat, clogging arteries or contributing to disease.

In fact, simply standing up as opposed to sitting engages muscles and helps your body process fat and cholesterol in a positive way, regardless of the amount of exercise you do.

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Do you know anyone with a newborn baby? Or a loved one who has said they just can’t get to sleep at night? This article could be very much appreciated by someone with challenges sleeping.

About 11 percent of Americans are sleep deprived, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey. After surveying nearly 404,000 adults, just 31 percent said they got enough sleep every night for the past month. Most fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between well-rested and utterly sleep deprived.
Further, among people who were unable to work, nearly 26 percent said they had not had even one good night’s sleep in the prior 30 days, along with nearly 14 percent of unemployed people.

A poll by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) found a similar trend, with nearly one-third of Americans saying they couldn’t get a good night’s sleep because of worries about the economy, money or their job.

In all, 27 percent of those polled said their sleep had been disturbed in the past month due to money problems, such as:

• Personal finances (16 percent)
• The economy (15 percent)
• Losing their job (10 percent)

This lack of sleep plaguing Americans may have life-threatening repercussions in their ability to make quick decisions when under pressure.

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The next time you visit your favorite European restaurant and your waitress asks you, “chicken dumpling or Borscht soup,” think twice before answering as you may be missing out on some tasty health benefits in a bowl — beets.

This often overlooked, underdog vegetable is loaded with antioxidants such as fiber, potassium and vitamin C. Because of its folate-rich properties, just one half cup of cooked beets meets 17 percent of the daily recommended folate intake.

These colorful root vegetables that traditionally come in red are also available in gold and white and contain powerful nutrient compounds that can help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer. 

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Junk food, fast food, we know it’s all unhealthy, yet we still order takeout and frequent drive-throughs, sometimes several times a week. The top five reasons Americans eat junk food are convenience, availability, no time to cook, it’s quick and affordable — but at what cost to their health?
A study conducted by the American Institute for Cancer Research showed that a quarter of the calories Americans consume come from nutrient-poor choices, otherwise known as “junk food.”

Soft drinks accounted for 7.1 percent of the calories consumed by the 4,700 people surveyed. Altogether, soft drinks, sweets, desserts and alcoholic beverages made up nearly one-quarter (23.8 percent) of the total calorie intake!

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It’s true that home is where the heart is … but home is also the breeding ground for numerous indoor allergens that come in all colors and forms. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, one out of every five Americans suffers from some form of indoor or outdoor allergen such as food, drug, latex, insect, skin and eye allergies and this number has been on the rise since the early 1980s.
Of these allergy sufferers, 40 million have been diagnosed with indoor/outdoor allergies as their primary allergy. Allergies are considered America’s most common and most overlooked disease, and qualify as the fifth leading chronic disease for all ages among Americans and the third leading disease among those under 18 years of age.

Although there aren’t any known cures for allergies, you can improve the quality of your life greatly through prevention and smart strategies that begin in your home.

Perennial indoor allergies include dust mites, animal dander and indoor molds. These bring on irritable allergy symptoms such as congestion, itchy, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes to millions of Americans each year.

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How many times have you vowed to lose 20 pounds starting with the New Year or said that this was the year you were going to cut back on your drinking or quit smoking once and for all?

After celebrating on New Year’s Eve and using it as the last hurrah to overindulge, most people set out on a stringent quest of resolutions beginning the very next day. Then around the end of January, many fail to live up to their stated resolutions, give up and go back to their former lifestyle.

One survey listed the top three resolution categories in order of popularity:

• 37% – Start exercising
• 13% – Eat better
• 7% – Reduce alcohol and caffeine consumption or quit smoking

The researchers found that people who looked at self-control as a form of willpower had the tendency to make more than one resolution and those who perceived themselves as having poor self-control gave up sooner in trying to meet their goals or folded quickly in keeping their New Year’s resolutions.

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Regular workouts can help you prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. They promote healthy blood sugar levels, improve your mood and energy levels, help control your weight, promote healthy bone density and more.
In other words, there’s no shortage of benefits to hitting the gym or taking a brisk stroll or two around your block on a daily basis. That’s why experts recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five or more days per week.

However, exercise, by its very nature, can also put you at risk of injury, especially if you’re new to working out or carrying excess weight. Even the most seasoned exercisers can find themselves with injuries from overuse of joints, accidental falls, or improper technique.

Exercise Injuries: How Common are They?

In on year, close to 1,500 people visited U.S. emergency rooms due to injuries they received while using treadmills, weights, elliptical machines or other exercise equipment, a Consumer Products Safety Commission report found. However, they suggest that many exercise-related injuries are never reported, making the real number as high as 50,000.

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Obesity has been called the “Great American Disease” because it now impacts 30 percent of U.S. adults (which amounts to over 60 million people). It is, however, a global disease that affects more than 300 million worldwide.

While most are aware that being overweight and obese can increase their risk of high cholesterol, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, researchers from UCLA have uncovered another lesser known, but equally severe, risk.

After reviewing brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, researchers found that obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than those of normal weight, and their brains look 16 years older as well.

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 What do learning disabilities, homelessness and alcoholism have in common? They may all be related to a long-ago head injury, according to emerging research.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over 5 million Americans have a mental or physical disability due to such a brain injury, however this estimate is based only on hospital admissions — and does not take into account the countless others who did not seek medical attention.

“Unidentified traumatic brain injury is an unrecognized major source of social and vocational failure,” says Wayne A. Gordon, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in The Wall Street Journal.

According to research from Mount Sinai, about 7-8 percent of the U.S. population has some form of traumatic brain injury — mild, moderate, or severe. Some of these head injuries may have happened long ago, and even be completely forgotten, yet could still be impacting your life.

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More than 55 percent of high school students participate in athletics, activities that can lend invaluable experiences in teamwork and dedication along with boosting self-esteem and physical fitness levels.
Among them, football is ranked the most popular sport for high school boys, with over 1.1 million high-school-aged participants across the country, according to the 2008-09 High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

Unfortunately, football also results in more direct catastrophic injuries than any other sport tracked by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, and appears to be much more dangerous at the high school level than the college level.

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