Daily Health Tips: Trusted Medical Information, Health Tips and Advices

Worried about losing muscle mass as you shed weight? The solution may be to add more protein to your diet. Women naturally lose muscle and strength as they age, more so than men. For older women who are on a diet, consuming more protein may help preserve muscle mass and foster a better muscle-to-fat body composition. Protein Pick-Me-Up In a recent study, 31 postmenopausal women were divided into two groups, with each group on a 1,400-calorie diet. One group consumed a powdered whey protein supplement twice a day, while the other group received a placebo containing carbohydrates. Everyone in the study was encouraged to do light exercise, such as walking and stretching.    Researchers assessed the women’s strength, balance, and ability to do physical tasks, such as getting up from a chair and lifting a book above shoulder height, before and after the study. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to gauge the muscle volume of each woman’s right thigh and to m

Every year you lose something -- and we're not talking about your mind, or even your hair. We're talking about your lean body mass. It's what pretty much everything in your body (except fat) is made of, meaning your skin, bones, and parts of your organs and muscles. Once you hit the not-so-ripe-old-age of 40, your lean mass starts to shrink by 8% each decade. Fast forward to your 70s, and the shrinkage nearly doubles to 15% per decade. The result: less muscle, more flab, and a metabolism that becomes slower than a tortoise swimming through sludge. Unless you do something about it. Time to do something about it! And you can, because this loss, like memory loss, is not inevitable. You lose lean body mass (known in med-speak as sarcopenia ) for two reasons: First, your body starts making less protein, the stuff lean mass is made of. Second, it starts breaking down the protein you do have. So the first step to staying lean and mean is feeding yourself enough prot

  The world is full of numbers, and full of sex for that matter. When it comes to intimacy, it’s generally all about the facts of life, not facts and figures (apart from the naked kind!). So you may be surprised to find out the following sex statistics as often these matters don’t make it out of the bedroom. We’ve peeled the sheets on 10 of the most surprising sex figures. What’s your number? According to a Durex survey, men across the globe have had an average of 13 sexual partners throughout their lifetime, while women have had seven. Guys and girls often shy away from honesty when it comes to discussing their number; too low and they fear embarrassment, too high and they face being judged. But there’s never going to be a happy medium, as a Cosmopolitan survey found. According to the survey just 66 per cent of people are content with their ‘number’, while 22 per cent wish they’d slept with less people and 12 per cent would have liked to have slept with more. Pop you

Not sure about how to diet, or of the best way to lose and maintain your weight? Well, here are a few do's and don'ts to help you on the road to fitness. Do Eat regularly Re-fuelling when you are hungry is a good idea, but make sure that you snack on the right things. Good snacks are fruit, vegetable sticks and low fat dips, scones (watch the butter), sandwiches, toast, smoothies and low fat or diet yogurt. Take a walk at lunchtime Just small changes make a big difference over time. Offer to make the coffee at work or wash up, just walking over to the kettle every day for a few weeks counts! Or could even exercise at your desk. Go shopping with a list There is nothing worse than standing in the chocolate aisle with a growling stomach, it makes it all the more tempting to grab foods that are high in fat and sugar. Make sure you do your food shopping with a list — and not when you are hungry too. Don’t be conned by marketing Low fat does not necessarily mean low ca

Are you a TV addict? Try this: When your favorite show breaks for commercial, get off the couch and step in place. Too much time watching The Real Housewives or ESPN contributes to weight gain and obesity because it often replaces pursuits that burn more calories. Experts at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, hypothesized that having people get up and step in place during all the commercials would help address that. The researchers measured the calories that 23 adults burned while resting, sitting, standing, stepping in place, and walking on a treadmill at 3 miles per hour. Then the participants watched TV for an hour while lounging and for another hour while stepping during commercials. Participants burned no more calories while sitting and watching TV than they did just resting. But when they stepped in place during commercials, they racked up an average of 25 minutes of physical activity and 2,111 steps to burn 40 calories per hour -- all without breaking a sweat or losing tra

CSI  fans (and NASCAR nuts), take note: Prolonged sagging and slumping on the sofa while you watch your favorite show may be almost as bad for your back muscles as an injury. When muscles aren't used (they're not holding you up; the sofa is), they can actually waste away, setting you up for low back pain. Yes, you: Eight out of ten people will have back pain at some point in their lives. But plopping your butt on an exercise ball engages those muscles almost constantly, since even the littlest moves require small shifts and rebalances. Bonus: You won't snooze through the part where they figure out whose DNA really was at the crime scene. While you're on the ball, you might as well work on your abs during commercials (it beats grabbing a snack, for so many reasons). Use the ball to do these crunches. They'll give you even stronger muscles than if you did them on the floor. 1.  Sit on the exercise ball, feet flat on the floor, knees hip-width apart and bent at a 90-d

Want to lose weight fast, without changing what you eat? Quit multitasking. That's right. Sitting at your computer and catching up on e-mail and the latest video of crazy cat antics (yes, we like those, too) while you eat lunch could be making you fat. Not only do you eat more when you're in front of the screen (any screen), but you also eat more sweet stuff later. Why? According to a new study, the problem seems to be that if you're distracted while you munch your meal (the folks in this study played video solitaire), you have a fuzzier memory of what you ate. So you feel less full afterwards -- and hungry for dessert. Thirty minutes after lunch, the computer-solitaire players ate twice as many cookies as the distraction-free group. (Another study found this dessert craving 2.5 hours later, too. And several previous studies have found similar overeating patterns in people who ate while watching TV.) Here's how to lose weight the easy way:  No peeking at small screens.

Start with a 15-minute walk. Afterward, climb stairs for 5 minutes. Then, do just 4 minutes of wall push-ups and chair squats. Finish with a 1-minute stretch. Excuse-Proof Exercise It's a total "anytime, anywhere" workout that covers all of the major muscle groups and has a healthy mix of cardio and body building to boot. Best of all, it doesn't require any special equipment or clothes, and you're done in just 25 minutes. Here's  Good Housekeeping's  breakdown on each step: Walk anywhere.  Pace the halls, circle the block, or walk in place for 15 minutes. This will get your blood pumping and your metabolism fired up. And, as a bonus, it will burn about 60 calories. Stair-step it.  Climbing stairs for 5 minutes will tone and tighten your leg muscles. Push the wall.  Stand 2 feet away from the wall, feet shoulder-width apart. While keeping your back straight, place your palms against the wall, and lean your body in for a count of three, then push back fo

Study Shows Importance of Doctors' Recommendation in Boosting HPV Vaccination Rates Doctors need to recommend the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to help increase the number of girls getting immunized, according to CDC researchers. Two vaccines against human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted infection, were licensed for use in the U.S. in 2006 and 2009. The vaccines target the main types of HPV that cause cervical cancer. Each HPV vaccine consists of three doses, with the first two doses given one or two months apart (depending on which vaccine is given), and the third one given six months after the first. In 2006, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that girls get vaccinated at age 11 or 12, before they become sexually active and are exposed to HPV. The committee also recommended that older teens and women up to age 26 who haven't been fully vaccinated receive "catch-up" vaccinations. But an analysis of 2008 and 2

Want to live a long, vigorous life? Add to your other healthful habits theMediterranean diet. You’ve probably heard about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet. New research reveals that combining this way of eating with three other healthful lifestyle behaviors may boost longevity, especially in women. Food for Thought Dutch researchers followed more than 120,000 men and women for a decade to track their habits and mortality rates. People who ate a Mediterranean diet, didn’t smoke, maintained a healthy weight,  and  exercised regularly lived the longest. And for women, following the Mediterranean diet was significantly related to lower mortality. Going Greek Sometimes called “the world's healthiest cuisine,” the Mediterranean diet emphasizes lots of plant proteins, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fish, and heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, along with nuts and moderate alcohol consumption. (Yes, you can have a glass of wine with dinner.) It’s also low in refined grains, r