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If you’re feeling the economic pinch, chances are, it’s showing on your waistline. Americans are packing on “recession pounds,” health experts are noticing, spurred on by the fact that, as money gets tight, we stop spending it on our health. For one, people are dropping gym memberships to save money. Secondly, they’re switching from healthy foods to cheap, processed convenience foods out of the (mis)perception that they’re cheaper. Compounding all that is stress....

If she’d been named for her most endearing quality, Unis would have been called Radar. In a room full of people, the German shepherd puppy’s ears twitch at every sound. But they stand at full attention only when 17-year-old Paul Ehmann (shown below with his mother, Mary) calls. “Come, Unis,” he says. “Sit, Unis.” As with all pups bred by guide-dog school the Seeing Eye, Unis will be with Paul and his family for only 12 to 19 months....

If we don’t know caffeine by now, you may well ask, when will we? (And do we have time for a fix while we’re waiting?) Make it a venti and sit down. We’ll explain a few things. First, caffeine is a complex compound. And it’s made even more so by America’s preferred delivery method, coffee. For instance, caffeine raises blood pressure, but habitual coffee drinkers are half as likely to die of heart failure as those who don’t fill their mug daily....

MORE: What One Nutritionist Ate for an Entire Week (in Pictures) What’s Bringardner’s secret? Thanks to his culinary training, he knows exactly how to balance out or mellow unpleasant flavors—and play up the good ones lurking in the ingredient. Here are some of his top tips for turning healthy foods you’ve always just tried to choke down into something you actually crave: The prune-based sauce is great on chicken (Bringardner likes to make it with port, cloves, ginger, black pepper, and star anise if you have it)....

A new study spanning multiple decades has found that skin cancer rates in the U.S. are rising dramatically, even as rates of other cancers are falling. The rise is most pronounced among young women, according to the researchers who conducted the study.Mayo Clinic researchers studied health records dating back to the 1970s in Olmstead County, Mass., and found the number of melanoma cases in young adults has increased more than sixfold in the past 40 years....

title: “Sports Drinks Prevention” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-09” author: “Ashley Taylor” Here are two of the benefits of sports drinks: You’re likely to drink more and avoid dehydration if you like the taste. In one study, 50 triathletes and runners drank 25 percent more orange-flavored sports drinks than plain water, diluted orange juice, or an orange-flavored, homemade sports drinks. They may help improve your performance. In one study, people exercising in high-intensity sports, similar to what a basketball or soccer player might encounter, maintained their high-intensity effort longer when they drank a sports drink than when they drank a similar-tasting placebo....

[sidebar]God, yoga, prayer, gardening or your pet, she says an interview in Science & Theology News, can all trigger physiological processes that de-stress you. In other words, it’s not what you believe, but that you believe in something, that positively affects your immune system and helps you get and stay well. Sternberg says that she came to recognize the importance of beliefs when she and her mother discussed them as her mother was dying....

The research, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, followed nearly 150,000 people who did not have diabetes at the start of the study for 12 to 16 years. The participants filled out surveys every 4 years about their eating habits. The results: In a given 4-year period, people who increased their red meat intake by more than half of a serving per day had a 48% greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people who didn’t change their red meat intake....

The research: Researchers from several Boston hospitals and Harvard Medical School exposed shaved mice to low levels of UV light 5 days a week for 6 weeks. Blood draws showed that levels of beta endorphin, an endorphin produced by the pituitary gland that suppresses pain and acts through the same pathway as addictive opiates like heroin and morphine, increased after just 1 week of exposure. After the treatment ended, researchers gave the mice opiate-blocking drugs and found that the mice experienced withdrawal symptoms like shaking, tremors, and teeth chattering....

MORE: Sunscreen Alone Wont Stop Melanoma Bent DNA is just as bad as it sounds. It increases your risk for skin cancer in two ways: It can lead to cell death, which leaves room for cancerous cells to proliferate, or mutation, which alters DNA and can lead to skin cancer. But, marvel that it is, your body is capable of repairing bent DNA. You just have to find a way to stop sustaining more damage in the here-and-now so your body can recuperate from the hit it’s already taken (think SPF at all times)....

“Palm oil harvesting can cause rainforest destruction and lead to climate change,” DiNapoli says. “When a major corporation like Safeway tells its suppliers that it wants 100% sustainable palm oil, that sends a loud message that helps safeguard the environment.” More from Prevention: 70 Easy Ways To Green Up Your Life

[sidebar]Here are four heart-friendly snacks you can feel good about: Guacamole Dip in—snacks full of avocados are a great source of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, says Kris-Etherton. Dark Chocolate “An ounce of dark chocolate contains 10 times more antioxidants than a strawberry,” says Kris-Etherton. “In addition, my research shows that a diet containing about an ounce of chocolate a day increases good cholesterol and prevents bad cholesterol from oxidizing, a process that may lead to heart disease....

[sidebar]When raising your hands and weights towards your shoulders, move to a count of two short breaths. Bring the weights only about 7/8 of the way up (meaning really close to the top, but not actually touching your shoulders). And when you’re lowering the weights back down, move slower, and take 3 short breaths to return to the starting point. This ensures that you’re using your muscles—not momentum—to perform the exercise....

Skin cancer: There’s an app for that—but you shouldn’t trust it. Smartphone apps frequently misdiagnose dangerous melanomas as unthreatening lesions, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Researchers downloaded four popular apps that claim to help fight skin cancer—the names weren’t listed in the study—and fed them images of cancerous and non-cancerous skin lesions. The results: Three out of the four apps classified over 70% of dangerous melanomas as non-cancerous....

[sidebar]This Pilates move is a variation of the popular glute, or hipe, bridge. The twist: It uses a wall to boost your burn, help you balance, and take pressure off your joints. (Watch the video above to see it in action!) The secret behind the move is that it leverages your bodyweight to tone and sculpt a firm, strong butt. And since the glutes (your butt muscles) are one of the body’s powerhouse muscle groups, strengthening them not only results in a perky-looking rear, but it can help you feel more powerful during your walks and runs....

A woman with terrible insomnia now slips into dreamland courtesy of Pachelbel’s timeless Canon in D. In a hospital intensive-care unit, patients on ventilators who listen to music of their choice actually relax, while those who don’t hear music grow more tense. Exciting research suggests that the brain responds to music almost as if it were medicine. It may regulate some body functions, synchronize motor skills, stimulate the mind—even make us smarter....

I learned just how wrong I was on the day late last August that Hurricane Irene was due to make its second US landfall and hammer the Northeast. Residents of Eastern Long Island had been advised to evacuate, so I was driving my girls, ages 11 and 14, and myself from our beach house back home to New York City, where presumably we would be safer. Except for the looming threat of the biggest storm to hit the area in 73 years, it started off as a garden-variety summer Saturday....