How Exercise Can Change Your DNA from Time

Exercise does a lot of good things — it burns calories, helps keep your weight in check and lowers your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Now add one more thing to the list: physical activity can change your DNA.

Unlike the aberrations and genetic mutations caused by carcinogens and toxins, exercise-induced alterations to DNA are more like tune-ups, helping muscles to work better and more efficiently. What’s more, these changes occur even after a single 20-minute workout.

Juleen Zierath, a professor of physiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, reports with her colleagues in the journal Cell Metabolism about these very early changes that muscle cells undergo the first time you get off the couch and into the gym. The researchers worked with a group of 14 young men and women who were relatively sedentary, and asked them to work out on an exercise bike that measured their maximum activity levels. The participants also volunteered to give up a little bit of muscle, from their quadriceps, in a relatively painless biopsy procedure performed under local anesthesia. The researchers took the biopsy of muscle cells once before the participants exercised, and again within 20 minutes afterward.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/07/how-exercise-can-change-your-dna/?iid=hl-main-lede#ixzz1oSDwnU6w

9 Serious Conditions That Mimic Heartburn from Health.com

By Anne Harding

Heartburn-like pain is a common symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). But several other conditions can cause a burning feeling in your chest.

Most of the time, your doctor will be able to identify whether you have heartburn or GERD by doing tests.

Here are nine other conditions that can cause heartburn-like pain.

For the full article please go here.

Why Love Is Good for Your Health from Health.com

Is marriage good for your health? In general, research suggests yes. Married people live longer, have better access to health care, enjoy a more satisfying sex life, experience less stress, live a healthier lifestyle, and have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, and depression compared to their single counterparts.

The list of health perks conferred by marriage is so long, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has made it a centerpiece of its two-year-old, $5 million national media campaign to promote wedded bliss.

For the full article please go here.

5 Surprising Reasons to Drink Water from Yahoo News

Of all the food and beverage choices you face every day, what's calorie-free, virtually cost-free, and, oh yes, essential to keeping you alive? Plain ol' water. But those aren't the only reasons to drink it.

"Water drives basic body performance," says Beth Reardon, director of nutrition for Duke Integrative Medicine, part of the Duke University Health System. "All of the systems in the body require water for proper functioning, and so do 90 percent of all chemical reactions in the body."

Here are the top five reasons to quench your thirst with water.

For the full article please go here.

What Your Looks Say About Your Health from Health.com

Good looks, good health?

By Karen Pallarito

Good health often is reflected in an attractive, youthful appearance. So you might be tempted to blame aging and stress for facial lines, unsightly fingernails, or hair loss when, in fact, these flaws can signal underlying health issues, says integrative medicine specialist Molly M. Roberts, MD, of the Institute for Health & Healing, in San Francisco, and president of the American Holistic Medical Association.

"It'll start by whispering, then it'll start talking, and, if you don't pay attention, it'll start yelling and shouting, and then you've got an illness,” she says.

Here are 15 physical signs that trouble may be lurking beneath the skin's surface.

For the full article please go here.

Junk Food: The Bane of Health and Health Providers By John W. Bluford from Hospitals and Health News

Editor's note: John Bluford, president and CEO of Truman Medical Centers in Kansas City, Mo. and immediate past chairman of the American Hospital Association, is guest blogging today.

When you journey to the safety net hospitals and clinics that serve some of the neediest Americans, you will invariably find yourself in the heart of the urban core.

Nearby you will see establishments such as liquor stores, convenience stores and fast food restaurants. But more significant is what you typically will not see: grocery stores that offer a wide variety of healthy foods at affordable prices.

This is certainly the case at the urban core campus of Truman Medical Centers in Kansas City, MO., where I am the president and CEO. TMC is one of the most crucial safety net hospitals in the Kansas City area, providing services to more than 56,000 medical home patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension and obesity.

For the full article please go here.

How to beat the afternoon workday crash from Medical News Today

A new study finds that protein, not sugar, stimulates certain brain cells into keeping us awake, and also, by telling the body to burn calories, keeping us thin. Study leader Dr Denis Burdakov, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, and colleagues, write about their findings in the 17 November issue of Neuron. They suggest their discovery will increase understanding of obesity and sleep disorders.

Burdakov, from the Department of Pharmacology and Institute of Metabolic Science at Cambridge, told the media scientists had already established orexin cells in the brain send electrical signals that stimulate wakefulness and tell the body to use up energy. He and his co-authors wanted to take this further and find out if particular dietary nutrients influenced those signals:

For the full article please go here.