If you’ve ever seen someone having an asthma attack, you know it’s not pretty.

And, according to those who suffer with it, it can be one of the most scary experiences in life.

What Is Asthma?
Asthma comes from Greek words meaning either “panting” or “sharp breath.” It’s a chronic disease that affects the pathways that carry air in and out of your lungs. Those airways become inflamed and very sensitive to any of a variety of substances (in...

Let’s get real. Some foods make it really difficult to lose weight. They create their own self-sustaining cravings (“Betcha can’t eat just one!”) and play havoc with your blood sugar and, ultimately, your waistline.

But some foods do just the opposite.

By now almost everyone knows how great foods like broccoli and blueberries are and how they can help you lose weight, but here are some foods you may not have thought of when you first saw the title...

Researchers in Denmark have found that a high-protein low-GI (Glycemic Index, a way of measuring how quickly food raises blood sugar) diet was significantly better than other diets tested at maintaining weight loss in subjects who had already successfully shed pounds.

How many times in your life have you heard a health professional say to you, solemnly, “just listen to your body”?

According to the conventional wisdom, your body knows best, and it will always inform you as to what it needs. When it needs water, you feel thirsty. When it need energy, you feel hungry. When you feel an unexplainable desire for a steak, it’s probably because your body needs protein, or some component of protein like zinc or iron. Makes sense,...

Before I start talking about that vitamin study you all want to know about, I want to say a few words about MSNBC and FOX NEWS.

Trust me, it’s relevant.

No matter what side of the political fence you’re on, I’m sure you’ll agree that cable news has become extremely shrill and highly partisan. Both MSNBC and FOX may agree on the facts they are reporting but then spin them in an entirely different way to reach entirely different conclusions. Each...

Many people who are just starting a fitness program are going to turn to this page, as well as many who already caught the fitness bug and are “in the lifestyle.” The latter group can always remember what it was like when they first got into it, unless they are among the very few who were always fit and athletic, since childhood. We hate you guys. (Just kidding, just kidding…) When you’ve put it off for a long time, you usually feel you have a lot of weight to lose, plus you...

Americans are getting fatter.

Some have called our creeping obesity a virtual epidemic. They wouldn’t be far off. The figures are staggering: a 60 percent increase in the prevalence of obesity in the 1990’s alone says the October 4, 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to 1999 data, the average U.S. man now weighs 187 pounds and the average U.S. woman weighs 151. The “obesity boom” has also helped fuel an increase in...

There’s no getting around it. The ugly truth is, it costs more to eat well than it does to eat junk.

Let’s first understand why. In heavily industrialized and populated nations, especially those without a history and tradition of loving and respecting food, food is just another “product.” The manufacturers of food products, like producers of other mass market goods, need to make a product that meets three conditions in order for it to be profitable: 1) it has to...

Ah, it was so simple back in 1941. That’s when the first RDA’s (Recommended Daily Allowances) for vitamins came out. Clear little easy-to-understand numbers that let you know how much of a vitamin you needed to prevent a deficiency disease (like rickets or beri-beri). It was the vitamin equivalent of having three television stations to choose from. I like to call it the RDA’s “Minimum Wage Nutrition.”

Let’s be honest — if you could find the recipe for a long, robust life of optimal health and vibrant energy, you’d probably discover it has a lot more than five ingredients. People who maintain phenomenal health well into their ninth and tenth decades probably do a whole lot of things differently than the average person. That said — you can’t go wrong cultivating the following five habits. Each one has been shown to have a significant connection to either a longer or a...

On Wednesday, November 30, 2010, the Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition Board issued a report saying in essence that supplemental vitamin D over 800 IUs was unnecessary and could even be harmful (more on this in a minute).

Should you ignore this report? Yes. And I'll tell you why.

Olive leaf complex is quite simply one of the most useful natural compounds I’ve ever encountered. It’s a powerful health tonic that’s fantastic for general well-being and enhanced immunity.

Let me explain.

The olive plant is a rich source of such beneficial plant compounds as tocopherols, flavonoids, anthocyanins, sterols and polyphenols. “The real benefit of olive oil is that it delivers these amazing polyphenols,” says David Rubin, MD, MSc, an Israeli...

If I had to make my list of the top 10 problems people have with starting a program, finding time for exercise would definitely be at the top of it. But here's the thing: if you're looking to find some spare time when you can fit exercise in, forget about it. We're living in the early part of the 21st century. No one has spare time. It's like "spare money." You can choose to budget money and time any way you want, but none of it is extra, none of it is spare.

Time is the great...

Statins are one of the most prescribed classes of drugs on the planet, and are given primarily to lower cholesterol. The most famous of the statins are Lipitor and Zocor, but there are plenty of others. Technically known as HMG-coenzymne A-reductase inhibitors—they slow down the process by which your body makes cholesterol, thus lowering the total amount in the bloodstream.