Why it's just great to be a Dane
RHIANNON EDWARD
IF YOU'RE looking for happiness, move to Denmark. A study has found that the Scandinavian country is the happiest in the world. Britain could manage only 41st place, while the least happy country was Burundi in Africa.

Dream Spaces: Create Your Own Outdoor Oasis
Summer is here, and you deserve a place to enjoy it. Have the space for a party-perfect pergola? Or just enough room for a petite place to park? Let these 24 dreamy settings inspire your own outdoor retreat (no matter how big or small your space!).

Eating fewer calories slows muscle aging:
A sparse diet helps rats maintain strong, healthy muscles well past middle age, Canadian researchers say.Elderly rats fed a nutrient-rich but restricted diet were able to keep up with much younger rodents, physiologist Russ Hepple and his colleagues at the University of Calgary's kinesiology department found.

Curb Your Cravings
Discovered 1000's of years ago by the Bushmen of the Kalahari, Hoodia kept them alive in the harsh desert environment by reducing their cravings for food and water and making them feel fuller after eating and drinking only small amounts. Now Curb Your Cravings has provided the Power of Hoodia in a Patch.

Growth Hormone Stimulant Packs Healthy Aging
Researchers report that a new drug developed, which is still under investigation was proved to stimulate growth hormone, helping the elderly age in a healthy manner and also showed health longevity in a 100 year old women. A steady growth in the aging research field was being portraited from the analysis reports delivered in the International Congress of Neuroendocrinology.

Whole plant foods for weight loss
Two out of three Australians are currently overweight or obese. While this is just a statistic to some, it is more than likely to be you or someone in your family. So, what is the answer to weight loss?
According to new research, following a diet based on whole plant foods is a great place to start. But it is also important to consider other lifestyle factors — including how and when you eat, as well as your general attitude to food and eating.

How much sleep do our bodies need?
You hear it all the time: in order to function like normal human beings, we're always being told we need to get eight hours of sleep, every night of the week. But what are the consequences if we don't get that much? Will our bodies start falling apart?

Natural headache cures and headache remedies
Headache cures are the most sought after remedies as it is one of the most common ailment people suffer from. Headaches afflict almost everyone at some time or the other. Most headaches are functional, being caused by temporary upsets, and are not related to any organic changes in the brain. They are often natures warning that something is wrong somewhere in the body. The actual pain, however, arises from irritation to nerve endings in the shoulder, neck, and scalp muscles, and also in the smooth muscles encircling the blood vessels which severe these areas. Migraine headaches in an acute condition suffered by some patients and we have listed some useful information for them also.

Awaken Your Ultrametabolism
We’ve all heard the fiendishly simple axioms that abound in our culture about losing weight: Just eat less and exercise more; it’s all about willpower; overweight people are lazy, undisciplined, and self-indulgent. Most of you trying to lose weight have internalized this cultural message: It’s your own fault you’re fat. And that’s what I too believed when I first started my medical practice two decades ago. Now I know better. Not only is this myth completely unsupported by scientific literature, it develops a blame-the-victim mentality that tells people struggling with their weight that if they only tried harder they would lose their excess pounds. There is only one problem with this point of view: It’s not true.

Cutting calories may protect cells as they age
Study in humans finds severe diet restriction reduces damage to DNA
Longevity researchers say they've shown for the first time that following a strict low-calorie diet can decrease DNA damage linked with aging. Some people who took part in the six-month diet study ate as little as 890 calories a day. Their insulin levels fell and metabolisms slowed — changes that are thought to increase longevity. The findings are provocative, but preliminary. Longer-term research will try to sort out whether such changes can meaningfully extend people's lives, said senior author Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University.

Brain Food: The Natural Cure for Depression
By the time she turned 44, Rebecca Jones* felt like she was falling apart. “Some times I was plagued by a crushing fatigue, I was moody, and just moving through my day was a major chore,” she says. “I wasn’t sleeping well, had lots of headaches and a sluggish libido, and my memory was often foggy.” Jones chalked up some of her woes to perimenopause, so she followed some of the standard advice for that, like cutting out caffeine, for instance. But she still felt wobbly and low.

Your Weight and the Big 3: Calories, Fat and Exercise
With all the recent emphasis on the importance of watching fat in our diet, it didn't take long for food manufacturers to catch on that we are suckers for anything—as long as it has no fat. We got fat-free ice cream, baked tortilla chips, muffins, reduced-fat cookies and more. But in 1986 the average weight of Americans ages 25 to 30 was 161 pounds, and in 1996 it was 171. One-third of Americans are considered overweight, and extra calories from nonfat sources is undoubtedly a factor.

Top 6 Blooming House Plants
Whether or not you have a garden, you can create an indoor haven with these 6 fragrant bloomers. Just make sure you water often and place them in a sunny window. Keep in mind that these flowering plants will also look great in an outdoor container garden. Here are a list of my favorites:

The Top 10 Beaches We Love
Our 10 favorite beaches are just the spots to warm up to. They come in all colors—white, pink, gold and black—and are beloved for their superb natural setting, smashing eye-candy, or beachside activities.

Garden To-Do Lists
This is the home of subtropical and tropical plants, with a yearlong growing season and heat modified by the ocean. Some of our most popular houseplants grow to incredible dimensions outdoors in this zone. You can't grow apples, but you can grow tropical fruits, as well as Bougainvillea spectabilis (bougainvillea), Cassia fistula (golden shower), Eucalyptus citriodora (lemon eucalyptus), Ficus elastica (rubber plant), Ensete vetricosum (Abyssinian banana), and Roystonea regia (royal palm).

EXERCISE MELTS BODY FAT
If you want to reduce your body fat, focus on increasing the amount of exercise you get rather than decreasing your food intake. A recent national study was done using two groups of sedentary men, one group in their 20's and the other over age 65. A lot was learned from this accumulated data and it is interesting to note that there was a significant relationship between lack of physical activity and fat. Not surprisingly, the most sedentary men had the most body fat.

Eat Less, Live Longer?
A few years ago, Harvard researcher Dr. David Sinclair joined the growing ranks of scientists who believe that severely restricting calorie intake can slow down the aging process. Evidence for that surprising phenomenon emerged in the 1930s, when scientists learned that underfed rodents lived up to 40% longer than their well-fed counterparts. The results have since been duplicated in fruit flies, worms, monkeys and other lab animals. And preliminary research on humans suggests that some markers of aging—levels of blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol—improve on calorie-restriction (CR) diets.

Unusual headaches
Sometimes you don't have to think very hard to figure out why you have a headache. Maybe you've consumed red wine or cheese or lingered in a smoke-filled room, all of which can trigger migraines. Or perhaps you're tired from lack of sleep or stressed from a tough day at work. Such circumstances can give rise to tension-type headaches or migraines, the most common types of headache.

Fish On the Grill Without Sticking
Leave the skin on, and make it the first side you grill
Steve Johnson, chef-owner of The Blue Room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, advises that a clean grill is the first step to grilling fish without having it stick. Brush on a little oil and start grilling with the skin side down. The skin adds an extra layer of protection, and it can be peeled off later if you're not interested in eating it.

Becoming an Expert Griller
The lure of cooking outdoors is irresistible. The days are longer, the evenings are warmer, and that sweet smoky aroma wafting from the grill makes us feel like all is right with the world. But suddenly something interrupts this reverie -- the steak is in flames, the gas has run out, the vegetables have fallen into the fire. If you're like most of us who encounter these grilling frustrations all too often, it's time to take control of your charcoal or gas fire by learning a few essential tips and techniques.

The Ultimate Simple Health Plan
Not long ago, I noticed that my blood pressure was getting elevated, so I went to a traditional doctor, who prescribed high blood pressure pills.
Before filling the prescription though, I remembered something important: why not revisit the Seventh-Day Adventist 7 Rules of Natural Health, and see if I couldn't lower my pressure without the pills?

Protein
Are protein requirements increased by physical activity? This seemingly simple question has been hotly debated for years - and remains one of the most controversial issues in sports nutrition.
However, unless you're participating in regular - and by regular we mean more than an hour each day - strenuous strength, speed or endurance exercise then your protein needs are no greater than those recommended for a healthy balanced diet.

Defining the success of low-carb diets
Studies now answer the question of long-term results
For awhile it was a battle without good research on either side: proponents of low-carbohydrate diets claimed they achieved better weight loss than with any other plan, while many health experts kept insisting that calories – not carbs – matter for weight loss. Now we have some good studies on the effectiveness of low-carb diets. The results: Both sides were right. For short-term results, low-carb diets do seem to offer some advantages. However, in the long run, it’s calories that count.

Carbohydrates
No matter what type of exercise you do, your body will always use some glucose for energy. The main source of glucose is the carbohydrate - sugars and starches - in your diet.The best way to keep your stores of glucose stocked up is to eat a diet rich in carbohydrates, otherwise you won't be able to train as hard or for as long and fatigue will quickly set in. How much carbohydrate you need really depends on the amount of training you do - the more glucose you use, the more you need to eat to replenish your stores.

Eat nutritious foods: A healthy habit for healthy aging
It seems like everywhere you turn a different diet is being promoted. These diets usually include some sort of gimmick, whether it's pills, a point system or special cookware. No wonder you're tempted to chuck them all, turn on the TV and order a pizza. But eating well doesn't have to be complicated. Eat for successful aging by adopting six simple suggestions and making a few adjustments for aging:

Miracle medic?
Why paralysed people the world over are rushing to Beijing for treatment.
Dr Huang Hongyun cultivates the cells of aborted foetuses and injects them into the brains and spines of his patients. His method is controversial, but his results have led hundreds of westerners to his Beijing surgery. Jonathan Watts was given unprecedented access to the doctor and his patients

Natural yoghurt beats bad breath
Sugarless yoghurt could help beat bad breath, tooth decay and gum disease, say scientists. Japanese researchers found eating the yoghurt reduced levels of hydrogen sulphide - a major cause of bad breath - in 80% of volunteers. The key are active bacteria in yogurt, specifically Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus ther mophilus.

Atkins diet 'works better on men'
Atkins-style low carbohydrate diets are more effective for men than women, US researchers say.A third of the 15 men on the diet lost more than 10lbs with one participant shedding 25lbs while the weight loss among the 13 women was not as dramatic. The University of Connecticut study, partly funded by the Atkins Foundation, also compared different types of diet. A low carbohydrate diet was up to three times more effective at losing weight from the trunk area than a low fat one.

It's never too late
Adopting healthier lifestyle habits in middle age can cut cancer risk If you think “it’s too late now” or “I can’t be that perfect” to adopt healthy habits to lower your risk of cancer, a new study has just poked a hole in those excuses. The study concluded that following steps advocated by health researchers, such as those at the American Institute for Cancer Risk, even moderately well, beginning in middle age, can make a difference.

Humans 'will live to age of 150'
Some human beings alive today will live to the age of 150, a prominent researcher has claimed. Steven Austad, of the University Of Texas Health Science Center, told BBC World Service's Discovery programme that life span for a human being may be much longer than most people have considered possible. And he said that he was virtually certain some children alive now would live to the year 2150.

It's never too late
Adopting healthier lifestyle habitsin middle age can cut cancer risk
If you think “it’s too late now” or “I can’t be that perfect” to adopt healthy habits to lower your risk of cancer, a new study has just poked a hole in those excuses. The study concluded that following steps advocated by health researchers, such as those at the American Institute for Cancer Risk, even moderately well, beginning in middle age, can make a difference.
Low fat diets 'as good as Atkins'
Low fat diets are just as effective as the controversial Atkins diet when it comes to losing weight over the long term, according a study. Research by doctors in Denmark has found that people on Atkins-style low carbohydrate diets tend to lose more weight in the first six months. But they said weight loss for both groups is similar after 12 months.

Essential Oils
Good fats, bad fats: Science takes stock of the bottles in your pantry.
All oils have something to offer. Choose according to your needs and preferences.

How many times a week should you be exercising (and for how long)
Frequency relates to how many times a week you need to exercise to become fitter or to improve or maintain your health. If you want to be healthy, experts recommend that you be physically active on at least five days out of a seven day week.This might sound a lot, but don't forget that our bodies have evolved over 4 million years to be hunters and to move every day. With our biological inheritance it is not surprising that to keep our bodies in a healthy shape we need to be active on most days of the week.
 

Anti-aging therapies: Youth in a bottle?
You wonder about those anti-aging products you see advertised. Can they really slow down or even stop the aging process? When evaluating claims made about such remedies, some old advice is good advice — if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Stress causes forgetfulness, researchers suggest
Stress makes you forgetful. How many people have gotten home after a blindingly stressful day and realize they've forgotten some important event or errand? People going on stage or taking an exam already know this, of course. Well, now at least there's a scientific explanation. But a team of researchers has found how it happens, a discovery that they say could point the way to better treatments for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.