Living a sedentary lifestyle is the perfect way to accumulate fat. If you live in the city, you’re probably one of those who are having problems with thickening waistline and other diseases caused by too much accumulated calories. You can still remedy that by exercising. This summer forget the gym! Try exercising in the open air, along the sands of the beach! You should know that running on sand helps you burn twice the calories as you do when jogging on the road. I don’t know how this is so, but what the heck! It’s a more fun way of exercising right? And aside from getting rid of fats, you also get a great tan!

We all know that vitamin C is really good for our health. But aside from acting as an antioxidant and keeping colds away, Vitamin C may also be the way of keeping deadly cancer at bay. In a recent study led by Mark Levine of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Maryland, they injected vitamin C to mice bearing three kinds of human cancers. The three cancers involved were ovarian and pancreatic tumors and brain cancer glioblastoma. They observed that the vitamin C injections slowed the advancement of the tumors by 53%. Injecting vitamin C straight to the bloodstream makes all the difference to the effect of ingesting it orally. Through injection, more vitamin C is able to reach the tumor. The hydrogen peroxide formed from the vitamin helps kill cancer cells. However, this finding is based on the experiment done in mice; it still has to be proven in humans.

Enjoying the heat of the sun this summer? Well, you should because before you know it summer is over once again. But while enjoying the sun, beware that you don’t get burned up by the sun’s rays. However, you may be perplexed that even though you used sunscreen your skin still gets badly burned. A study made by Mintel, a market research firm, shows that majority of the sunscreens available in stores today are not capable of protecting the user against the harmful rays of the sun, especially the UVB and the UVA rays. These two rays are responsible for premature skin aging, skin cancer and other skin injuries.

We are constantly encouraged to exercise and live a more active lifestyle in order to fight obesity and avoid related diseases like diabetes. But researchers have just unearthed a new benefit of being active: it reduces your risk of getting cancer! After the examination of 80,000 men and women of ages ranging from 45-74 it seems that the risk of getting cancer was reduced by 13% in men and 16% in women.

Summer heat can be quite draining. Well, some of you might agree while some might not. Don’t you notice that during scorching days it is so good to gulp down a long, cold drink? It’s usually our way of replenishing fluids discharged by our body. But you know there’s an even better way of replenishing lost fluids in our body. Say NO to sodas and other drinks in can, and say YES to all-natural fruity snacks! There are 5 kinds of fruits that can serve as great snacks. Here they are: apples, apricots, figs, mangos, and oranges.

Are you ready to get to know these fruits better? More after the jump…

When it comes to having a healthy pregnancy, it has always been a notion that it is the woman’s age that matters. The father’s age does not come into play because no matter what his age is, a man is capable of fathering a baby. Now, here comes a new discovery. There is a big risk of miscarriage if the father of the baby is already 35 years old or older. This finding was discovered in a study led by Dr. Stephanie Belloc of the Eylau Centre for Assisted Reproduction in Paris.

To be healthy you must exercise in one way or another. For some people, going to the gym is the only option for them to exercise. But for busy people, having an exercise apparatus is the most convenient option. One great device for home exercise is the Treadmill. The mechanics involved in Treadmill exercise will really get you in shape as long as you give the needed dedication and commitment. I’m sure plenty of you have this at home. If you do have one, what were the guidelines that you used in acquiring it?

Too little or too much of something is bad. We all know that. So, if you are an insomniac you know you have a problem. If you are an over sleeper, well you could be in big trouble as well. You’d probably ask, what then is the right amount of sleep? Well, according to the research done by Daniel Kripke at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, California, less than 6.5 hours and more than 7.5 hours of sleep don’t do any good to your life span. There are many health risks associated with these two sleeping patterns, like obesity, heart disease, and depression.

Are you afraid of germs? Misophobics or Mysophobics are. The idea of germs is not really frightening; however, their effects are the ones that are frightening. And we all know that germs do cause different kinds of diseases. And we don’t want any type of diseases to hit us, our kids and all our loved ones, right? Here are some possible places and things that you should look into if you want to get rid of germs.

And who among us doesn't love sweets? Majority of the population around the world are heavy consumers of sweets. Well, it has been published in numerous studies how too much sweets and sugar can harm one’s health. Well, let’s scrutinize sugar a little bit more. A lot of people nowadays prefer to use refined sugar because they say that it is “cleaner” than any other; but they don’t know they are voluntarily destroying their health in the process!

It is important to know that refined sugar has undergone so many processes that there’s hardly any nutrient left in it. This type of sugar that is used by many nowadays is stripped of any fiber, minerals, proteins, fats and enzymes. All you get is empty calories. As empty calories it is not of any use to our body. And it causes even more harm because the nutrients that are supposed to be used by the other cells are borrowed just to process these empty calories. This causes deficiency in the other cells, leading to their breakdown.

So you have decided to kick the filthy habit that is smoking? Good for you! But just when you thought you had escaped the tobacco you finding that your weight is beginning to increase and your consumption of food is on the rise! What do you do? Go back to the cigs and hope it fixes it? NO! There are ways to stop yourself gaining weight when you quit smoking you just gotta know what to do! Without going into the scientific details, smoking makes you burn more calories –along with your lungs- so when you stop your body is using up less of its energy. So what you have to do is keep yourself busy and away from the fooding!

Almost everything in terms of food nowadays comes in the processed form. We see them in supermarkets, packaged in microwavable containers. Well, I guess that is still better because they come from naturally-grown plants and animals. But if you were presented with meat that did not come from a naturally-grown animal would you eat it? How about a “test-tube grown” type of meat? Maybe it won’t be long now before you get to taste it. PETA or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is dangling prize money amounting to $1 million for the first person to develop a process to manufacture large amount of “in vitro meat” by 2012.

Your favorite ingredient, cinnamon, may serve for more than just making your favorite food palatable. It was found out in a new research that cinnamon can be a big help in curing Type 2 diabetes and maybe in the near future, even Alzheimer’s disease. A compound in cinnamon gives an effect just like insulin, only that, it goes about the task in a different way. The substance called MHCP found in cinnamon triggers the ability of fat cells of diabetic people to respond to insulin in order to get rid of excess glucose in the blood.

Here’s another warning given to those who do not watch their weight. A study now says that having a bulging belly makes a person more at risk in having dementia at a later age. In the study made on 6, 583 adults, it was found out that those with huge abdominal fat are three times more prone to dementia as well as Alzheimer’s disease, later in their life. Just to be clear, dementia is a condition of the brain wherein the person is no longer able to remember or communicate properly. The amount of fat on the waist is found by means of the measurement called sagittal abdominal diameter or SAD. This is measured while the person is lying down. Now, if your SAD is more than 9.8 inches, then yours is already a huge tummy.