Nearly one in five dishes served at U.S. restaurants has at least 100 more calories than advertised, a difference that could pack on up to 15 kilograms (22 pounds) per year, said a study on Tuesday.
While most of the 269 foods measured at random in the three-state survey were close to the calorie count listed on the menus, some varied wildly, such as one order of chips and salsa totaling 1,000 more calories than expected.
Full StoryThis week's heat wave may be uncomfortable, but you're healthy, active and feel just fine. So what if you're over 65? Think again. Feeling good doesn't mean you're safe.
There are changes in an older person that raise the risk for heat stroke and other problems. An older body contains far less water than a younger one. Older brains can't sense temperature changes as well, and they don't recognize thirst as easily.
Full StoryA top Las Vegas casino resort has issued a health warning to past guests after six people came down with Legionnaire's disease, health authorities said Monday.
Citing "an abundance of caution," the Aria Resort & Casino has written to people who stayed there between June 21 and July 4 when tests showed elevated levels of Legionella bacteria in some of its guest rooms.
Full StoryBinge-drinking can have a long-lasting negative effect on the brains of teenaged girls, hitting them harder than it does young boys, a study released Friday shows.
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Stanford University found that girls who binge-drink -- defined as having four or more drinks for women and five or more for men -- showed less activity in several brain regions than teetotal teenagers, both girl and boy, the study said.
Full StoryKids may be safest in cars when grandma or grandpa are driving instead of mom or dad, according to study results that even made the researchers do a double-take.
"We were surprised to discover that the injury rate was considerably lower in crashes where grandparents were the drivers," said Dr. Fred Henretig, an emergency medicine specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the study's lead author.
Full StoryA large study in older veterans raises fresh concern about mild brain injuries that hundreds of thousands of troops have suffered from explosions in recent wars. Even concussions seem to raise the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or other dementia later in life, researchers found.
Closed-head, traumatic brain injuries are a legacy of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Body armor is helping troops survive bomb blasts, but the long-term effects of their head injuries are unknown.
Full StoryResearchers have found a new way to control the amount we eat: use a bigger fork.
While numerous studies have focused on portion sizes and their influence on how much we eat, researchers Arul and Himanshu Mishra and Tamara Masters looked at how bite sizes affect quantities ingested.
Full StoryThe number of U.S. movies in which an actor lights up fell sharply between 2005 and 2010, and this could have contributed to the decline in smoking among U.S. teens, a study released Thursday says.
A majority of movies -- 55 percent -- that scored huge box office success in the United States in 2010 had no scenes that included tobacco use, compared with a third of top-grossing films in 2005, the study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says.
Full StorySiestas, a health diet -- and genetics -- could explain why people on the tiny Aegean island of Ikaria live so long, said a study by Greek cardiologists released Wednesday.
"While in the rest of Europe only 0.1 percent of the population is over 90 years old, in Ikaria the figure is tenfold, 1.1 percent," Christina Chrysohoou, a cardiologist at the Athens university school of medicine, told Agence France Presse.
Full StoryThe odor of dirty socks can be used to lure mosquitoes into a deadly trap before they can spread malaria, a U.S. and Canadian-funded researcher based in Africa said Wednesday.
Dr. Fredros Okumu, of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, discovered through an experiment that mosquitoes were more attracted to the odor of filthy feet than to live humans sleeping in the same area.
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