Drinking up to half a glass of wine a day may boost life expectancy by five years, at least in men. The findings are based on a study of nearly 1,400 randomly selected men whose cardiovascular health and life expectancy were repeatedly monitored between 1960 and 2000.

The researchers looked into how much alcohol the men drank, what type it was, and over what period. They were attempting to assess whether this had any impact on the risks of their dying from cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and from all causes.

They also tracked weight, diet, and whether the men smoked.

Light long term alcohol consumption of all types extended life by around two extra years compared with no alcohol at all. Men who drank only wine, and less than half a glass of it a day, lived almost five years longer than those who drank no alcohol at all.

Ultraviolet light is a proven treatment for psoriasis, and sunshine itself can also beat back the chronic autoimmune disorder of the skin. But explaining light’s therapeutic effects has been difficult.

A new clinical trial is attempting to find out the reasons. Researchers have recruited the first of what will be 20 patients who will visit the hospital three times a week for up to four months to receive narrowband ultraviolet light B (UVB) treatment. Patients will give skin and blood samples as the treatment takes its course, giving the scientists the possibility to study what is happening at the molecular level as the skin gets better.

UVB therapy is known to kill off T cells, which are partly to blame for the inflammation caused by the disease. UVB may target a pathway involving two immune system proteins called cytokines, which could disrupt certain types of T cells and another specialized group of immune-directing dendritic cells.

In the U.S., over-the-counter pain relievers such as Tylenol and Advil will carry bolder warnings about the risk of liver damage or stomach bleeding.

Products containing acetaminophen, such as Tylenol, will carry a prominent package warning about the risk of severe liver damage. Painkillers known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, including aspirin products, Advil and Motrin, will carry bold warnings about the risk of stomach bleeding.

While the risks with these kinds of drugs have been known for years, the FDA said that it is important to better highlight them for consumers, who could unknowingly take multiple products containing acetaminophen.

Low vitamin D levels may increase the risk of bacterial vaginosis, a common vaginal infection linked to adverse pregnancy outcomes.

In a study that looked at nearly 500 pregnant women, low vitamin D levels were associated with a 34 percent increase in the prevalence of bacterial vaginosis.

This may be due to the vitamin’s influence on the immune system.

According to a new review of research, evidence suggests that adequate treatment of vitamin D deficient athletes could dramatically improve their performance. Activated vitamin D is a steroid hormone which regulates more than 1000 human genes. Recent research indicates that intracellular vitamin D levels in numerous human tissues, including nerve and muscle tissue, are increased when inputs of its substrate, the prehormone vitamin D, are increased.

Researchers reviewed the world's literature for evidence that vitamin D affects physical and athletic performance. Numerous studies, particularly in the German literature in the 1950s, show vitamin D-producing ultraviolet light improves athletic performance. Furthermore, a consistent literature indicates physical and athletic performance is seasonal; it peaks when vitamin D levels peak, declines as they decline, and reaches its nadir when the  levels are at their lowest.

Vitamin D also increases the size and number of fast twitch muscle fibers. Most cross-sectional and randomized controlled studies show that vitamin D levels are directly associated with musculoskeletal performance.

Eating marine omega-3 fats can protect men from heart failure, according to one of the largest studies to investigate the association.

However, the effect was seen only in men who had a moderate intake of marine omega-3 fats -- approximately 0.3 grams a day. Eating more did not give a greater benefit, and in fact returned the chances of heart failure to the same level as that seen in men who consume minimal levels of omega 3’s.

The men in the study obtained most of their marine omega-3 fats from the food they ate rather than from supplements.

As you no doubt know, exposure to sunlight causes vitamin D to be produced in your skin. But it is only a portion of the solar spectrum known as UVB that has this effect. Other parts of the solar spectrum can have very different results.

Malignant melanoma has been increasing at an exponential rate in indoor workers since before 1940. The reason may be indoor exposure to UVA radiation. Unlike UVB, which is blocked by glass, UVA can pass through windows.

UVA can cause cancerous mutations, and can also break down vitamin D formed after outdoor UVB exposure. And vitamin D is a potent defense against melanoma -- melanoma cells convert it to calcitriol, which causes growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death in vitro and in vivo. New research shows that increased UVA exposures and inadequately maintained cutaneous levels of vitamin D promote melanoma.

A study suggests that eating fatty foods can help boost your memory. Oleic acids from fats are converted into a memory-enhancing agent in the gut.

Evidence shows high levels of oleoylethanolamide, or OEA, can reduce appetite, produce weight loss and lower blood cholesterol as well as triglyceride levels. Researchers discovered that OEA also causes memories to be laid down by activating memory-enhancing signals in the amygdala -- the part of the brain involved with memories of emotional events.

When they gave OEA to rats, it improved their memory retention in two different tests. When they blocked OEA with a drug, their performance on the tasks declined.

According to the American Heart Association, Americans should not reduce their consumption of omega-6 fats -- and might even benefit from eating a little more.

Omega-6 and omega-3 fats are "essential fats" that your body can't produce and must obtain from food. These fatty acids play a very important role in heart and brain function, along with normal growth and development.

Most omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the diet come from linoleic acid, found in vegetable oils such as corn oil. There are no firm recommendations on how much omega-6 PUFAs people need, but at present U.S. adults consume about 15 grams per day of linoleic acid. But according to the Institute of Medicine, 17 grams per day and 12 grams a day are adequate for men and women, respectively.

Gapminder.org can now visualize change in life expectancy and income per person over the last two centuries. In the video above, Hans Rosling shows you how all the countries of the world have developed over the past years ago. I encourage you to look at this amazing interactive graph for details.

Extreme artist Eskil Ronningsbakken, who enjoys nothing more than precariously perching on the edge of a clifftop or walking on a tightrope between two hot-air balloons. His most recent endeavor was traveling upside-down on a bicycle 1,000 meters above an icy Norwegian fjord, with just a weight dangling below him for stability.

Eskil sees his balancing acts as expressions of art and not stunts. He is currently working with a group of 50 like-minded performers in Nairobi in Kenya.

'A stunt is something you see in movies, often done with mattresses safety lines or nets,' says Eskil. 'What I do is draw a picture with vulnerable human beings and their bodies, in the surrounding of mother earth. That's the balance between life and death, and that is where life is.'

Recent research shows that you can heal yourself with the power of a positive attitude. Professor Ellen Langer has conducted several studies into "mindfulness theory", researching just how much your attitude affects your actual body.  The answer is -- quite a lot.

In one experiment, Langer shut several septuagenarians in a hotel that had been redecorated in mid-eighties style, eliminating all evidence of the last two decades.  Subjects were instructed to act as if they'd really become younger -- and amazingly, soon their bodies actually seemed younger.

Dr Langer's theory is that all the external reminders that "you are old and broken" can convince the brain and body that it must be so.

Laundry can be one of the most stubborn forms of clutter. But there are ways to keep your laundry chaos to a minimum:

• First and foremost, establish a laundry routine. You can’t let laundry pile up or it instantly becomes chaotic.
• Exclusively use small, sturdy laundry baskets (20 gal. or smaller). Keep one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom(s), and one in the laundry room.
• Have fewer clothes. The fewer clothes you have, the fewer clothes you have to wash.
• Don’t have more clothes than you can store properly in your dresser drawers and closet. If you can’t put all of your clothes away, you’ll always have a reason to have dirty clothes.
• Only buy non-iron clothes to keep clean shirts from stacking up in a “needs ironing” pile.
• When moving, look for a place that has a laundry room on the same floor as your closet. If you’re a DIY person, consider building a closet with the washer and dryer right inside of it.
• Have a designated dry cleaner bag next to your hamper. If you keep it in your car, clothes that need to go to the dry cleaner will certainly pile up on the floor and cause clutter.
• Keep a stack of delicate bags next to your hamper. When you take off delicates, you can put them straight into a delicates bag and then just throw them into the hamper.
• Change into pajamas at least an hour before bedtime so that you have enough energy to do more than throw your dirty clothes on the floor.
• Before buying anything in a color that bleeds (like red), ask yourself if you will want to take the time to sort it out every time you launder it.
• Think about wearing only neutral colors so that you never have to sort your laundry into lights and darks.
• Get a job in an office that allows casual dress so that you stop wearing two sets of clothes on most days.
• Only have two sets of bed sheets -- one on your bed and one waiting on deck.
• By the age of 12 your children should have their own laundry routines.
• Clean out pockets when taking off clothing to avoid having to do it during sorting.
• If something is permanently stained or riddled with holes, get rid of it.
• Keep hangers in your laundry room so that you can immediately hang up the clothes that you don’t fold.
• Replace your washer and dryer with large capacity units so that you can do two to three traditional loads at a time.
• Have a table in your laundry room so that you can have a space to immediately fold clothes as they come out of the dryer. Do NOT allow it to become a clutter table -- keep it clean and only use it for folding.
• Have a designated bag or box in your laundry room to put clothes in that you want to donate to charity. When they come out of the dryer, fold them, and stick them into the bag.

The U.S. FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned people against eating raw alfalfa sprouts, as they may be contaminated with salmonella.

The contamination appears to be in seeds, so washing the sprouts may not help. Other types of sprouts have not been implicated at this time.

The FDA has been struggling with several high-profile outbreaks of food poisoning, including salmonella linked to peanut products. Congress is discussing the possibility of setting up a new food safety agency.

A group of endocrinologists have observed that very sick patients tend to have very low levels of vitamin D. The sicker they are, the lower the levels.

When they examined a cohort of 42 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients, 45 percent turned out to be vitamin D deficient.

Vitamin D gas roles in controlling sugar, calcium, heart function, gut integrity, immunity and defense against infection. Patients in ICU suffer from different degrees of inflammation, infection, heart dysfunction, diarrhea and metabolic dysregulation, so vitamin D deficiency may play a role in each of these common ICU conditions.

Researchers have found that people who sleep too much or not enough are both at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance. The risk is 2 and a half times higher for people who sleep less than 7 hours or more than 8 hours a night.

The researchers arrived at this conclusion after analyzing the life habits of close to 300 subjects over a 6-year period. About 20 percent of those with long and short sleep duration developed type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance, versus only 7 percent among subjects who were average duration sleepers.

Diabetes is not the only risk associated with sleep duration. A growing number of studies show a similar relationship between sleep and obesity, cardiovascular disease, and overall mortality.

The risk of Parkinson's disease increases in people who live near farm fields sprayed with a combination of pesticides. A recent study found that people who lived near fields sprayed with pesticides used on crops such as potatoes, dry beans and tomatoes showed the increased risk.

These results add to the growing literature suggesting that exposure to multiple chemicals may be more harmful than exposure to individual chemicals.

The cause of Parkinson’s disease is still a mystery, but reports of higher risks of this ailment in farmers and rural populations have lead some to hypothesize that exposure to pesticide mixtures may be a contributor.

Possible anti-obesity effects of white tea have been demonstrated in a series of experiments on human fat cells. Researchers have now shown that an extract of the herbal brew inhibits the generation of new fat cells, and stimulates fat mobilization from mature fat cells.

White tea is the least processed version of the tea plant Camellia sinensis. It is made from the buds and first leaves of the plant used to make green tea and black tea.

White tea is less processed than other teas, and contains more of the ingredients thought to be active on human cells -- such as methylxanthines (like caffeine) and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), which researchers believe may be responsible for many of the anti-obesity effects demonstrated in the study.

Self-perspective is one of the hardest things to understand. There’s nothing more dangerous or helpful to your individual success than high self-image. Love or hate them, Google is an excellent example of masterful self-image.

1. You don’t have to change to fit in. Google knew what they were: a great search engine. Yet instead of tinkering with the latest thing, they got big by continuing to improve their bread-winning product, Google Search.

2. Become insanely successful at one thing, and use your confidence to branch out. Once they were the best at what they did, they branched into many other arenas like contextual advertising, feed readers, as well as every other aspect of digital life.

3. Not too fast, now. You can’t rush perfection. It took Google quite a long time before they started looking at other projects. Positive self-image is a lot like that: You don’t have to rush things. You have to believe what you’re doing is worth waiting for.

4. Always act like you know what you’re doing. Google will lead you to believe that they’ve known what they were doing from day one. This is impossible. Believe it or not, they have screwed up before. They have had growing pains. But so does everybody. It’s OK to occasionally act like you know what you’re doing, even if you really don’t.

You can form your self-image in one word: Confidence. Be confident enough not to rush, or sell out, and you can even act like you know what you’re doing (when you really don’t) from time to time. Walk like you know you’re the best thing to hit the block since Google, and you’ll be fine.

There has been a good deal of excitement about the promise of stevia as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. Rebaudioside A, also known as Reb A and rebiana, is a high-intensity sweetener derived from the stevia leaf. It is said to be approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar.

The majority of the science has found that stevia is safe for use as a sweetener for foods and beverages. Scientists are currently exploring ways to mask the liquorice or bitter flavors associated with the Reb A stevia extract. Attempts have included examining taste responses to Rebaudioside A “at a cellular level” to using natural masking flavors to cover the bitter aftertaste.

Stevia glycosides (SGs) have been reported to not only sweeten but also have some health benefits, including effects on blood pressure and blood sugar levels. A report from Indian researchers in 2007 also found that stevia may be a rich source of antioxidants and may protect against DNA damage and cancer.

Women and girls who receive the Gardasil vaccine to prevent the sexually transmitted disease HPV may be at increased risk of a serious disorder of the nervous system in the first few weeks after getting their shots.

Researchers have found clear evidence of an increased incidence of Guillain-Barre syndrome in the first six weeks, especially the first two weeks, after vaccination.

Guillain-Barre syndrome is a nervous system disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system. This immune system malfunction is usually triggered by an infection, such as with flu virus, or other illness. Sometimes, however, surgery or vaccinations will trigger the syndrome.

The link between Guillain-Barre syndrome and vaccinations isn't clear, but a definite connection was first noticed during the 1976-1977 swine flu scare.

A standardized oat extract may reduce cravings for smoking, and offer potential quitters an alternative to the patches and gums.

A daily supplement of an oats herb extract was found to reduce tobacco consumption from about 20 to fewer than nine cigarettes per day, according to results of a pilot study.

Researchers recruited eight smokers who were given daily 900 mg supplements of 900 mg of the extract for 28 months. At the end of the study, the average number of cigarettes smoked decreased from 19.5 per day to 8.9 per day.

Vitamin B3 may inhibit the formation of acrylamide in French fries by over 50 percent, according to a new study. In a model system, both vitamins B3 and B6 were able to inhibit over 70 percent of the formation of the carcinogen. The effectiveness of vitamin B3 was eventually corroborated in actual fried potatoes.

Scientists tested the effects of 15 vitamins on the formation of acrylamide in a model chemical system containing asparagines and glucose (the precursors for acrylamide), and in fried potato strips.

Acrylamide is a suspected carcinogen that is formed during by heat-induced reaction between sugar and an amino acid called asparagine. This process is responsible for the brown color of baked, fried and toasted foods.

For many years, it was believed that the brain rested during sleep. But in fact, during sleep, the brain is extraordinarily active. Much of that activity helps the brain to learn, to remember and to make connections.

There are several different types of memory, but for almost every form, "sleeping on it" after first learning a task improves performance. It's as if your brain squeezes in some extra practice time while you're asleep.

Sleep also seems to be the time when the brain's two memory systems -- the hippocampus and the neocortex -- communicate with one other. Experiences that become memories are laid down first in the hippocampus. If a memory is to be retained, it must be shipped from the hippocampus to the neocortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain where higher thinking takes place.

And it's not just memory that is improved by sleep. Recent studies indicate that sleep not only helps store facts, it also helps make connections between them. Some sleep researchers believe that for every two hours you spend awake, your brain needs an hour of sleep to figure out what all the experiences mean.

Spurred by patient demand and health concerns, more and more hospitals are making strides in serving their patients fresh, organic and local produce, as well as meats and dairy foods that are minimally processed and hormone and antibiotic-free.

Everyday foods, beverages, and spices contain healthful compounds that help you fight harmful inflammation. These phytochemicals, such as the resveratrol in red wine or the catechins in tea, may also reduce your risk of diseases associated with chronic inflammation, including cancer and diabetes.

Researchers have found that phytochemicals from red wine, green tea, garlic, curcumin and cinnamon can interfere with the normal flow of certain chemical signals or messages sent to and from cells involved in chronic inflammation. The messages these cells send are in the form of proteins. Messages from proteins known as TLRs ("Toll-Like Receptors") and NODs ("nucleotide binding oligomerization domain containing proteins") can reach and activate genes that trigger an inflammatory response.

Experiments show that phytochemicals can interfere with these messages. For example, curcumin can undermine certain TLRs, while resveratrol interferes with different molecules that help convey signals to and from TLRs.

People with lingering hamstring stiffness can improve their flexibility more through static leg extension and hold stretches, rather than leg stretch routines that involve gentle swinging.

Hamstrings, which are positioned along the rear outer side of the thigh muscle, help flex and rotate the leg. Decreased hamstring flexibility can lead to hamstring strains during physical activity.

Researchers compared hamstring flexibility before and after static (extend and hold) and dynamic (gentle extend and swing) stretching in currently active athletes who were 21 years old on average. Aerobic warm-up alone and post warm-up static, but not dynamic, stretching significantly increased hamstring flexibility. The combined warm-up and static routine was particularly effective at improving short-term flexibility among participants with residual stiffness from a hamstring injury.

Drinking up to half a glass of wine a day may boost life expectancy by five years, at least in men. The findings are based on a study of nearly 1,400 randomly selected men whose cardiovascular health and life expectancy were repeatedly monitored between 1960 and 2000.

The researchers looked into how much alcohol the men drank, what type it was, and over what period. They were attempting to assess whether this had any impact on the risks of their dying from cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and from all causes.

They also tracked weight, diet, and whether the men smoked.

Light long term alcohol consumption of all types extended life by around two extra years compared with no alcohol at all. Men who drank only wine, and less than half a glass of it a day, lived almost five years longer than those who drank no alcohol at all.