Early in my teens my mother lectured me on the importance of moisturizing regularly. Growing up in California in an age when sunscreen was for wimps the women we knew who failed to moisturize faithfully were just as blond, tan and thin as everyone else but their faces resembled leather home theater seating: obviously cared [...]

New research studying whether there’s a genetic basis for obesity has turned up a surprising find: for some, feeling constantly hungry might be in their genes. The researchers discovered that a gene, FTO, affects patients’ appetites. When a person has one copy of the gene they tend to weigh more than someone without it, while [...]

Ever since Sunday, when we through a somewhat “impromptu” neighborhood BBQ party, I’ve been mostly flat on my back. This, of course, is due in part to the combination of incredibly bad allergies and overexerting myself, something that a person with fibromyalgia should know better than to do.
But never in my life have I [...]

For the overwhelming majority of my life I despised hot, spicy foods. Oh, I love layered flavors: a dash of cinnamon in a bowlful of chili, a few drops of pure vanilla in my French toast, even chocolate flavored with a hint of cayenne. (Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.) But truly hot foods? [...]

It’s that time of year again: the dreaded allergy season that makes me a prisoner in my own home where the windows and doors are shuttered tight and everyone is reminded — loudly — to take their freaking shoes off rather than track pollen and other allergens into my house.
Not that such measures completely [...]

Now here’s an idea whose time has come: a walk-up kiosk which administers eye exams. No more appointments and no optometrists with bad breath leaning in your face asking “this one or this one”.
Instead, you merely step up to digital signage which administers tests using various visual stimuli for both near- and far-sightedness, then [...]

In a first of its kind law, the French lower house of parliament passed a bill that would make it illegal for anyone to “incite extreme thinness”, which would include the dissemination of magazine articles featuring anorexic-looking models.
This move, in what’s considered the fashion capital of the world, comes months after Spain banned ultra-thin [...]

Dr. Sarah Heller reported on this morning’s Today Show that B-vitamins and magnesium are play a role in weight-loss, and that too little of either or both can dramatically slow metabolism. And, of course, she insisted that everyone interested in losing weight absolutely must eat breakfast.
Problem is, I’m not a breakfast person. Or, more accurately, [...]

You’ve probably already heard about the Gorton’s fish fillet recall prompted by a Pennsylvanian woman’s discovery of pills in her crunchy-battered fish fillets. What you may not know, however, is that I have 19 boxes of these things in my freezer… the same 19 boxes I bought last July.
See, back then my husband was [...]

Like a lot of senior citizens, my mother relies on Medicare coverage. She was also recently diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
The infuriating part? My mother is a retired oncology nurse — she spent 27 years caring for cancer patients, and so she’d been fanatic about keeping up with her own physicals, cancer screenings [...]