Is Your Sleep Deprivation Leading You to Diabetes?

Sleep deprivation can have serious effects on your health in the form of physical and mental impairments. In fact, Dr. Michael J. Breus says sleep deprivation may even lead to diabetes.

While sleep may not seem like it belongs in the same category as words that revolve around weight, it actually has everything to do with weight and whether or not you're at risk for diabetes. Two fascinating studies that just came out to further prove it:

1. One study out of a sleep lab at Penn State College showed that insomniacs who slept only five to six hours a night had greater odds of developing diabetes. Read more

Cinnamon is the Wonder Spice for Health and Well-Being

Cinnamon doesn't just taste good, but it can also improve your health and well-being. New studies show cinnamon may help with managing chronic diseases, such as diabetes and arthritis.

Cinnamon is well known as the world's oldest spice. It has a beautiful warm aroma that makes it an inviting ingredient to add to food. In the past Cinnamon was seen as an expensive luxury that was used as an aphrodisiac, and as it was more expensive to buy than silver, many people simply used it as currency. It is a wonder spice for health and wellbeing.

Apart from its amazing taste and aroma that made it so popular for cooking cinnamon was also used by many physicians to treat colds, coughing and sore throats. Burning Cinnamon in your household was thought to cleanse the air and the people within. Roman Emperor Nero took this literally and after he murdered his wife he ordered a year's supply of cinnamon to be burnt to cleanse him of the crime.
While burning cinnamon may not actually be able to clean out your soul modern day research has found that this most ancient of spices is very good for your health.

Cinnamon And Diabetes Read more

Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Really a "Sweet Surprise" for America?

Model and yoga activist Tara Stiles examines whether high fructose corn syrup is really a "sweet surprise" for America.

If you google "High Fructose Corn Syrup," the first thing that pops up is www.sweetsurprise.com. It's a sponsored link, right at the top. Go to the pretty website and you'll see healthy stalks of corn poking into a clear blue sky. A racially diverse group of kids and adults are pictured smiling around tables of pancakes, cereals, berries, and cornbread.

"HFCS is the chemical and nutritional equivalent of table sugar (sucrose). The two substances have the same calories, the same chemical composition and are metabolized identically." - Arthur Frank, M.D., Medical Director, George Washington University Weight Management Program. The Washington Times, December, 6, 2006

"In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally listed HFCS as safe for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996. The FDA noted that "the saccharide composition (glucose to fructose ratio) of HFCS is approximately the same as that of honey, invert sugar and the disaccharide sucrose (table sugar)." - Food and Drug Administration Federal Register, August 23, 1996

Sounds convincing. I had to retreat to Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" for a reality check. Read more

How Much Exercise Do You Need to Stay Healthy? (It's Less Than You Think)

A lot of people want to know what is the bare minimum amount of exercise needed to stay healthy. The good news, according to British researchers, is that it's less than you think. Can you spare seven minutes a week?

We've heard time and time again that people should be active almost daily to stave off weight gain and disease. But busy people want to know: What's the least amount of exercise I can get away with and still stay healthy? The answer will shock you...

What number did you guess? An hour a week? A half hour? Try seven minutes. Read more

Australian research has found that prolonged poor eating habits are capable of permanently altering our DNA, .

Human genes remember a sugar hit for two weeks, with prolonged poor eating habits capable of permanently altering DNA, Australian research has found.

A team studying the impact of diet on human heart tissue and mice found that cells showed the effects of a one-off sugar hit for a fortnight, by switching off genetic controls designed to protect the body against diabetes and heart disease. Read more

High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Diabetes

It's hard to know which manufactured sweetener is worse: aspartame or high fructose corn syrup.

Researchers have found new evidence that soda pop sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children.

In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels.

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In the current study, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found "astonishingly high" levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages.--ConsumerAffairs.com

A good rule to follow is to not use any manufactured sweetener. Sugar and honey may add calories, but at least they're not poisonous.