Eat apricots for bright eyes(HEALTH +)

Nutrients in apricots can help protect the heart and eyes, as well as provide the disease-fighting effects of fibre. The high beta-carotene content of apricots makes them important heart health foods.

Apricots contain nutrients such as vitamin A that promote good vision. Vitamin A, a powerful antioxidant, quenches free radical damage to cells and tissues. Free radical damage can injure the eyes' lenses.


The degenerative effect of free radicals, or oxidative stress, may lead to cataracts or damage the blood supply to the eyes and cause macular degeneration.



Researchers who studied over 50,000 registered nurses found that women who had the highest vitamin A intake reduced their risk of developing cataracts by nearly 40%.


Apricots are a good source of fibre, which has a wealth of benefits. These include preventing constipation and digestive conditions such as diverticulosis.


A healthy, whole-foods diet should include apricots as a delicious way to add to your fibre intake of the body.  

Here's how to have a healthy 40s (HEALTH +)

How healthy you will be in your 40s depends on what you eat and how you live in your 20s. Our expert charts out a survival strategy for a fitter future
When you are diagnosed with a health disorder in your 40s, there's little that you can do to completely reverse the damage. A wiser option is to start walking the correct lifestyle course much early on and reduce the chances of disorders altogether. Fitness expert and trainer Dilip Heble gives pointers to healthier 20-something habits that will lead to a better 40-something life.
Exercise
Make sure you get three to six hours of exercise every week. You can go for a jog, engage yourself in a sport or best, hit the gym.
Benefit
Exercise makes you agile, muscular and boosts your stamina. Most importantly, it reduces your stress levels — a factor that is deemed the root cause for most problems in the 40s. Reduction in the stress levels also helps increase productivity and enables you to deal with environmental pressures. Also, it leads to a lower resting heart rate, which brings down the risk of cardiac disorders.
Supplement yourself
Considering the quality of food available today, it is vital you take multi-vitamin and multi-mineral supplements. You might stock up generously on carbohydrates and proteins, but minus the essential vitamins, you will be far from healthy.
Benefit
These vitamins and minerals important for various functions of the body. For instance, three B vitamins (namely folic acid, B6, and B12) are known to reduce the homocysteine levels in the body, thereby also reducing the risk of dementia.
Read
In this day and age of social networking, most youngsters have forgotten to exercise their brains. Indulge in an activity that challenges your grey matter. Engage in analytical tasks as much as possible. For instance, you may read a book, play chess, solve the everyday crossword and read on current issues. You could also opt to learn a musical instrument that interests you.
Benefit
These tasks will keep your brain agile and help minimise the risk of brain disorders such as dementia in the later years.
Switch off
Yes, you must work hard and party harder. But the problem begins when you stick to this mantra every night and end up compromising on your sleep. You may be able to pull this off without much problem in your 20s, but the inadvertent damage will trouble you in your 40s. The body's repair happens during sleep. And when you don't sleep, you are not giving the body enough time to bounce back. Hence, make sure you get the desired sleep.
Benefit
Your biological clock will be in order giving a natural rhythm to bodily functions. Just sleep at the same time every night.
Bone supremacy
Bone length might be established by the time you are 20. However, bone density and strength can be built all the way until you are 30. Studies have suggested that young men and women ought to build up a 'bone bank' during this stage which will help avoid osteoporosis later in life. 

Are there health benefits in consuming coffee?(HEALTH +)

There is nothing quite like a cup of hot coffee to banish that feeling of somnolence and get the brain cells chugging away. But quite apart from the sense of wellbeing that a good cup of brew, with its heady aroma, can produce, studies published recently also indicate that this beverage that millions around the world enjoy could be providing some health benefits too.


In May this year, the prestigious medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, published a study that examined the effects of drinking coffee in a cohort of over four lakh men and women in the U.S.


Coffee “appeared to be inversely associated with most major causes of death in both men and women, including heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections,” observed Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. and his colleagues in their paper.


After taking into account tobacco-smoking and other confounding factors, men who drank six cups or more cups of coffee a day had a 10 per cent lower risk of death compared with those who did not take it at all. Women coffee-drinkers had a 15 per cent lower risk of death. Those who drank caffeine-containing coffee as well as the decaffeinated form were both found to benefit from their habit.


But, as the authors pointed out, it was not possible to conclude from an observational study whether the association that was noticed actually reflected cause and effect.


Then, last month there came another study, this time in Circulation Heart Failure, a journal of the American Heart Association. The study analysed five independent prospective studies, with a total of over 1.4 lakh participants, for links between coffee consumption and heart failure.


This study observed a statistically significant ‘J-shaped relationship’ between coffee and heart failure. Moderate consumption of coffee — up to four servings a day — reduced the risk of heart failure. But excessive coffee drinking had no benefit and may even be dangerous, remarked Murray Mittleman, director of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and senior author of the study, in a press release.


The paper, however, also pointed out that experimental studies had consistently shown that coffee and caffeine were associated with acutely raised blood pressure. A recent analysis had reported that habitual light to moderate coffee consumption increased the risk of developing hypertension but more frequent consumption did not pose any addition risk. It could be that habitual coffee-drinkers develop a tolerance for caffeine, the authors said.
Other studies have suggested that drinking coffee could also be associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.


In 1991, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer held that “coffee is possibly carcinogenic to the human urinary bladder.” But more recent studies have indicated that coffee could be beneficial, protecting against several cancers, including of the breast, bowel, prostate and liver.


A paper from Jiali Han of the Harvard Medical School and the others that has just been published in the journal Cancer Research found that caffeine intake was associated with reduced risk for developing a form of skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma. Roughly 1,000 chemicals have been reported in roasted coffee, point out Jonathan Krell and Justin Stebbing of Imperial College London in a commentary published recently in The Lancet Oncology. 

Eat these to burn the fat!(HEALTH +)

Forget fancy diets, the top flab busters can be found in your own kitchen.


Summer is here and if you have been feeling wistful over not being able to wear your bikini, it's not too late. A magazine quoted dietician Dr Carrie Ruxton as saying, "Metabolism is what converts food into energy.



A slow rate means calories are more likely to be converted into fat." While exercise helps, and so does portion control, here are those foods that act as the the biggest metabolism boosters.


Apples: These are said to be nutrient-rich and contain enough fibre to keep the digestion healthy. A tip? Eating an apple just 20 minutes before your meal will make you eat lesser calories in your main meal.


Turkey: This is regarded as a good alternative to chicken as it is lower in calories and higher in proteins and nutrients. It's said that 5 ounces of turkey contains just 175 calories and 10 grams of fat.


Broccoli: Adding more broccoli to your diet can help you lose that weight as it is a low-calorie food that can help you fill up quickly. A single cup of steamed broccoli gives you about twice the amount of vitamins C and K you need in a day. It also is a very good source of vitamins B6 and B2, phosphorus, magnesium, protein and omega-3 fatty acids.





Almonds: Almonds can speed up metabolism like no other. They are also associated with with reducing cholesterol and lowering blood sugar.

Peppers: Bell peppers are great for weight loss. They can fill out any dish without adding the calories and have a small amount of fat burning capsaicin in them.


Pulses: Legumes or pulses like soya beans and kidney beans have key nutrients like iron, vitamins of B group and dietary fiber. Pulses help maintain regular bowel movement because the texture of the fibre helps it move through the digestive system quickly.

Green tea: Is another substance that can be added to the diet that can increase the metabolic rate. Green tea has EGCG in its composition. This substance helps to increase the body and the rate that the nervous system functions. It in turn increases the metabolism

Shortcuts to good health(HEALTH +)

Today, when a sedentary lifestyle is the rule, people's health is deteriorating day by day. Eating healthy just requires a little planning. Here are some shortcuts to a healthy body. Everyday, without our knowledge, a faint little feeling in the stomach prompts us to involuntarily look at the clock.


Then the revelation hits us - it is evening and we have not had the time to eat our lunch. In today's times, where a sedentary lifestyle is the rule, it's observed that the health of people is deteriorating day by day. They have started taking themselves and their body for granted. They don't even remember when they last had a proper meal. Eating healthy just requires a little planning. Here are some shortcuts to achieve a healthy body:


Breakfast is a 'must'
Start your morning with some breakfast, be it a piece of fruit or a whole wheat bread. Put oatmeal into a thermos of hot water, and you could even let it sit overnight. In the morning, you shall have hot cooked oatmeal ready to eat. Similarly, a hard boiled egg can be eaten. This will prevent your body from going into starvation mode. Eating breakfast everyday will also help increase your metabolic rate.


Five meals a day
Have at least five meals a day in which three can be the main meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner, while other two meals can consist of foods which are handy and nutritious at the same time. Eating frequently prevents hunger pangs, provides consistent energy, and maintains metabolism efficiency. Grab healthy foods such as fruits that are high in fibre like apple, watermelon, muskmelon, orange, sweet lime, papaya and peaches.


Ask for healthy food
Some people's work demands frequenting restaurants for dinner. Always watch out for hidden fats. Creamy soups, white breads, flaky pastries and mayonnaise-based salad dressings add unnecessary fats to the food. Try consuming broths instead of creamy soups. Instead of mayonnaise dressing, use variety of condiments and flavouring agents such as lemon, vinegar, herbs, onion and garlic to improve the palatability of your salad. Remember, a gram of fat contains more than twice as many calories as a gram of protein or carbohydrate. Ask for grilled, baked, boiled or broiled food rather than fried foods.


Hydrate when you're travelling
Your work might involve a lot of travelling in which air travel is one of the most dehydrating experiences. Because of this, people often complain of sore throats and other respiratory illnesses. To avoid these, one should not drink caffeine, cola or alcohol before or after the flights as these are diuretics and can increase the water loss. Avoid salted snacks like salted peanuts or fried foods in order to minimise dehydration. Try consuming lots of fluids in the form of water, fruit juice, coconut water, lime water, etc. In any case, one should drink at least 12 to 15 gasses of water everyday. The stress associated with travel may slightly increase the protein requirement, so one should make an effort to consume a little more protein each day.