Staying Healthy Archive

They provide hassle-free home-cooked meals. But watch the nutrient content.

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Wouldn't it be great if you had an assistant chef at home—someone who developed a delicious menu and then shopped for and measured all the ingredients to make it? All you'd have to do is cook and enjoy it. That's the idea behind the hot trend of subscription meal kits, which are delivered to your door. "It's very convenient, and it can challenge someone to try new foods with different seasonings," says Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

How it works

What you should do

The older people get in the United States, the less active they are. But it’s never too late to become physically active, and evidence shows that changing from being inactive to active benefits health.

The FDA has approved use of a clot-retrieving device along with a clot-busting drug on stroke patients, as long it’s within six hours of the onset of stroke symptoms.

When it comes to alcohol, moderation is still the mantra. But even one drink a day may pose a risk to the heart.

Wine, champagne, and cocktails are standard fare at many holiday gatherings. But before you raise your glass, make sure you're aware of just how much alcohol you're actually consuming—and how it may affect your heart.

As part of a standard health history, most physicians will ask about your drinking habits. In general, moderate drinking—defined as one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men—is considered safe. But there are some caveats.

DASH diet effective but not the only way to reduce sodium

Your body needs a little bit of salt every day for the sodium it contains. But too much sodium can boost blood pressure and stress the heart and blood vessels. The low-sodium Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet is high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; moderately high in nuts and low-fat dairy products; and low in red and processed meats. Following it can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The DASH diet is a good way to eat healthy. But there's no need to follow that specific diet to get measurable results. If you want to tackle cutting back on sodium, try these six tips:

Keep unhealthy foods to minimum, balanced with nutritious choices

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What exactly is a healthy diet? The basics are pretty simple. Everyone needs a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, plus enough vitamins and minerals for optimal health. But science is revealing that some of the food choices within these categories are better than others.

Go slow on unhealthy foods

Are there foods you never should eat? Not really. If you crave an ice cream sundae occasionally, have a small one. But don't make it a daily event. Offset the chips you ate at your neighbor's barbeque with healthier snacks at home. Healthy eating doesn't mean eliminating certain foods altogether. However, there are some things that are best eaten only rarely.

Interrupting sedentary time with short bouts of exercise may diminish the dangers of inactivity.

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Every time we think we have a handle on all the things that are bad for us, another one is added to the list. A few years ago, researchers put inactivity on the roster of major health risks. "Everybody knows smoking is bad for your health. But what isn't common knowledge is that physical inactivity is as powerful a risk factor as smoking," says Dr. I-Min Lee, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lee, who has studied the effects of exercise for more than a decade, was one of the first to identify inactivity as a health hazard.

Dr. Lee was among the experts contributing to a special issue on health and exercise of the British journal The Lancet commemorating the 2012 Olympic Games in London. She and her colleagues pored over reports from scores of large observational studies conducted worldwide in which participants answered questions about their lifestyles, including their levels of physical activity, and were then followed over a period of years to see how they fared. When the researchers compared the health outcomes of participants who were inactive—those getting less than 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise—to those who got more exercise, they found that inactivity alone counted for an increased risk of breast and colon cancers as well as heart disease and diabetes. They computed that inactivity was responsible for more than five million deaths a year worldwide, about the same as the number of deaths attributable to smoking.

Nuts are a good source of plant fats and protein, but they are high in calories. It’s a good idea to limit nut consumption to 1 ounce per day.

The benefits of flossing haven’t been verified in randomized clinical trials. However, health authorities still recommend it for preventing disease-causing plaque.