There are numerous aspects to personal living that help create a healthy heart, and over the past 30 years a tremendous amount of research has been dedicated to finding the ideal combination of diet, lifestyle, and physical fitness that will elicit positive heart health benefits.

Eating a balanced, well-rounded diet, low in saturated fats is known to be integral in decreasing the risk of blockages in blood vessels.

Avoidance or cessation of smoking cigarettes decreases the risk of hardening of the arteries known as atherosclerosis.

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Consider adding magnesium, an essential mineral found in legumes and green leafy vegetables, in your daily diet. A study on mice indicates that regular intake of magnesium can help enhance cognitive abilities, therefore preventing age-related memory decline.Magnesium is essential for.

The proper functioning of many tissues in the body, including the brain and, in an earlier study, we demonstrated that magnesium promoted synaptic plasticity in cultured brain cells," explained lead researcher Professor Guosong Liu, director of the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

"Therefore it was tempting to take our studies a step further and investigate whether an increase in brain magnesium levels enhanced cognitive function in animals." Magnesium is very essential for the normal cellular functioning as well as for body’s health, and lack of it may result in physiological impairments, the authors warned.

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A low-carbohydrate diet proved better at lowering blood pressure than orlistat and was as effective a method at helping patients lose weight, a head-to-head trial has reported in this week’s Archives of Internal Medicine.

Previous research had already separately shown that a low-carbohydrate diet, and a low-fat diet combined with orlistat, are both effective weight-loss therapies. It had also tended to exclude deliberately people with other chronic health issues – such as hypertension.

The authors of this paper, from Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina, US, have conducted the first direct comparison of the two weight-loss strategies. he researchers recruited 146 overweight people who had a range of health problems often seen in association with obesity – diabetes, hypertension and arthritis. Participants were assigned to a low-carbohydrate diet or to orlistat plus a low-fat diet; they were all also offered 48 weeks’ group counselling.

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Researchers say they've spotted a new genetic risk factor for Parkinson's disease, as well as a link between the illness and two other factors, metabolism and vitamin B6. "Our study reveals the interaction of genetic and environmental factors such as dietary habits in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease," Dr. Matthias Elstner of Germany's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich, said in a news release from the German Research Center for Environmental Health.

Elstner is lead author of a new study published in the January issue of the journal Annals of Neurology. The researchers studied neurons to understand how genes change their activity due to Parkinson's disease. They found a gene that seemed important and looked for it in 1,200 Parkinson's patients and 2,800 healthy people. It was discovered that a gene variant boosted the risk of the disease.

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Nutritionist Mathew Soloman recommends dried fruit as easy to take along and a perfect snack for mid morning or mid afternoon. “Healthy dried fruit and yogurt makes a healthy and tasty side dish or dessert,” he said, adding that an important benefit is the nutritional value found in dried fruit.

The soft types of dried fruits offer a high-carbohydrate, low-fat snack. Each type of fruit has its individual health benefit, for example dried banana chips are high in potassium. In general, dried fruits supply some important nutritional needs such as antioxidants iron, folic acid, fibre and assorted vitamins.

Eating fruit reduces the risk of diabetes, heart attack, cancer and strokes. Further, the only vitamin not offered in dried fruit as much as fresh fruit is vitamin C, because it does not hold up through the drying process well. Dried fruits are convenient to take on the run. Sports enthusiasts love them for a quick snack due to the ease of use and the high carbohydrate content which provides energy.

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Dementia  the progressive deterioration of mental function such as memory while other brain functions, such as those controlling movement and the senses, are retained. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a specific form of dementia.

Although all AD patients have dementia, not all dementia patients have AD. The Alzheimer's Association defines the disease as an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, eventually even the ability to carry out the simplest tasks, ending inevitably in death.

Alzheimer's disease was named after a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, who first identified the condition in 1906 when he performed an autopsy on the brain of a woman who had been suffering severe memory loss and confusion for years.

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Today’s tip for helping you get fit with the Advocate in 2010 comes from Justin Cammarata, Health and Wellness Director at the North Suburban YMCA.

Here goes:

“Whether new to the gym, a weekend warrior or an elite athlete, there are some general nutrition tips that can help maximize health and performance.

“Load your diet with antioxidants An active lifestyle means lots of stress on the body and exposure to free radicals that age and damage the body quickly. Antioxidants, found in many of the colorful fruits and vegetables we eat, protect the body from the damage that can be caused by free radicals, by neutralizing their effects on our cells. Look for a rainbow of fruits and vegetables and enjoy them.

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Calories can be unkind. You can sweat for 30 minutes on the treadmill and burn off roughly 200 to 300 depending on your weight (larger bodies burn more calories during exercise).

But nosh on a couple of cookies or sneak a second helping at dinner and you're back to square one.

If you're trying to lose weight – or prevent the pounds from creeping on – calories can easily sabotage your diet on a daily basis.

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Half of us take some kind of nutritional supplement daily. And sales of these over-the-counter pills are on the rise in the United States, raking in $25 billion annually for the supplement industry. Among the most popular supplements are multivitamins, which we’re told (and apparently believe) we must take daily to make up for the "lost" nutrients we're not getting in the foods we eat.

But is there any truth to that widely held prescription for health? Does the typical American really need vitamin and mineral supplements?   No, argues science writer Emily Anthes in an article published last week in the online publication Slate. Not only have recent studies raised serious doubts about the health benefits, if any, of supplemental vitamins and minerals, they also suggest that popping them daily could pose some real medical risks.

[R]esearch on a wide variety of patient populations and medical conditions has failed to find much evidence that multivitamins … prevent major chronic diseases in healthy people. The most recent knock came this spring, when a study of more than 160,000 post-menopausal women, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that the all-in-one pills did not prevent cancer, heart attacks, or strokes and did not reduce overall mortality.

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In most American households, at least one person started the new year with the resolution to get healthier and lose weight. Millions began diets. Tens of thousands joined health clubs. And an undetermined number began their diets at Taco Bell. That's right: Taco Bell.

Taco Bell has begun a controversial ad campaign introducing the Drive-Thru Diet. According to Taco Bell, their new "Fresco Menu" can help with "calorie reductions." The fine print says this menu is not a weight-loss program. That makes the fact they call it the Drive-Thru-Diet a little misleading, but consistent from a chain whose "Fiesta Taco Salad," with 770 calories and 41 grams of fat, is the worst thing on the menu.

Do you remember Jared Fogle, the young man who claimed to have lost 245 pounds eating twice a day at Subway? Fogle became their national spokesman in 2000 and has appeared in over 70 TV commercials pushing Subway as a healthy fast-food alternative. Subway has used eating healthy as its marketing platform and even started a foundation to fight childhood obesity. Its slogan, "Eat Fresh," is one of the most recognizable in fast-food advertising. The strategy has worked well. With over 32,300 locations, Subway has surpassed McDonald's as the fast-food chain with the most outlets.