A Cornell University professor has suggested making small easy changes to our eating habits on a consistent basis – 25 days or more per month – can lead to sustainable weight loss.

But the challenge is to figure out which changes work for specific individuals and how to stick with changes long enough to make them second nature, Professor Brian Wansink in Cornell University”s Food and Brand Lab.

To explore this issue, Cornell researchers launched the National Mindless Eating Challenge (NMEC), an online healthy eating and weight loss program that focused on simple eating behaviour changes, instead of dieting.

NMEC participants, after answering questions about their eating goals, background and well-being, were sent three customized tips to follow for a month.

All tips were founded on research and based on Wansink’s book “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think” (Bantam, 2006).

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Bananas are rich in potassium and reduce the chance of developing high blood pressure. Other potassium-packed picks include cantaloupe and oranges.

High-fat, high-sugar foods not only cause obesity and promote heart disease, but they can also contribute to conditions like osteoporosis by weakening bones, according to researchers.

If this trend continues, this overlooked ‘silent robber’ will begin to cripple large numbers of at-risk baby boomers, said researchers at the University of Michigan and the Alberta Bone and Joint Health Institute.

While this high-fat, high-sugar diet trend and the subsequent risk of osteoporosis are climbing frighteningly fast, there’s hope, said Ron Zernicke, dean of U-M’s School of Kinesiology and a professor of orthopedic surgery and biomedical engineering.

The medical community and the public can reverse this trend by confronting the problem head-on and immediately, through diet, exercise and, in some cases, medication.

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Premenstrual stress is largely a myth and women who experience it usually have their partners to blame, a professor has claimed.

According to Jane Ussher from the University of Western Sydney, who has carefully honed her argument after years of inciting female colleagues to anger by “denying their experience”, couples therapy is a potential treatment for severe cases of premenstrual moodiness.

Now she says that women clearly experience physical changes and discomfort around menstruation, but although many believe the hype, only a tiny minority – between 1.5 and 5 percent – experience premenstrual mood changes like depression, anger or irritability, which can affect relationships.

Ussher said that a Canadian review of 47 scientific studies found “only 15 percent reported increased negative mood pre-menstrually”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

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The main factors contributing to low sex drive in women, including younger woman, seem to intensify during the craziness of the holidays, it has been claimed.

Contrary to what is shown on TV, a lull in sexual desire isn’t always a crisis, ABC News reported.

In a 2010 study, researchers looked at 400 pre-menopausal women age 18 or older with low sexual desire disorder.

In the study, it turned out that 85 percent of the low-sex-drive women cited multiple factors for their low drive.

The main culprits that were cited were – stress or fatigue, dissatisfaction with personal appearance and sexual difficulties including problems reaching orgasm.

The authors of the study concluded that boosting self-esteem along with reducing fatigue and stress could significantly fire up a woman’s sex life.

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