An article published on April 29, 2014 in the British Medical Journal reveals an increase in the number of years lived by myocardial infarction (MI, or heart attack) survivors who consume a greater amount of fiber.

Doctoral candidate Shanshan Li of Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues utilized data from 1,840 men enrolled in the Health Professional Follow-Up Study and 2,258 women from the Nurses’ Health Study who had survived an initial heart attack during the studies’ follow-up periods. Dietary questionnaires completed every four years provided information on fiber intake before and after the heart attack. In a pooled analysis of all subjects, those whose post-MI intake of fiber was among the top one-fifth of participants had a 25% lower risk of dying from any cause over a nine year average follow-up in comparison with those whose intake was among the lowest fifth. When fiber was analyzed by source, cereal fiber emerged as significantly protective.

Heart attack survivors who increased their fiber intake from levels consumed before the event also experienced a decrease in all-cause as well as cardiovascular mortality. Among those whose intake of fiber was among the highest one-third prior to and following their events, there was a 27% lower risk of death in comparison with those whose intake was among the lowest third in both phases.

As possible mechanisms supporting the current findings, the authors list reductions in inflammation, low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and lipid peroxidation, as well as improvements in insulin sensitivity, glycemic control and gut microbiota.

“Future research on lifestyle changes post-MI should focus on a combination of lifestyle changes and how they may further reduce mortality rates beyond what is achievable by medical management alone,” they conclude.

Exercise…you either love it or loathe it. (Or you hate it and do it anyway…)

But despite your feelings on the matter, few—if any—people would dispute the tremendous benefits of regular physical activity. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any real downside to working out. Well, take that back. If there is one drawback that seems to be expressed by busy parents, career people and students alike, it’s this: the inability to find time to fit exercise into the day.

Yes, squeezing an hour—even half an hour—of exercise into an already jam-packed schedule can present quite a challenge. But, according to emerging research, “I don’t have the time”should no longer be an acceptable excuse if you want to be as healthy—and productive—as possible. Why?

Because research shows that regular physical activity enhances the ability to integrate your personal and professional lives. In other words, fitting exercise into your routine can help you achieve significantly better work-life balance.

This idea certainly seems counter intuitive. How can adding yet another item to an already overflowing to-do list actually create better balance?

Lead researcher Dr. Russell Clayton collected data from 476 working adults who answered various survey questions on exercise behavior (such as how often they exercised), as well as how they handled conflicts between work and family obligations.

Dr. Clayton and his team discovered that exercise allows people to physically, mentally and emotionally detach from work and other responsibilities, therefore alleviating stress and helping them feel more confident and empowered.

According to Dr. Clayton, even one exercise session can help you experience a sense of mastery. Meeting exercise goals—like running two miles, for instance—produces a prolonged “can-do” attitude that spans across multiple roles throughout the day, from work and school to parenting and even your marriage.

He calls this “self-efficacy,” the “sense that one is capable of taking things on and getting them done.” He explains that people with high self-efficacy see difficult situations as challenges that can be conquered, rather than problems that can bring them down.

Exercise Doesn’t Have to Be Fancy

Many people think that in order to get a good or worthwhile workout, you need to go to a gym. If you prefer this approach to physical fitness, then by all means continue doing it. But you don’t necessarily need fancy equipment to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. A good fitness routine can be as simple as taking a 30-minute walk or jog in your neighborhood, or putting in a workout DVD and completing it in your living room. Simply doing squats, push-ups, sit-ups or wall sits in your own home counts as a workout too.

Also think about what time of day works best for your schedule. Some people like to wake up before dawn (while the rest of the family sleeps) to exercise. Others like to break up their day with a lunchtime workout session. Still others prefer to unwind in the evening and work out their stress in the gym or weight room. Whatever your inclination, stick to it—and the rewards, as this research shows, will cross over every single part of your life.

• Anaphylaxis is a serious allergic reaction that can be life-threatening.
• Hesteminophobia is the fear of allergies and allergic reactions.
• Eight foods are responsible for 90 percent of all food allergy reactions: wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish and shellfish.
• Cabbage contains 91 percent water.
• Never use pine, spruce or other evergreen wood to cook food over. These trees contain harmful tars and resins that, when burned or smoked, can leech into the food.
• The herb saffron is made from the dried stamens of cultivated crocus flowers.
• Legend has it that tea was discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.
• In the 1950s, approximately 80 percent of chickens in the U.S. and Europe were free range. By 1980, it was only one percent. Today, that number has increased to about 13 percent.
• Mouthwash has a higher percentage of alcohol than wine.
• One acre of land can grow ½ ton of wheat or five tons of potatoes.
• The oldest known account of soup consumption dates back to 6,000 BC-and was made from hippopotamus.
• Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been found to be still edible.
• Every Easter, Americans consume $7 billion of candy.
• 57 percent of an egg’s protein is found in the white part.
• The color of the yolk is representative of the hen’s diet. The more vibrant the color, the greater her consumption of yellow and orange plant pigments.
• Eggshells can be crushed and used to control slugs in the garden and improve the health of your rosebushes.
• When it comes to highest quality food protein, eggs are second only to breast milk
• Scrabble word #1-chyme. It is the medical word for the digested food in your stomach.
• Scrabble word #2-glabella. That (ideally) hairless space between your eyebrows.
• Since the brain has no nerves, brain surgery can be performed while the patient is awake. (They are put out for the actual opening of the skull however.)
• We’ve come long way since 1972, when a group of scientists tried (unsuccessfully) to prove you could cure the common cold by freezing the big toe.

In a supplement to the December 2013 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that covered the Fifth International Scientific Symposium on Tea and Human Health, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles report their conclusion of a protective effect for tea drinking against stroke.

“Considerable observational human evidence suggests a preventive association of tea or flavonoid intake on specific subcategories of cardiovascular disease,” the authors write. “When the outcome is restricted to stroke incidence or mortality, the association seems to be the strongest and most consistent.”

Lenore Arab and her colleagues reviewed five meta-analyses of human studies of tea or flavonoid consumption and cardiovascular disease or stroke published between 2001 and 2011. (The disease-preventive properties of tea have been attributed to its flavonoid content.) The meta-analyses included 15 case-control studies, 43 cohort studies, and 1 cross-sectional study involving green and/or black tea intake. A 21% lower risk of both stroke incidence and mortality from stroke was observed among those with high tea intake in comparison with low, and for those with a high intake of flavonoids, the risk was 20% lower. A similar reduction was associated with each three cups of tea consumed. A search for new studies published subsequent to the meta-analyses included in the current research revealed additional studies that supported the protective effect of tea-drinking against stroke.

Protective mechanisms for tea suggested by the authors include a reduction in blood pressure and improved endothelial function.

The results of a meta-analysis described online on November 27, 2013 in the Journal of the American Heart Association reveal a protective effect for having a high vitamin C level or consuming more of the vitamin against the risk of stroke.

Pooled analysis of participants in studies of plasma or serum vitamin C revealed a 38% lower risk of stroke for subjects with high versus low levels.

Researchers selected twelve prospective studies involving vitamin C intake and six that examined serum or plasma vitamin C levels for their analysis. Studies of dietary vitamin C included a total of 217,454 men and women, in whom 3,762 strokes occurred over durations of 6.1 to 30 years. Among the 29,648 participants in the studies involving circulating vitamin C, there were 989 cases of stroke over follow-up periods ranging from 9.5 to 20 years.

They suggest greater vitamin C consumption for populations with low intake or who are at high risk of stroke and suggest that, since established risk factors appear to be responsible for only half of the cases of stroke that occur, vitamin C levels could serve as an additional predictor of risk.

“Vitamin C is a strong antioxidant, and has been shown to reduce the oxidation of low-density lipoproteins, to inhibit the proliferation of smooth muscle, to protect membrane from peroxidation, and ultimately to slow the progression of atherosclerosis,” the authors write. “There is also growing evidence that systemic inflammation is involved in stroke etiology and pathology, and plasma or dietary vitamin C has been suggested to have antiinflammatory properties. Vitamin C intake in plasma has also been demonstrated to be inversely associated with blood pressure.”