Health + Wellness

Want to lose weight?  Want to be healthy?  You need to understand how your body uses sugar (carbohydrates) and what sugar does to your body. Sugar And Energy Simple sugars in foods include the monosaccharides glucose, fructose, and galactose.  Disaccharides (compounds made from two molecules of sugar) such as maltose, sucrose (table sugar), and lactose (the sugar in milk) are also generally considered simple sugars.  All of these can be converted to glucose in your body. Some sources of simple sugars include fruit, juice, honey, and candy, and processed goods often have sugar added to them. Sources of complex carbohydrates...

Overview People have been drinking infusions of tea for thousands of years, beginning in China and India. Today, tea is consumed more widely than any other beverage in the world except water. Billions of people drink tea, and a large number of studies show that tea has many health benefits. There are three main varieties of tea: green, black, and oolong. All three varieties are made from the leaves of the same species of plant called Camellia sinensis; the difference is in how the tea leaves are processed. Green tea is made from unfermented leaves, while oolong tea is made...

It’s summer. It’s sunny outside. People are doing fun things in the sun and you want to too! You can produce Vitamin D in the sun. And yes it feels good to get a little sunlight. Just understand that there are tradeoffs to sun exposure. Every second you’re in the sun damages your skin and leads to wrinkles and a weathered appearance. In fact, nothing ages your skin more than sun exposure. So if you’re going to get out there during the day, be careful and do it as considerately as possible. You’ll thank your younger-looking-self later! Time Of Day...

Overview As was discussed in a previous article, What Are Free Radicals?, just the very act of living–breathing, eating, and building up and breaking down the tissues and structures that make up your body–generates free radicals. These free radicals are necessary for many reactions that occur in your body, but if not precisely controlled, these free radicals can cause problems. The reason is because free radicals are highly reactive, and as such can cause damage to anything close to them. This damage, if not repaired, can lead to permanent changes in your body and what you eventually see as a...

Overview Free radicals are atoms or molecules with unpaired electrons. These molecules are considered oxidized. Because in most molecules this state is very unstable, free radicals are highly reactive and therefore try to pair these unpaired electrons in whatever manner they can. This unstable state is often stabilized when the free radical grabs or shares an electron from or with another molecule (when the free radical is reduced). Often a free radical is stabilized when it grabs a free electron from a nearby molecule that is stable, causing that molecule to now become a free radical and be unstable itself....