The arsenic in two-buck chuck will not kill you

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Last Thursday, four California residents filed a lawsuit alleging that some of the state’s most popular (read: cheap) wines — including Franzia, Korbel, and the infamous two-buck Chuck, Charles Shaw — are laced with arsenic at up to five times the level of what’s considered safe.

According to the class-action suit, brought against 28 wine producers, “just a glass or two of these arsenic-contaminated wines a day over time could result in dangerous arsenic toxicity to the consumers.” Since California wines make up nearly 90% of the U.S. wine industry, American wine drinkers have become the “unwitting ‘guinea pigs’ of arsenic exposure,” the suit alleges.

But don’t dump your boxes of Franzia just yet. These wines do contain tiny amounts of the toxic compound — but so do expensive wines, as well as pretty much everything that we eat and drink.

If you live in the U.S., then your groundwater actually has a surprising amount of arsenic in it.
Arsenic is naturally present at high levels in much of the untreated groundwater in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. Taken in large doses or over long stretches of time, arsenic can cause cancer, brain toxicity, heart problems, or death. (As pointed out in the lawsuit, it led to the ultimate demise of Napoleon and King George III, among others.)

This is why the World Health Organization has labeled groundwater as the “greatest threat to public health from arsenic,” and why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is strict about keeping arsenic out of the water supply. Only 10 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic are allowed in drinking water (meaning 10 parts arsenic for every 1 billion parts water). Assuming people drink roughly two liters of water a day, this amount of arsenic is totally harmless.

Water is also a big part of how arsenic gets into our food supply. Every winery, for example, bears the unique signature of its particular geography. The soil chemistry, water, and climate of a vineyard contributes to the flavors of whatever grapes are grown there. But because of arsenic present in soil and water, a wine’s terroir can also determine its level of toxicity.

“Plants will take it up into their tissues, so any plant material will have some arsenic,” Susan Ebeler, a professor of wine chemistry at University of California, Davis, told BuzzFeed News. “If animals eat the plant material, they’ll have some arsenic too. It’s ubiquitous. Everything we eat will probably have some low level of arsenic.”

As a result, wine isn’t the only product that’s been scrutinized for its arsenic content. A 2012 Consumer Reports study showed that fruit juice — which has a high water content — and rice, which is grown in water-flooded conditions and so absorbs more of the toxic compound, had arsenic levels on par with our water supply. In 2013, the FDA proposed a 10 ppb limit for arsenic in apple juice, but nothing has been made official. Water remains the only foodstuff monitored for arsenic — which means there’s no legal limit in the U.S. for how much arsenic can be in wine.

The plaintiffs’ claims rest on a chemical analysis by a Denver-based commercial lab named BeverageGrades.

The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment from BuzzFeed News. In a press release on March 19, the day the lawsuit was filed, the company said that its “state-of-the-art” lab could be used across the supply chain — for producers, retailers, and consumers — to make sure arsenic levels in the wine were up to scratch. The company sent the press release to many wine retailers the day the lawsuit was filed offering their paid testing services.

According to the lawsuit, BeverageGrades tested about 1,300 California wines and found that nearly one-fourth of them had arsenic levels exceeding the EPA’s accepted drinking water threshold of 10 ppb. Some, like Charles Shaw white zinfandel, clocked in around three times the limit, while Franzia’s white grenache came in at five times that level.

Although U.S. federal agencies have not set a safety threshold for arsenic levels in wine, the International Organization of Vine and Wine, the primary international review board for winemaking, has ruled that anything under 200 ppb is fine. Canadian authorities have decided anything under 100 ppb is safe. When held up to these international standards, all of the California wines pass muster.

Another reason not to worry: Most people drink far less wine than water. “The first principle of toxicology is: The dose makes the poison,” Carl Winter, a professor of food toxicology at UC Davis, told BuzzFeed News. “It’s the amount of a contaminant, not its presence or absence, that determines the potential for harm.”

The arsenic safety levels determined for water are based on drinking roughly two liters of water a day — equivalent to roughly 14 glasses of wine. If you’re drinking that much alcohol, arsenic is the least of your worries.

At a typical consumption rate — a few glasses of wine, say — arsenic levels are safe. Using water as the main comparison for how much arsenic we can consume in a glass of wine is “like comparing apples and oranges,” Winter said.

BeverageGrades’ analysis found that cheap wines have more arsenic than expensive ones.
There are several possible explanations. It could be that tiny amounts of arsenic leech out of materials used to store and transport the wine, such as metal pipes and containers, Ebeler said. Varying manufacturing procedures could potentially contribute to differences between bottom-shelf, mass-produced brands like two-buck Chuck and more expensive ones.

But the truth is, we don’t know. BeverageGrades has not published its full testing results, nor any details about its methodology. But in the $23 billion wine industry, some argue that the issue may boil down to money.

“You’re talking about some of the most successful wine companies in the country — that’s clear,” Nancy Light, a representative of the Wine Institute, an industry group representing more than 1,000 wineries in California, told BuzzFeed News. “This lawsuit is baseless and takes facts out of context — that’s financially motivated.”

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Jimmy Kimmel has actual doctors tell off anti-vaxers

Study finds that homeopathy is not effective for treating any health conditions

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Homeopathy is not effective for treating any health condition, Australia’s top body for medical research has concluded, after undertaking an extensive review of existing studies.

Homeopaths believe that illness-causing substances can, in minute doses, treat people who are unwell.

By diluting these substances in water or alcohol, homeopaths claim the resulting mixture retains a “memory” of the original substance that triggers a healing response in the body.

These claims have been widely disproven by multiple studies, but the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has for the first time thoroughly reviewed 225 research papers on homeopathy to come up with its position statement, released on Wednesday.

“Based on the assessment of the evidence of effectiveness of homeopathy, NHMRC concludes that there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective,” the report concluded.

“People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness.”

An independent company also reviewed the studies and appraised the evidence to prevent bias.

Chair of the NHMRC Homeopathy Working Committee, Professor Paul Glasziou, said he hoped the findings would lead private health insurers to stop offering rebates on homeopathic treatments, and force pharmacists to reconsider stocking them.

“There will be a tail of people who won’t respond to this report, and who will say it’s all a conspiracy of the establishment,” Glasziou said.

“But we hope there will be a lot of reasonable people out there who will reconsider selling, using or subsiding these substances.”

While some studies reported homeopathy was effective, the quality of those studies was poor and suffered serious flaws in their design, and did not have enough participants to support the idea that homeopathy worked any better than a sugar pill, the report found.

In making its findings the NHMRC also analysed 57 systematic reviews, a high-quality type of study that assesses all existing, quality research on a particular topic and synthesises it to make a number of strong, overall findings.

Glasziou said homeopathy use declined in the UK following a House of Commons report released in 2010 which found the treatments were ineffective, and that he hoped the NHMRC report would have a similar effect in Australia.

Dr Ken Harvey, a medicinal drug policy expert and health consumer advocate, said private colleges were charging thousands of dollars for courses in homeopathy, and he hoped students would reconsider taking them.

The government’s Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) should stop accrediting homeopathic courses, he said, while the private health insurance rebate should be not be offered on any policies covering homeopathy and other unproven treatments.

“I have no problems with private colleges wanting to run courses on crystal-ball gazing, iridology and homeopathy, and if people are crazy enough to pay for it, it’s their decision,” Harvey said.

“But if those courses are approved by a commonwealth body, that’s a different story and a real problem.”

Approved courses are reviewed by TESQA every seven years, with its own guidelines stating the content of a course should be “drawn from a substantial, coherent and current body of knowledge and scholarship in one or more academic disciplines and includes the study of relevant theoretical frameworks and research findings”.

A TESQA spokesperson said independent experts were used to assess whether or not a course complied with its standards. He said homeopathy courses already accredited would not be re-evaluated in light of the NHMRC’s findings, and would only be reviewed when their accreditation was next due for renewal.

In a statement responding to the NHMRC report, the Australian Homeopathic Association (AHA) claimed around a million Australians used homeopathy.

However, the NHMRC states there are no reliable estimates of Australians’ current use of homeopathic medicines, though a 2009 World Health Organisation review found Australians spent an estimated $9.59m on the industry annually.

“The Australian Homeopathic Association recommend to the NHMRC that it take a more comprehensive approach to the analysis of homeopathy’s efficacy, and consider a large-scale economic evaluation of the benefits of a more integrated system and one which respects and advocates patient choice in healthcare provision,” the AHA said.

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Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say

Compared with other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use.

Those are the top-line findings of recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, a subsidiary of Nature. Researchers sought to quantify the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of commonly used substances. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine.


And all the way at the bottom of the list? Weed — roughly 114 times less deadly than booze, according to the authors, who ran calculations that compared lethal doses of a given substance with the amount that a typical person uses. Marijuana is also the only drug studied that posed a low mortality risk to its users.

These findings reinforce drug-safety rankings developed 10 years agounder a slightly different methodology. So in that respect, the study is more of a reaffirmation of previous findings than anything else. But given the current national and international debates over the legal status of marijuana and the risks associated with its use, the study arrives at a good time.

It's important to note here that "safer than alcohol" doesn't mean "safe, full stop." Indeed, one of the more troubling lines of thought I see in some quarters of the marijuana legalization movement is that because marijuana is "natural," or because it can be used as (non-FDA approved) "medicine," it is therefore "safe."

But of course, rattlesnake venom is natural, too, and nobody would call that safe. And prescription painkillers are medicinal and responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year.

There are any number of risks associated with marijuana use. Most of these risks involve mental health issues, and most increase the earlier you start using and the more frequently you use.

That said, there are risks associated with literally anything you put in your body. Eat too much sugar and you're on the fast track to rotting teeth and diabetes. Take in too much salt and you're looking at increased odds of a stroke. Psychoactive substances, such as marijuana and alcohol, aren't at all unique for having risks associated with them.

What is unique is how these substances are treated under the law, and particularly the way in which alcohol and nicotine essentially get a free pass under the Controlled Substances Act, the cornerstone of the nation's drug policy. This study's authors note that legislative classifications of psychoactive drugs often "lack a scientific basis," and their findings are confirmation of this fact.

Given the relative risks associated with marijuana and alcohol, the authors recommend "risk management prioritization towards alcohol and tobacco rather than illicit drugs." And they say that when it comes to marijuana, the low amounts of risk associated with the drug "suggest a strict legal regulatory approach rather than the current prohibition approach."

In other words, individuals and organizations up in arms over marijuana legalization could have a greater effect on the health and well-being of this country by shifting their attention to alcohol and cigarettes. It takes extraordinary chutzpah to rail against the dangers of marijuana use by day and then go home to unwind with a glass of far more lethal stuff in the evening.

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Feeding babies food with peanuts may prevent allergies

Babies at high risk for becoming allergic to peanuts are much less likely to develop the allergy if they are regularly fed foods containing the legumes starting in their first year of life.

That's according to a big new study released Monday involving hundreds of British babies. The researchers found that those who consumed the equivalent of about 4 heaping teaspoons of peanut butter each week, starting when they were between 4 and 11 months old, were about 80 percent less likely to develop a peanut allergy by their fifth birthday.

"This is certainly good news," says Gideon Lack of King's College London, who led the study. He presented the research at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. It was also published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

As many as 2 million U.S. children are estimated to be allergic to peanuts — an allergy that has been increasing rapidly in the United States, Britain and other countries in recent years. While most children who are allergic to peanuts only experience relatively mild symptoms, such as hives, some have life-threatening reactions that can include trouble breathing and heart problems.

"Peanut allergy can be extremely serious," Lack says.

Lack's study was launched after he noticed that Israeli kids are much less likely to have peanut allergies than are Jewish kids in Britain and the United States.

"My Israeli colleagues and friends and young parents were telling me, 'Look, we give peanuts to these children very early. Not whole peanuts, but peanut snacks,' " Lack says.

Peanut snacks called Bamba, which are made of peanut butter and corn, are wildly popular in Israel, where parents give them to their kids when they're very young. That's very different from what parents do in Britain and the United States, where fears about food allergies have prompted many parents to keep their children away from peanuts, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics revised a recommendation to do so in 2008.

"That raised the question whether early exposure would prevent these allergies" by training babies' immune systems not to overreact to peanuts, Lack says. "It's really a very fundamental change in the way we're approaching these children."

To try to find out, Lack and his colleagues got funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to launch a study. They found 640 babies who were at high risk for developing peanut allergies because they already had eczema or egg allergy. They asked half of the infants' parents to start feeding them Bamba, peanut butter, peanut soup or peanut in some other form before their first birthday and followed them for about five years.

"What we found was a very great reduction in the rate of peanut allergy," Lack says. About 17 percent of the kids who avoided peanuts developed peanut allergies, compared with only 3.2 percent of the kids who ate peanuts, the researchers reported.

Based on the findings, Lack thinks most parents should start feeding their babies peanut products as early as possible — not whole peanuts or globs of peanut butter, but peanut mixed in some other food to avoid any possible choking hazard.

"We've moved, really, 180 degrees from complete avoidance to we should give peanuts to young children actively," Lack says.

Other allergy experts hailed the results as an important advance.

"This is a major study — really what we would call a landmark study," says Scott Sicherer, who advises the American Academy of Pediatrics on allergies. "There's been a huge question about why there's an increase in peanut allergy and what we can do to try to stem that increase. And this is a study that directly addresses that issue."

But Sicherer says we have to be careful, since some kids are really sensitive to peanuts.

"If you're a parent sitting at home with your child looking at them saying, 'Well, gee, they didn't eat peanut yet. Maybe I should run to the cupboard and get some peanut butter for them,' it could be a little bit dangerous because if you do that and the child has a bad allergic reaction, you would be at home and have a problem," Sicherer says.

So Sicherer says parents who have some reason to think their kids might be allergic to peanuts should get them tested first and then only try feeding them peanuts with a doctor in the room.

But other specialists say for most parents, the new findings should encourage them to start feeding their kids peanuts as early as possible.

"This is a question we get asked constantly in our clinic. When parents come in, they often have young children. They want to know what should they do. This really provides us with the answer," says Hugh Sampson, who heads the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai in New York. Sampson co-authored an editorial being published with the study.

"So now I think we're on firm ground, and we can go forward and look the parents in the eye and say, 'This is something that will be beneficial,' " Sampson says.

A key question is whether kids will have to keep eating peanuts to keep any allergy at bay. Lack is following the kids in his study to find out what happened to them after they stopped eating peanuts regularly.

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Billy on the street with FLOTUS and Big Bird

Billy On The Street with First Lady Michelle Obama, Big Bird, And Elena!!! from Funny Or Die

Growing up unvaccinated

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I am the ’70s child of a health nut. I wasn’t vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was 1, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy; we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil.

I had an outdoor lifestyle; I grew up next to a farm in England’s Lake District, walked everywhere, did sports and danced twice a week, drank plenty of water. I wasn’t even allowed pop; even my fresh juice was watered down to protect my teeth, and I would’ve killed for white, shop-bought bread in my lunchbox once in a while and biscuits instead of fruit, like all the other kids.

We ate (organic local) meat maybe once or twice a week, and my mother and father cooked everything from scratch—I have yet to taste a Findus crispy pancake, and oven chips (“fries,” to Americans) were reserved for those nights when Mum and Dad had friends over and we got a “treat.”

As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox. In my 20s I got precancerous HPV and spent six months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that Mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.

So the anti-vaccine advocates’ fears of having the “natural immunity sterilized out of us” just doesn’t cut it for me. How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time?

My mother would have put most of my current “crunchy” friends to shame. She didn’t drink, she didn’t smoke, she didn’t do drugs, and we certainly weren’t allowed to watch whatever we wanted on telly or wear plastic shoes or any of that stuff. She livedalternative health. And you know what? I’m glad she gave us such a great diet. I’m glad that she cared about us in that way.

But it just didn’t stop me getting childhood illnesses.

I was so crunchy that I literally crumbled.

My two vaccinated children, on the other hand, have rarely been ill, have had antibiotics maybe twice in their lives, if that. Not like their mum. I got many illnesses requiring treatment with antibiotics. I developed penicillin-resistant quinsy at age 21—you know, that old-fashioned disease that supposedly killed Queen Elizabeth I and that was almost wiped out through use of antibiotics.

My kids have had no childhood illnesses other than chickenpox, which they both contracted while still breastfeeding. They, too, grew up on a healthy diet, homegrown organics, etc. I was not quite as strict as my mother, but they are both healthier than I have ever been.

I find myself wondering about the claim that complications from childhood illnesses are extremely rare but that “vaccine injuries” are rampant. If this is the case, I struggle to understand why I know far more people who have experienced complications from preventable childhood illnesses than I have ever met with complications from vaccines. I have friends who became deaf from measles. I have a partially sighted friend who contracted rubella in the womb. My ex got pneumonia from chickenpox. A friend’s brother died from meningitis.

Anecdotal evidence is nothing to base decisions on. But when facts and evidence-based science aren’t good enough to sway someone’s opinion about vaccinations, then this is where I come from. After all, anecdotes are the anti-vaccine supporters’ way: “This is my personal experience.” Well, my personal experience prompts me to vaccinate my children and myself. I got the flu vaccine recently, and I got the whooping cough booster to protect my son in the womb. My natural immunity—from having whooping cough at age 5—would not have protected him once he was born.

I understand, to a point, where the anti-vaccine parents are coming from. Back in the ’90s, when I was a concerned, 19-year-old mother, frightened by the world I was bringing my child into, I was studying homeopathy, herbalism, and aromatherapy; I believed in angels, witchcraft, clairvoyants, crop circles, aliens at Nazca, giant ginger mariners spreading their knowledge to the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Egyptians, and that I was somehow personally blessed by the Holy Spirit with healing abilities. I was having my aura read at a hefty price and filtering the fluoride out of my water. I was choosing to have past life regressions instead of taking antidepressants. I was taking my daily advice from tarot cards. I grew all my own veg and made my own herbal remedies.

I was so freaking crunchy that I literally crumbled. It was only when I took control of those paranoid thoughts and fears about the world around me and became an objective critical thinker that I got well. It was when I stopped taking sugar pills for everything and started seeing medical professionals that I began to thrive physically and mentally.

If you think your child’s immune system is strong enough to fight off vaccine-preventable diseases, then it’s strong enough to fight off the tiny amounts of dead or weakened pathogens present in any of the vaccines.

But not everyone around you is that strong, not everyone has a choice, not everyone can fight those illnesses, and not everyone can be vaccinated. If you have a healthy child, then your healthy child can cope with vaccines and can care about those unhealthy children who can’t.

I would ask the anti-vaxxers to treat their children with compassion and a sense of responsibility for those around them. I would ask them not to teach their children to be self-serving and scared of the world in which they live and the people around them. (And teach them to love people with autism spectrum disorder or any other disability supposedly associated with vaccines—not to label them as damaged.)

The U.S. needs more churchyards like they have in the U.K. The kind that go back a couple centuries. Every one of them has a corner full of little stone baby lambs... grave markers... for children killed by childhood illnesses.

Most importantly, I want the anti-vaxxers to see that knowingly exposing your child to illness is cruel. Even without complications, these diseases aren’t exactly pleasant. I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy watching children suffer even with a cold or a hurt knee. If you’ve never had these illnesses, you don’t know how awful they are. I do. Pain, discomfort, the inability to breathe or to eat or to swallow, fever and nightmares, itching all over your body so much that you can’t stand lying on bedsheets, losing so much weight you can’t walk properly, diarrhea that leaves you lying prostrate on the bathroom floor, the unpaid time off work for parents, the quarantine, missing school, missing parties, the worry, the sleepless nights, the sweat, the tears, the blood, the midnight visits to the emergency room, the time sitting in a doctor’s waiting room on your own because no one will sit near you because they’re rightfully scared of those spots all over your face.

Those of you who have avoided childhood illnesses without vaccines are lucky. You couldn’t do it without us pro-vaxxers. Once the vaccination rates begin dropping, the drop in herd immunity will leave your children unprotected. The more people you convert to your anti-vax stance, the quicker that luck will run out.

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GNC, Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreens accused of selling adulterated ‘herbals’

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A warning to herbal supplement users: Those store-brand ginkgo biloba tablets you bought may contain mustard, wheat, radish and other substances decidedly non-herbal in nature, but they’re not likely to contain any actual ginkgo biloba.

That’s according to an investigation by the New York State attorney general’s office into store-brand supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart. All four have received cease-and-desist letters demanding that they stop selling a number of their dietary supplements, few of which were found to contain the herbs shown on their labels and many of which included potential allergens not identified in the ingredients list.

“Contamination, substitution and falsely labeling herbal products constitute deceptive business practices and, more importantly, present considerable health risks for consumers,” said the letters, first reported today by the New York Times.

The tests were conducted using a process called DNA barcoding, which identifies individual ingredients through a kind of “genetic fingerprinting.” The investigators tested 24 products claiming to be seven different types of herb — echinacea, garlic, gingko biloba, ginseng, saw palmetto, St. John’s wort and valerian root. All but five of the products contained DNA that was either unrecognizable or from a plant other than what the product claimed to be.

Additionally, five of the 24 contained wheat and two contained beans without identifying them on the labels — both substances are known to cause allergic reactions.

Of the four retailers, Wal-Mart was the worst offender: None of its six supplements that were tested was found to contain purely the ingredient they advertised. Target’s supplements were the least misleading of the lot — though that isn’t saying much, since tests on six of the brand’s products resulted in only one unqualified positive. Two of Target’s other supplements contained DNA from other plants alongside their purported ingredients, while the remaining three tested negative.

Harvard Medical School assistant professor Pieter Cohen, who is an expert on supplement safety, told the New York Times that the test results were so extreme he found them hard to accept. He suggested that the manufacturing process may have destroyed some of the ingredients’ DNA, rendering the DNA barcode test ineffective.

On the other hand, he said, “if this data is accurate, then it is an unbelievably devastating indictment of the industry.”

This investigation is just the latest in a series of blows against the dietary supplement industry. Supplements are not considered food or drugs, so they have long been only loosely regulated. Federal guidelines require companies to ensure that their products are safe and accurately labeled, but the FDA has little power to enforce that rule.

A 2012 paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association warned that this lack of regulation of the supplement industry could lead to “adverse events.” In the past five years, tainted supplements have been associated with kidney failure, hepatitis and other problems.

Also in 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report saying that supplements’ claims about their structure and function often lack scientific support. HHS recommended that the FDA seek “explicit statutory authority to review substantiation for structure/function claims” — essentially, it should subject the health claims made by supplement manufacturers to the same kind of scrutiny that drugs must undergo.

The New York attorney general’s letters also cited a 2013 Canadian study of 44 common supplements, in which one-third of herbal supplements that were tested contained no trace of the plant advertised on the bottle.

The Canadian study “alerted the dietary supplement industry to the fact that it is not providing the public with authentic products without substitution, contamination or fillers. It is disappointing that over a year later the attorney general’s researcher reached similar conclusions,” the letters chastised, sounding like a frustrated parent.

In response to the findings, Walgreens told the New York Times that it would remove the offending products from its shelves nationwide, while spokesmen for Wal-Mart and GNC both said that the companies would respond “appropriately.” Target did not respond to requests for comment. The study was prompted by a Times article that raised questions about the supplements.

Tips to help you stop worrying

What has you up at night? The economy? The divided government? Jobs? Health care? Ebola?

According to an October 2014 Gallup poll, Americans worry about a lot of issues. Many of those things are outside of our control, and worrying just compounds the grief.

According to a study by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, worrying can have long-term chronic health consequences, including cardiovascular disease.

How do you stop? While exercise is a commonly prescribed cure for easing your worries—it’s considered better than Xanax because it releases feel-good hormones—you don’t have to break a sweat to calm your fears.

Here are seven other actions you can take to take your mind off of your troubles:

1. CHANGE YOUR BEDTIME
If you like to stay up late at night, you might be feeding your inner worrier. Researchers at Binghamton University in New York found that people who go to bed very late and sleep for short amounts of time are more overwhelmed with negative thoughts than those who keep more regular sleeping hours. They tend to worry about the future and dwell over past events, and they have a higher risk of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"Making sure that sleep is obtained during the right time of day may be an inexpensive and easily disseminable intervention for individuals who are bothered by intrusive thoughts," said Jacob Nota, one of the study’s researchers.

2. SMELL A GRAPEFRUIT
Breathing in certain aromas can help reduce stress. In a study at James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, researchers tested the effect of pleasant-smelling essential oils by diffusing them in the central nurses station. Oncology nurses, who frequently suffer from work-related stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout, reported significant improvements in tension, worry, and demands over the course of the study.

One of the essential oils tested was grapefruit, which is refreshing and revitalizing, and helped boost the body’s feelings of energy and happiness.

3. BREATHE SLOWLY
Deep breathing, also called yoga breathing, is known to lower stress and anxiety. In his book Spontaneous Happiness: A New Path to Emotional Well-Being (Little, Brown & Company; 2013), Andrew Weil suggests using a technique he calls the "4-7-8 breath" as a calming practice and tool to use when you are feeling upset.

First, exhale completely through your mouth, then inhale through your nose for a count of four. Hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale through your mouth for a count of eight. It’s not possible to breathe deeply and be anxious at the same time, says Weil. He recommends using the 4-7-8 breath technique at least twice a day or whenever you feel stressed.

4. EAT CHOCOLATE
While sweets can cause you to have a sugar high and crash, researchers have found that a little chocolate can be beneficial for worriers. According to a study published in the Journal of Proteome Research, dark chocolate can help calm your nerves. Participants who ate one and a half ounces of dark chocolate a day for two weeks had reduced levels of stress hormones.

5. ENGAGE IN FOREST THERAPY
Walking in the woods and listening to the sounds of nature can reduce stress. Called shinrin-yoku, which means "forest bath" in Japanese, the practice lowers stress hormone levels compared with walking in an urban area.

"Studies have confirmed that spending time within a forest setting can reduce psychological stress, depressive symptoms, and hostility, while at the same time improving sleep, and increasing both vigor and a feeling of liveliness," write Eva Selhub and Alan Logan in their book Your Brain on Nature (Collins; 2013). "Japanese researchers found that 20 minutes of shinrin-yoku—compared with 20 minutes in an urban setting—altered cerebral blood flow in a manner that indicated a state of relaxation."

6. WRITE DOWN YOUR WORRIES
Getting your emotions down on paper sounds like it could fuel anxieties, but according to a University of Chicago study published in the journal Science, the activity has the opposite effect. Students who were prone to test anxiety were asked to write about their fears before an exam; those who journaled improved their test scores by nearly one grade point.

"It might be counterintuitive, but it’s almost as if you empty the fears out of your mind," Sian Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago, told U.S. News And World Report. "You reassess that situation so that you’re not as likely to worry about those situations because you’ve slain that beast."

7. TAKE UP KNITTING
Keeping your hands busy can help keep your mind off of worries. In a study at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, volunteers watched graphic footage of car wrecks. Participants who had been asked to type a repetitive pattern while viewing the film suffered fewer flashbacks later on. Verbal distractions, such as counting out loud, had no benefit.

Researchers discovered that keeping your hands and mind busy interferes with storing and encoding visual images, which explains why worry beads and knitting calm us down.

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How often you should shower...according to science

Do you know what really divides people? Showering. There are people who LOVE to shower, and there are people who HATE to shower, and there aren’t that many people who feel lukewarm (puns!) about the whole showering thing. We are not here today to judge anyone’s showering preferences, we are here to share some mega-scientific showering news.

Two dermatologists told BuzzFeed Life that Americans shower way more than they need to. This news isn’t terribly surprising, considering the fact that most of us know at least one person who showers two to three times a day. Well, the reality is we could really be showering once every two to three days.

The history behind our modern bathing rituals (and cultural over-showering) is pretty interesting, so let’s have a look-see, shall we?

Dr. Joshua Zeichner, assistant professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, said that our showering frequency and perception of body odor is “really more of a cultural phenomenon.” Dr. Ranella Hirsch, a dermatologist in Boston, agreed telling BuzzFeed. “We overbathe in this country, and that’s really important to realize,” she said. “A lot of the reason we do it is because of societal norms.”

But where did those norms originate from, you may be wondering? Well, for starters — advertising. Really really, ridiculously good (looking) advertising.

Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, told BuzzFeed Life, “After the Civil War, both advertising and toilet soap (AKA body soap) became more prevalent in the United States. Americans turned out to be much more gullible and susceptible to these things than Europeans.” Advertisements started working, and people started bathing more often, leaving them with less body odor.

Which, to me, doesn’t sound terrible.

And now on to the science of showering: Zeichner and Hirsche reported to BuzzFeed that frequent showering (specifically in hot water) can dry out skin and cause irritation, wash away good bacteria that exists on the skin, and introduce small cracks that put people at a higher risk of infection. That part definitely sounds terrible.

According to BuzFeed Life, the doctors also said that parents shouldn’t bathe babies and toddlers every day. “Early exposure to dirt and bacteria may make the skin less sensitive as you age and prevent allergies and conditions like eczema”.

So, what we’ve learned is that next time you want to sleep in or are too cold to get undressed to get in the shower, just don’t! And don’t you dare feel bad about it.

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Disneyland measles outbreak highlights the importance of vaccinations

Viruses flourish in high-density areas and vacation spots where large numbers of visitors coming together, bringing their unique colonies of pathogens. So it shouldn't be particularly surprising that an outbreak of measles has been tracked back to December visits to Disneyland in Orange County, Calif.

A total of 17 confirmed cases of measles originated with visits to the theme park, confirmed the California Department of Public Health.

Measles is highly contagious. The virus lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person and can be airborne, which means the virus can be coughed or sneezed into the air and land on someone else, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To make matters worse, measles can live for up to two hours on surfaces or in the air after being sneezed or coughed out, and people can transmit the disease up to four days before and four days after developing the signature measles rash.

According to a CDC explainer, 90 percent of the unvaccinated people who come into contact with an infected person will also develop measles.

The best way to avoid getting the measles is to get two doses of a vaccine with the measles virus in it -- commonly known as the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. Unfortunately, recent school inoculation reports indicate that vaccination rates among Californian children dropped substantially between 2007 and 2014, due to a number of factors that include discredited fears that the shots can cause autism.

That's not just bad news for the individual children who opt out, it's also problematic for the community, as demonstrated by the unrelated Disneyland visitors and workers affected: Vaccination protects those who are too young or ill to get vaccinated. For instance, six of the measles patients that the CDPH confirmed were unvaccinated, but two of them were too young to receive the shots.

Dropping vaccination rates, in addition to a globalized population with ties to parts of the world that have not yet defeated measles, have contributed to the most measles cases -- 610 patients in 2014 -- that the U.S. has seen in about 20 years, despite the fact that America technically “defeated” the disease in 2000.

“Not since 1994 have we seen this many measles cases [in the U.S.], explained Emory University School of Medicine infectious disease expert Walter Orenstein in a previous interview with The Huffington Post. “To me this is a warning sign that we need to get on the offensive against measles.”

To Orenstein, who is also a spokesperson for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the fight against measles is two pronged: domestically, more parents need to get their children properly vaccinated. Internationally, developing countries need help getting the virus under control.

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The benefits of a month without booze

Andre Babiak

As New Year's resolutions go, cutting back on food and drink are right at the top of the list. And while those vowing to change their eating habits may cut the carbohydrates or say a sweet goodbye to sugar, for regular drinkers, the tradition may involve what's known as a "dry January": giving up booze for a month.

But could such a short-term breakup with alcohol really impart any measurable health benefits?

The staff at the magazine New Scientist decided to find out, using themselves as guinea pigs. The findings of their small but intriguing experiment suggest the answer is a resounding yes.

The magazine is based in the U.K., where the dry January concept has been gaining traction, thanks to an annual campaign by the charity Alcohol Concern. In late 2013, 14 healthy New Scientist employees filled out lifestyle questionnaires, underwent ultrasounds and gave blood samples. Then, 10 of them gave up alcohol for five weeks, while four of them continued drinking normally.

"Normal" drinking for the New Scientist group ranged from 10 units of alcohol per week — the equivalent of about eight 12-ounce bottles of regular-strength beer — to 80 units, or 64 beers, per week. Those numbers may seem high, but in Britain, where drinking is a national pastime, the group's supervising doctor told them none were problem drinkers. (Incidentally, Britain's National Health Service recommends no more than 14 to 21 alcohol units per week.)

The results of these changes were significant enough to make you put down your pint and take notice.

Dr. Rajiv Jalan, a liver specialist at the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health at University College London, analyzed the findings. They revealed that among those in the study who gave up drinking, liver fat, a precursor to liver damage, fell by at least 15 percent. For some, it fell almost 20 percent.

Abstainers also saw their blood glucose levels — a key factor in determining diabetes risk — fall by an average of 16 percent. It was the first study to show such an immediate drop from going dry, Dr. James Ferguson, a liver specialist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham in England, told us last year.

Overall, the evidence is convincing but not all that surprising, said Ferguson, who was not involved in the experiment.


"If you take time off from alcohol, it's going to be beneficial for your liver from the reduction of fat," he told The Salt. "People always forget the amount of calories in alcohol, so if you take a month off, and you usually consume 20 units, you're going to lose weight and fat. It's a massive reduction in calories. "

The main causes of excessive fat in the liver are obesity and excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol changes the way the liver processes fat, resulting in more fat cells that can cause inflammation, leading to liver disease.

But Ferguson warned that a dry January could trigger the same sort of negative boomerang effect as do restrictive diets: First you abstain, then you binge to make up for it. He questioned whether a dry January leads to a wetter-than-normal February.

Beyond that, there's the question of whether and how much these improvements last in the long run. Ferguson offered a sobering view.

"I don't think taking one month a year off alcohol makes any difference," he says. "It's more important to cut back generally."

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Nine "flu hacks"

Recipe: Vegan creamy pasta with spinach

This recipe is vegan but SO good. The cauliflower may not be a perfect substitute for cheese, but it is definitely a yummy alternative.

Ingredients

1 pound fettuccine pasta
4 cups chopped spinach
Salt and pepper
1/2 head cauliflower (about 1 pound) separated into little trees
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon miso paste
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley

Directions

1. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When it’s all done, throw it in a large bowl with the spinach, toss, and set aside.
2. While the pasta cooks, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Throw in a pinch of salt and the cauliflower and simmer all that until the cauliflower is tender, 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Drain the cauliflower and toss into a blender. Add the milk, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, miso and 1/8 teaspoon salt to the blender and blend until the sauce is creamy.
4. Pour the cauliflower purée back into the pot you boiled the cauliflower in and set over low heat. Add the pasta and spinach and toss until everything is mixed and warm. Top with some parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Oil pulling: Does it work?

I've been oil pulling for a few days. I feel like my teeth are whiter and it definitely helped me when I was feeling a little hungover this weekend. Also, my throat was feeling sore and the next day felt much better. Who knows! My thoughts are: "Well, it can't hurt."

joannawnuk/iStockphoto

Starting the day off at the beach with your skin smelling of tropical-scented sunscreen can be one of life's greatest pleasures. Smelling coconut oil as you swish it around in your mouth before work -- well, that's another story.

Oil pulling, or placing oil in the mouth to kill harmful bacteria, seems to have caught on recently. It's a controversial practice that takes dedication and time, though fortunately not the 10 or 20 minutes of marathon swishing some sources suggest.

Two sessions of four minutes, as recommended by Dr. Amala Guha, assistant professor of immunology and medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center and the founding president of The International Society for Ayurveda and Health, were sufficient for my first attempt at oil pulling.

The taste itself isn't so bad on the surface, but putting chunky coconut oil in your mouth before being fully awake can trigger a gag reflex. Luckily, the time goes by quickly, and afterward I admit my teeth felt polished throughout the day, as if I'd just come from the dentist.

But what's the scope (and scoop) on this mouth rinse practice? Does it work?

"It's not given proper credit," said Guha, who was trained in Ayurveda, a traditional form of medicine that relies on natural healing, in India.

She explains that using liquids in the mouth for health purposes is mentioned in two ancient Indian Ayurvedic texts (one written in 800 B.C. and the other in 700 B.C.), and the practice is part of one of the oldest health systems in the world.

Oil pulling for oral hygiene is common. But before you go racing out to the store for oil, the American Dental Association cautions that because of a lack of evidence, they do not recommend oil pulling as a replacement for standard oral health care such as flossing and teeth brushing.

The texts also claim that about 30 systemic diseases, including headaches and diabetes, can be cured. Yet there is a lack of knowledge on the science and side effects behind the practice, according to Guha.

How it works
Guha says there are two oil pulling techniques: kavala and gandusa.

With kavala, you fill your mouth with liquid and hold it there for a couple of minutes before swirling it around the mouth and spitting it out. The process shouldn't exceed more than three or four minutes; it's repeated at least two or three times.

Gandusa is the technique of holding the liquid still in the mouth for three to five minutes. The liquid is then spit out and the process is repeated.

In Ayurveda, many different liquids can be used depending on the condition being treated and the physiology of the person. Milk, honey and hot water containing herbs are just some of the other mediums, explains Guha.

For daily oral hygiene, she recommends using coconut or sesame oil, which she says have mild abrasive powers and more healing benefits than other oils (and are less harmful).

Results can be expected in a few months, she says, with benefits such as reduced plaque, cavity prevention and stronger gums for individuals who already have a healthy mouth. For the person with plaque buildup, she recommends a teeth cleaning first for faster results.

A small study published in 2009 involving sesame oil and 20 adolescent boys with plaque-induced gingivitis found that oil pulling reduced plaque and the bacterium Streptococcus mutans. This bacterium is cited as being a major cause of tooth decay and overgrowth of bacteria in mouth can also lead to gum disease.

A larger study published in 2013, also using sesame oil, found similar results, summarizing that oil pulling had a significant effect on plaque and gingivitis.

For coconut oil users, lauric acid found in the oil can be a benefit. It is known for its antimicrobial properties, such as the ability to fight off viruses, bacteria and yeasts.

How it doesn't work
Mark Wolff, professor and chair at the New York University College of Dentistry, expresses skepticism about oil pulling's effects on oral health.

"I am not sure there is any harm, but I have never seen it have any positive effect on my patients who have been using oil pulling or in clinical research that has been published."

There is also little research available on the effectiveness of these treatments to cure other diseases.

Guha warns that there can be negative side effects if improper technique is used, including dry mouth, excessive thirst, muscular stiffness, exhaustion and loss of sensation or taste in the mouth.

Individuals who are interested in trying kavala or gandusa to treat health conditions need to review all credentials of Ayruvedic practitioners before starting any treatment. Guha says that there are very few trained professionals in the United States as none of the Ayurveda schools here are accredited; only schools in India provide the proper certifications.

Bottom line? If you're just looking for a natural way to boost your oral health, you can oil away without supervision and get about the same benefits as commercial mouthwash.

Just don't forget to floss.

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Are viruses the next cure for cancer?

The unlikely strategy of using a live virus to treat cancer took yet another step forward this week with the news that scientists at the Mayo Clinic had treated two adults with the blood cancer, multiple myeloma, by injecting them with mega-doses of genetically modified measles virus.

Both patients had failed all other available therapies; with the new “oncolytic virus” treatment, each responded and one remains in remission nine months later.

In this study, the patients—neither with existing antibody to measles virus—received enormous doses of live measles virus infused directly into their vein—not given as a shot like a vaccine. Both became feverish and ill with the infusion, as expected, and both recovered. The measles virus was derived from the strain used in routine measles vaccine but had been carefully altered by scientists to enhance its tumor killing effects. It was still, however, a measles virus, capable of giving a person a measles-like illness. The choice of measles for the cancer was quite deliberate—this virus is known to seek out and attack a type of white blood cell that myeloma arises from. The investigators simply harnessed measles virus’ natural born killer tendency.

As the investigators noted, the patients’ lack of immunity was critical to the success of this study. Most people—at least 95 percent of adults—have pre-existing antibody to measles. This is a good thing to assure they will not develop measles but would be extremely problematic for measles oncolytic therapy—the patient’s own antibody would kill off the killer measles before it could reach the cancer cell. Thus a major problem with all oncolytic virus treatment—the patient’s immune system, which has its own seek and destroy mission—was circumvented in the Mayo trial.

For these patients, it is unclear how long the treatment benefit will last. With a disease like myeloma, cure is unusual. A very long remission and stability is considered a substantial success. But using the muscle power of viruses and other infections is an exciting new frontier, albeit one based on rather old observations.

Scientists have been fascinated by the approach for years. One of the first possible demonstrations of effect was with the use, more than 100 years ago, of something called Coley’s toxin, a mish-mosh of killed bacteria and other proteins that wasinjected near and directly into solid tumors.
The news that measles virus might have benefit and that a patient is doing well, for now, is credible and exciting—but we are still miles and miles away from this sort of approach becoming routine for cancer.

Although the approach engendered substantial excitement, Coley’s toxins were never proven to be beneficial. Many small trials were performed—some showed effectiveness, others did not. In 1963, more than 70 years after it was introduced, the FDA determined that the product could only be given in the context of clinical trials. The strategy, though, captured the imagination of scientists worldwide and gave birth to the field of immunotherapy, which is extremely hot today.

The next well-publicized study using infection to kill cancer took place in the 1950s. West Nile virus, then considered a harmless infection, was given to more than 100 patients at what is now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. A scientist, Dr. Chester Southam, had noticed that West Nile, discovered in the late 1930s, had tumor-shrinking properties in various experiments and so offered the treatment to patients without other cancer-treatment options as part of a clinical trial.

A few patients responded, particularly those with lymphoma and one newspaper ran an excited headline, Deep Cancers Temporarily Shrunk by Rare Nerve Virus From Africa, trumpeting the breakthrough.

The problem though was a spate of unexpected side effects—about 10 percent of the patients got drowsy and confused—presumably developing the disease we now recognize as West Nile encephalitis. This unexpected finding, as well as the mediocre antitumor effect, led to the end of the trial.

But once again, the science of the approach was compelling. A generation later, a better understanding of viruses and their ability to enter and destroy certain cellsmade “oncolytic virus” treatment again of interest to scientists. Herpes virus, adenovirus and many others have been studied against a wide variety of cancers; many trials are ongoing. The enthusiasm is such that even the oldest of all vaccines—vaccinia, the ur-shot used to prevent small pox—has been called into action with interesting preliminary results.

Though an area of very active investigation, no one is certain why this approach works. Some think that the virus has the ability to goose up a person’s immune system in a non-specific way, and that with a heightened and more sharply tuned immune repertoire, cancer cells are attacked and killed more or less accidentally.

Others point to the unique properties of viruses to enter cells and kill them; they posit that the task is only to find the right virus for each tumor, as was done with the current measles versus myeloma study. They envision a group of stealth killers each with a seek-and-destroy mission killing cancer “naturally.” And bonus—with some viruses, such as herpes, once the task is done, the virus itself can be killed off using routinely available anti-herpes antivirals.

The news that measles virus might have benefit and that a patient is doing well, for now, is credible and exciting—but we are still miles and miles away from this sort of approach becoming routine for cancer. Once again we should walk the fine line between soaring hope and miserly caution and give scientists the time (and funding) to complete thoughtful, well-designed studies.

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Antioxidant in red wine has no benefit at low doses

The antioxidant resveratrol does not improve longevity when consumed at levels naturally occurring in foods like grapes, red wine and dark chocolate, according to a new study published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

“We looked at the relationship between resveratrol levels and a lot of health outcomes that are thought to be related to resveratrol, such as cancer and heart disease and lifespan. And we found no relationship,” says Dr. Richard Semba, study author and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The potential health benefits of consuming moderate amounts of red wine have been much discussed ever since researchers identified the “French paradox” – an observation that the French have lower levels of heart disease despite consuming relatively high amounts of saturated fat.

Some epidemiologists proposed that France’s relatively high rates of red wine consumption may help explain the supposed paradox, and further studies have shown that light to moderate alcohol consumption does in fact correlate with healthier hearts. The new study does not contradict these conclusions.

More recently, researchers at Harvard Medical School and the National Institutes of Health identified a specific chemical in red wine – resveratrol – that seems to significantly delay the effects of aging in mice, when given in very high doses.

Today, Americans spend some $30 million per year on resveratrol supplements, even though there have been no long-term studies in humans to measure resveratrol’s effect on longevity.

So researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Barcelona tracked 783 men and women aged 65 or older, analyzing who survived and who died over a nine-year period in relation to their resveratrol levels.

The results show no benefits – in terms of longevity, reduced inflammation, heart disease or cancer – to having higher levels of resveratrol versus lower or moderate levels.

However, study participants’ resveratrol came only from their diets – consuming foods like red wine, chocolate, and berries – which provides almost negligible amounts of resveratrol compared to the levels found in supplements and studied in mice.

In fact, a person would have to drink hundreds of glasses of red wine a day to match the amounts used in previous resveratrol studies.

“This study is very important because it demonstrates, in a long-term study with a huge cohort, that (normal) dietary resveratrol levels are not correlated with all-cause mortality,” says Juan Carlos Espin, a research professor at the Spanish National Research Council.

“However, to claim that resveratrol does not have influence on the all-cause of mortality would require the comparison of a cohort with 'normal' resveratrol levels (very low and unpredictable) versus another cohort with a standardized resveratrol supplementation.”

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How to take the best nap, according to science

You're probably getting sleepy just reading this. It's already been a long day at work, and maybe, just maybe, you feel compelled to shut your eyes just for a few minutes.

Hey, don't feel guilty. That nap compulsion is in your nature. Indeed, 85 percent of mammals are meant to sleep in short spurts throughout the day, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

What we don't know about the role of sleep in our lives could surely fill volumes of books. But we do know that sleep is very, very good for us — and that includes napping.

First, a quick refresher. There are two kinds of sleep: rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM). NREM occurs in four stages, throughout which your physiological activities slow down. Stage 1 begins with feeling drowsy while your brain and muscle activities begin to dial down. Stage 2 builds on the previous stage, but your eye movements stop, heart rate slows, and your temperature decreases. Stages 3 and 4 — also known as slow wave sleep — is when your blood pressure lowers, your breathing slows, and your body temperature drops even further. Your body no longer moves.

During REM sleep, however, your brain is very active. Breathing may become more rapid, irregular, and shallow. Your eyes may move even though they are shut. Your heart rate increases and your blood pressure can rise. In addition, your limbs may be immobile. Though it sounds like something out of a nightmare, it's actually during this period of sleep that you dream and sort out your experiences throughout the day.

If you don't get enough nighttime shuteye, you're probably going to be hankering for a nap. "[People usually nap] because they have not gotten enough sleep at night, or the sleep they have gotten is poor and disrupted," Joyce Walsleben, an associate professor at the NYU School of Medicine, told The Week.

But how do you take the perfect nap?
First, aim for the afternoon. The National Sleep Foundation also suggests making sure your sleep environment is calm and peaceful. The temperature should be comfortable, and noise and light should be kept to a minimal level. And make sure you are actually sleeping: While just resting in bed may make you feel better, it's not going to refresh you as much as a nap will.

The perfect nap needn't be long, either.

"Twenty minutes keeps you from upsetting your schedules, getting into deeper sleep, and waking up groggy and refreshing you enough to continue safely," Walsleben said.

She added that if you don't have enough time to sleep in one chunk, napping throughout the day can have the same effect of getting a full night's rest. You just need to get enough sleep to get rid of your tired feeling.

And guess what? Napping is really good for you. One study in the Journal of Sleep Researchsuggested that napping is tied to better memory recall. Subjects were asked to remember a list of 30 words after either 60 minutes of napping or doing an activity. People who took a nap did significantly better. The boosted results were even observed when the subjects were just allowed to nap for six minutes.

Harvard sleep researcher Robert Stickgold says napping also helps with problem solving abilities. His studies have shown that people who take naps have an easier time separating facts from the extemporaneous clutter in their minds. If the person reaches REM phase in their nap, they'll have an easier time making connections between ideas.

And a study from NASA on 747 pilots showed that subjects who were allowed to nap — on average 25.8 minutes a day — were 16 percent more vigilant when it came to reaction time and 34 percent more likely not to have lapses in judgment compared to those who didn't nap.

Another study on physicians and nurses who were working 12-hour shifts showed that those who were given 40 minutes to nap had fewer performance lapses, more vigor, less fatigue, and less sleepiness than their counterparts who powered through.

Got it? Now go take a nap.

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Tequila might help you lose weight

We Heart It

I’m about to make your day: based on a recent study, tequila can aid in weight loss.

Yes, you read that correctly. TEQUILA WILL HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT.

Not only will it assist in the weight loss process, but it will also help to lower blood sugar. This is amazing news for people suffering from type-2 Diabetes.

A recent study conducted at the American Chemical Society has blessed us with this amazing information on this glorious humpday.

Basically agavina, a sugar that comes from the agave plant used to produce tequila, triggered insulin production and lowered blood sugar in an experiment conducted with mice. In addition to these astonishing results, the sweetener also helped the overweight mice drops some hefty LBS.

Agavin, unlike sucrose, fructose and glucose, is not absorbed by the body, so it will not increase blood glucose.

Can I get a “hallelujah”? Yeah, I’m talking to you Jeff Buckley.

We’re not telling you to rip tequila shots with every meal, however — these agavins are actually a type of fiber that creates a full feeling, ergo suppressing appetite.

The scientists who conducted this study believe that agavins are a viable light sweetener substitute since, ”they are sugars, highly soluble, have a low glycemic index, and a neutral taste, but most important, they are not metabolized by humans.”

Currently there are approximately 26 million Americans suffering from diabetes, with another 2 million getting diagnosed annually.

The fact that there is the potential for developing a different type of sweetener that lowers sugar levels instead of raising them is revolutionary.

Stayed tuned as the study and tests continue to progress.

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Fitness myths you probably believe