A low-sugar diet means reducing how much added and natural sugars you consume in a day. Less restrictive than a no-sugar diet, low-sugar diets encourage you to reduce your sugar intake and focus on healthier, balanced eating habits, such as switching out processed foods for more nutritious produce and whole grains.

Many health professionals recommend starting a low-sugar diet sooner rather than later to prevent harmful weight gain and other chronic conditions. Essentially, the goal of reducing the amount of sugar you eat is to maintain healthy glucose levels in the body.

Benefits of Eating a Low-Sugar Diet

There are many reasons to try a low-sugar diet, and the benefits greatly outweigh any challenges associated with making adjustments to your eating habits. Here are six reasons to try a low-sugar diet.

It has been decades since a breakthrough idea changed people’s health and well-being. The last big ideas included risk prevention and “the new old age.” Risk prevention based a person’s health on avoiding specific threats like smoking, poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and stress. The new old age was a change of mindset that opened the way for lifelong well-being and productive activity beyond the biblical threescore and ten.

But as useful as these breakthroughs were, they hit a dead end. Risk prevention suffers from noncompliance, the perverse habit we all indulge in of not doing what is good for us. In addition, risks are fearful, and fear is a poor motivator in the long run. The new old age ran into a different and even tougher obstacle. The aging process proceeds roughly at the rate of 1% a year after age 30, much too long a time to focus on old age, even though it has been well established that the afflictions of the elderly are chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, and probably most cancers which begin to develop years or even decades before symptoms appear.

When you consider the cleanliness of your home, you may think of organization. While an unorganized junk drawer and a toy-covered floor can be unpleasant, they possess minimal adverse health effects. The real culprit of grime and contamination is disposable household items.

Many of us use various products daily without considering their hygiene or safety. There are four specific items to replace frequently in order to improve your well-being at home.

The Benefits of Replacing Items Regularly

You can ensure the protection of yourself and your family members by assessing the expiration dates of your household items. Prevent mold buildup by swapping out old items that come in contact with water.

Reducing your exposure to mold may decrease your risk of asthma attacks and other respiratory complications. Frequently replacing older items with new, clean ones can also reduce your risk of developing diseases. E. coli, listeria, and salmonella derive from unclean products, especially in the kitchen.

Over time, items accumulate bacteria, infecting nearly 48 million people annually. When you upgrade your household items often, you can protect the health and well-being of yourself and your family. There are four products you should replace frequently to maintain health and safety.

Generally speaking, wrinkles, fine lines, and other similar symptoms usually are linked with aging. But in some cases, they may appear due to hormonal disorders or diseases and give the face an unpleasant look. Undoubtedly, every individual likes to appear beautiful, youthful, and attractive, and our skin health plays a central role in helping us achieve this.

Although most people rely heavily on natural procedures for improving skin health, that has been an effective method over the years. However, certain instances of aging faster than one typically should not often respond to natural remedies. For this reason, a large number of people have depended on a highly effective solution for age-related fine lines and wrinkles – BOTOX.

A lot of people think that animal-based sources are the only way to get the full spectrum of protein you need to perform at your athletic peak.

Yet while meat, eggs, and dairy are generally good sources of complete protein, there are also plenty of ways that vegans can get enough protein.

And with the right sources, vegans can even get the complete range of protein, the same as someone with no dietary restrictions.

Read on and we’ll share what vegan athletes need to know about proper protein intake, how to get complete protein on a plant-based diet, and a tasty protein shake that ticks all the vegan boxes.

The Concept of a Complete Protein

Getting enough protein is one thing athletes need to focus on. But you should also consider the type of protein you’re getting.

Take the 101 South out of San Francisco through Silicon Valley, past the campuses of Apple, Google, and Facebook. You’ll drive past Whole Foods Markets, Trader Joe’s, Costcos, Walmarts, medical centers, golf courses, fruit stands, and farmers markets. Continue south, hang a left at Gilroy, and hit CA-152 West. As you pass the San Luis Reservoir and Recreation Area, you’ll see signs warning prospective swimmers and boaters to avoid the water due to toxic algal blooms.

The 152 rolls into Highway 99 as you continue through Fresno and finally reach your destination, the small town of Dinuba, California. You’ll find yourself at the base of Smith Mountain, smack dab in the center of the San Joaquin Valley.

You've probably heard about dynamic wrinkles, those fine lines that form due to repetitive facial expressions you make. If you raise your eyebrows often, you get forehead lines. If you smile very frequently, you get wrinkles underneath your cheekbones.

But do you have to reduce how often you smile and make facial expressions just to prevent or treat dynamic wrinkles? Of course not; neither do you have to resort to surgery.

Here are non-surgical ways to slow down and treat wrinkles.

Note: the tips below apply to all kinds of fine lines and wrinkles, whether dynamic or environmentally induced.

You can’t have a thought, feeling, sensation, or mental image without calling upon your brain, and this close relationship makes us human. Since 100 billion brain cells are constantly generating your mental life, no relationship seems more important, and everyone has a fear in the back of their mind about what might happen in old age if Alzheimer’s strikes, in essence destroying the mind-brain connection.

But as precious as this relationship is, your brain has a more important relationship that was hidden until about twenty years ago. This precious relationship is with bacteria, and even when you are asleep or thinking about nothing at all, the communication never ceases between the brain and bacteria, specifically the bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract (the gut microbiota).

Between them the brain and your GI tract have created a real-life matrix, just like the one in science-fiction. You are alive and relate to your brain inside this tight structure of biochemicals that carry thousands of messages per second between microbiota and brain. At first sight this seems unbelievable, because few life forms have genetics as rudimentary as a bacterium, and no life form has a brain as complex as the human brain. An old proverb says that even a cat can look at a king. Biologically speaking, the lowly bacterium (along with viruses and microscopic fungi) does a lot more than look at your brain, more even than eavesdropping on it.

The New Year brings new hopes, aspirations and resolutions. It is the time of the year when we set our goals to achieve for the next year. How many of us are able to actually act on our plans? Be it the promise to hit the gym every single day or make a schedule to socialize more often, even the best promise-keepers may find it hard to keep up with New Year’s resolutions. However, no matter how many times we’ve fallen behind, year after year, we never give up. And I say we shouldn’t! After all, the new year is all about starting new habits (good ones) and committing to the activities that lead to a more positive life — all leading in the direction of better health and happiness.

When thinking about resolutions for the new year, I encourage: "make it simple." Yes, let’s set goals that are achievable. Many times, we are so excited to set a higher benchmark that we often forget what our limitations and soft corners are. So, the most effective way to start out is to make resolutions that are simple and achievable. And, once we are actually able to keep up with our promise, think about the amount of fulfillment and joy it will bring to our lives.

I’ll offer one simple resolution to start the new year: bring attention to your diet.

Have you ever been told you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed? Getting enough sleep is vital to a positive mood and having enough energy to attend to your daily tasks. But did you know that when you suffer from poor sleep, you can put yourself at risk for severe medical conditions like heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes? Good sleep hygiene is crucial for a healthy and long life.

Adults should aim to rest at least seven to nine hours at night. To ensure quality sleep, limit all caffeine intake after 2 PM. Establish a bedtime routine and be consistent each night so your body can grow accustomed to it. Make sure your room is dark, cool, and comfortable so you can rest well. Limit the use of all electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime, so it doesn't interfere with your natural rest patterns.

If you get good sleep each night, you’ll reduce your chances of developing serious illnesses. You’ll also boost your overall wellness. Here are a few health problems that good sleep helps prevent!

There have been exciting discoveries about the microbiome that lead to a radical change in how we view the human body. “Microbiome” is a new name for something long known about, the teeming colonies of bacteria and fungi that exist all around the body. We need these micro-organisms in order to digest food, but the existence of so-called “intestinal flora” isn’t news either. So why did the microbiome become exciting?

The biggest reason can be summarized as “The microbiome is us.” Instead of being invaders or microscopic hitchhikers, the microbiome represents the continuity of life itself. Microbial DNA is woven into human DNA, which immediately tells us that far from being enemy germs, thousands of species of bacteria, viruses, and fungi brought our ancestors the news of the world as it applies to the evolution of life. A world cloud of DNA moves in, around, and through every living thing.

In natural history museums our hominid ancestors look small and primitive, but there is an invisible link that binds us to them, the microbiome. There are other microbiome locations in the mouth, on the skin, and in the armpits and groin, but let’s limit ourselves to the gut microbiome, since it is incredibly complex, with an estimated 2,000 species of microbial life, and it is life-giving.

Have the winter blues got you down? Seasonal affective disorder affects about 1%-2% of the population, and milder forms may affect as much as 20%. This mental health condition occurs at the same time each year and can take a toll on every aspect of your life, from work to relationships to your sense of self-worth.

The good news is that, like other forms of depression, SAD is treatable — and there are plenty of steps you can take to help yourself feel better. Here are five simple ways to take care of your mental health so you can break through the gloom and actually enjoy the season.

Whether you have seasonal Affective Disorder or plain old winter blahs, these ideas can help

With the end of daylight savings time and the longer nights and shorter days of winter, many people may experience symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

SAD is a condition that typically affects people in the colder, darker months. Symptoms may include sadness, moodiness, and a lack of energy that begins in the fall and continues through winter.

As a mental health condition, SAD is more than just feeling down about the cold and gloom of the winter months. It can keep you down and affect your mood for prolonged periods. If you suspect you might have this disorder, consider seeing someone who can help.

There are a number of holistic remedies that can help with symptoms of SAD as well as the common winter blues. Here are some to try: