Health News

If you’ve gotten good at organizing your tasks in a to-do list, but have trouble actually executing them, then you’re not alone. Zen Habits lists some common problems, and how to address them:

“I feel resistance when starting work on something.”

• Tiny chunk. Tell yourself you only have to do 5 minutes of work on it; a small amount of work is less intimidating.
• Just start. Once you get going, it’s much easier to keep going.
• Reward yourself. Don’t let yourself do something fun until you do at least 10 minutes on the task.

“I start, but I get distracted and never finish.”

• Single-task. Just do the one task before you.
• Unplug. Turn off email, feeds, IM, Twitter, and phones while you’re working.
• Clear your desk. Remove the distracting visual clutter.

“I often don’t feel like doing any work at all.”

• Take a walk. A little walk can refresh your mind.
• Exercise. You might feel more motivated when you’re done.
• Find fun stuff to do. See if you can find something that’s fun but still moves you forward on a project.

You might be surprised by the ingredients in a tube of toothpaste.  Toothpaste’s white color alone has 10 or more ingredients, plus enhancers and binders.  First, it uses a mineral powder such as calcium carbonate or aluminum oxide -- which has been linked to Alzheimer’s. Then titanium oxide is added to make the paste whiter.

Gel toothpastes, on the other hand, get their abrasiveness from a compound called silica -- you may be familiar with it; it often comes in little white packets in purses, luggage, or dried food, marked with an extreme warning label telling you not to ingest them.  Detergents are used to make toothpastes foam.

There’s more, according to Teeth Bleaching Planet:

“Then on to the mouthwash substances incorporated in there to make your breath smell good and keep your teeth strong. Plus you have glycerin to prevent the paste from drying out. And let us not forget the formalin, which is a disinfectant to kill bacteria.”

The most dangerous ingredient, however, is the toxic fluoride.  Once in your body, fluoride destroys human enzymes by changing their shape.

For three years, IBM scientists have been developing Watson, the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine. It is designed to be able to understand a question posed in normal speech, and respond with a precise, factual answer.

This is more than what search engines like Google and Bing do -- it has to find the correct answer itself. Software firms have produced question-answering systems for years, but they have been limited to simply phrased questions. Watson, however, was able to handle the format of the game show “Jeopardy!”, even though the clues are puzzling and the breadth of trivia is wide.

The New York Times reports:

“With Watson, IBM claims it has cracked the problem -- and aims to prove as much on national TV. The producers of “Jeopardy!” have agreed to pit Watson against some of the game’s best former players as early as this fall. To test Watson’s capabilities against actual humans, IBM’s scientists began holding live matches last winter.”

And it’s often been winning.

An egg a day most likely won't increase your likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study.

Researchers did not see a significant association between an egg at breakfast and the development of type 2 diabetes in nearly 4,000 older men and women.

According to Reuters:

“While men in the top category of egg consumption, meaning they ate eggs almost daily, were at increased type 2 diabetes risk, this increase wasn't statistically significant, meaning it could have been due to chance ... the current investigation doesn't back any significant relationship between egg consumption and type 2 diabetes.”

A Mediterranean-style diet promotes heart function -- even in men who are normally genetically predisposed to poor heart health.  This means that the autonomic system controlling your heart rate works better if you eat Mediterranean diet or similar diet, no matter what your genes.

In a study, researchers showed that a Mediterranean-style diet is related to higher heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of the time interval between a person’s heart beats.  Low heart rate variability is a risk factor for coronary artery disease.

WebMD reports:

“In order to conduct their analysis, the researchers administered food frequency questionnaires to 276 middle-aged male twins. Diet can influence heart rate variability, but this association can be confounded by environmental and genetic factors. Using twins enabled researchers to examine the influence of diet on heart rate variability while controlling for genetic and other familial influences.”