For a better workout, drink two cups of coffee prior to it.

According to the British Coffee Association, caffeine before a workout will make you more alert, improve your motor skills, give you renewed vigor, increase your output level and help you be more persistent.  Plus you'll be able to perform 30% longer.

The caffeine reduces the chemical messages in your brain that normally induce fatigue and instead stimulates energy production and fat oxidation.

Having said that, there are also negative effects related to caffeine such as insomnia, anxiety, headaches, heart palpitations and high blood pressure.

So how much caffeine per day will keep you free from the negative effects?

Most health experts recommend that you have no more than 400 milligrams a day.

One cup of coffee contains approximately 100 mg so you should drink no more than 4 cups of coffee each day.

Mind you that's four cups of coffee if during your day you don't drink a soft drink (a 12 fl oz (368 g) has 29 mg of caffeine) or an energy drink (a Five Hour Energy Drink has 200 mg of caffeine; a 10 Hour Energy Shot has 422 mg of caffeine).

When it comes to coffee, you should drink coffee one hour before your morning or lunchtime exercise (if you exercise in the afternoon or evening, a coffee with lunch will suffice).

Note:  It's recommended that pregnant women consume no more than 200 mg of caffeine per day (or about two cups of coffee).

Quote: - "I like coffee because it gives me the illusion that I might be awake." - Lewis Black

Why is there so much confusion over whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable?

When you type "tomato definition" into Google it comes up with the following definition...

"A glossy red, or occasionally yellow, pulpy edible fruit that is typically eaten as a vegetable or in salad."

The main reason why it's classified as a fruit is that it's "pulpy" and has edible seeds.

Often when we think of a tomato our minds automatically classifies it as a "vegetable."

But here's the thing...

Under the definition of "edible seeds, "squash, cucumbers, green beans, corn kernels, eggplants, and peppers are also labelled as fruits.

One of the reasons why we've come to think of these fruits as vegetables is that we generally consider fruits as being sweet and vegetables as being "not sweet."

But there's another reason that may just be at the heart of all this "tomato fruit or vegetable issue."

It involves a man by the name of John Nix.  And another man by the name of John Nix.  And George Nix and Frank Nix.

In the United States the Tariff Act of March 3rd 1883 called for a tax to be paid on all imported vegetables, but not fruit.

The Nix boys (rightly so) considered the tomato to be a fruit.  But the government was classifying it as a vegetable and taxing it accordingly.

So they brought suit against Edward L Heeden, the Collector of the Port Of New York.

They wanted to recover all duties they had paid up to that point.

It turned into a battle of the dictionary definitions.  And not surprisingly the government's dictionary won.  From 1893's Nix v Hedden decision onward, for custom purposes, the tomato has been classified as a vegetable.

In 2005, the state of New Jersey made the tomato its official state vegetable citing Nix v Hedden as a reference point.

A way for elderly men to lower their risk of death by 40%.

Research recently published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that thirty minutes of physical activity a day, six days a week lowered the risk of death in elderly men by 40%.  The intensity of the activity did not matter.

The initial health check of the study participants was in 1972/73.  All 15,000 men who took part were born between 1923 and 1932.

During that year, 2,000 the participants who were still living were monitored for almost 12 years.  Of the 5,738 who took part in both health checks, 2,154 died over the course of the 12 years.

Here's they found:

-Less than half an hour a week of light physical activity was not associated with a lowered risk of death from any cause.

-But more than an hour a week was linked to a 32% to 56% lowered risk of death. 

-Less than an hour of vigorous physical activity, on the other hand, was linked to a reduction in risk of between 23% and 37% for cardiovascular disease and death from any cause.

-The more time spent doing vigorous exercise; the lower the risk seemed to be -- falling between 36% and 49%.

-Men who regularly engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity during their leisure time lived five years longer, on average, than those who were classified as sedentary.

Overall, the study showed that 30 minutes of physical activity--of light or vigorous intensity--6 days a week was associated with a 40% lower risk of death from any cause.

Researchers pointed out that the impact of exercise on this age group is similar to the improvement in their health if they quit smoking.

Quote:                                                                                                      

"Even if you're ill, physical activity at a lower level will help you beat it." - Dr. Jim Loehr

Two things that have the power to extend your life by 11 to 14 years.

There are five regions in the world where people live abnormally long.  They are Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; and Ikaria, Greece. 

Explorer and author Dan Buettner dubbed them "the blue zones" and wrote a book titled as such.  In April of this year, he released a follow-up book called The Blue Zone Solution which examined what the long-living people in the blue zones eat that makes them so healthy.

One food that was eaten in every blue zone was beans.  Buettner concludes that if you eat one cup of beans each day there's a good chance you will live three to four years longer.

"They [beans] push out the unhealthy proteins, they're great and affordable and they set up the gut flora for healthy digestion," says Buettner.

Other common denominators in the blue zone diet were that 90 percent of people's calories came from plants and 65 percent of their diet was made up of complex carbohydrates (Complex carbohydrates commonly are found in whole plant foods, which are generally high in vitamins and minerals.  Some food sources of complex carbohydrates are: green vegetables, whole grains, starchy vegetables, beans, lentils and peas).

The other secret to a long life that Buettner uncovered was not food-related.  The people who lived longer all lived their life with a sense of purpose.

“It’s not something we generally talk about, because no one makes money off it, but a vocabulary for purpose is essential.  Studies show people who articulate purpose live eight to 10 years longer, and have half the rates of dementia,” he says.

Quote:

"What allows us, as human beings, to psychologically survive life on earth, with all of its pain, drama, and challenges, is a sense of purpose and meaning." - Relationship consultant Barbara de Angelis

Potentially good news if you suffer from allergies.

Worldwide it's estimated that between 10% and 30% of the population suffer from Allergic Rhinitis.   (Allergic Rhinitis is associated with symptoms that affect the nose.)  But that's only one category of allergy.  People are also allergic to food, insects, drugs and so on.

If you suffer from allergies or know somebody who does, you'll be interested to learn about research out of Montreal's Children's Hospital of the McGill University Heath Centre in Quebec, Canada.

According to Dr. Christine McCusker, a potential way to prevent allergies is using a molecule called STAT6.   The premise was that if they could inhibit STAT6 they could reduce the symptoms of allergic airways disease such as asthma in allergic animals.  To do so, her research team developed an inhibitor called STAT6-IP.

"What's beautiful about our approach is that you do not have to couple it with a specific allergen, you only use this peptide [a peptide is a naturally occurring biological molecule.]  It just redirects the immune system away from the allergic response and then it will not matter if the child is exposed to pollen, cats or dogs, because the immune system will not form an aggressive allergic reaction anymore," says Dr. McCusker.

She adds that "In subjects who have the propensity to develop allergies, their system has made the 'wrong' decision somewhere along the line.  It is like educating the immune system to follow the path we want it to follow."

So far it's only been successful on mice.  The next step is see if it can educate the immune system to proven other types of allergies such as food.  And then move onto clinical trials using humans.

Quote:

" I think once I made up my mind that I was allergic to alcohol, and that's what I learned, it made sense to me. And I think it was kind of pointed out that you know if you were allergic to strawberries, you wouldn't eat strawberries. And that made sense to me." - Betty Ford