Moderate-to-high intensity exercise such as jogging, swimming or tennis may help reduce stroke risk in older men but not in women, researchers report. The study included almost 3,300 men and women, average age 69, in Manhattan who were followed for about nine years.

Body weight and co-existing health problems don't explain why black colon cancer patients have lower survival rates than whites, U.S. researchers say. In an effort to determine why blacks have lower survival rates than whites for nearly all cancers, including colon cancers, investigators have explored a variety factors, such as differences in health care access, exposure to risk factors and tumor characteristics.

The holiday season means you'll be faced with a seemingly endless buffet of food temptation. While some people simply give in and eat too much, others deny themselves any holiday treats. But there are ways to navigate between overindulgence and deprivation, according to Julie Redfern, manager of Nutrition Consult Services at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

People with an eating disorder may not want to attend a support group or meet with therapists, but a new report raises the prospect that "remote therapies" via e-mail, text messaging or through Web sites could help them recover. In the new report, published online Nov.

Kidney transplant patients with sleep apnea are at increased risk for high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, Hungarian researchers say. The study of 100 kidney transplant recipients found that 25 percent had moderate to severe sleep apnea, a rate similar to that seen in kidney disease patients on dialysis awaiting a transplant.

While rates of obesity are climbing across America, they are especially high in sections of Appalachia and the Southeast, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports in its first county-by-county survey. Obesity and diabetes "are basically the two conditions of greatest concern for U.

Lifelong exercise helps seniors keep their hearts healthy, new research shows. The study included healthy people over age 65 -- without chronic diseases such as diabetes or high blood pressure -- who were recruited from another study in which they'd been reporting their weekly physical activity for the previous 15 to 25 years.

Surging obesity rates, especially among children, may be putting the brakes on progress made in the past few decades against heart disease, researchers report. And it doesn't help that many obese or overweight Americans still consider their weight "normal," as one study found.

Although folic acid fortification of foods can prevent many birth defects, it may also increase the risk for developing cancer, Norwegian researchers report. Since 1998, many countries have mandated folic acid (vitamin B9) fortification of foods to decrease the incidence of neural-tube defects in newborns.

The amount of energy adults expend playing active video games may equal that of moderate-intensity exercise, according to a new study. Japanese researchers measured the metabolic equivalent values (a standard method of estimating energy expenditure) of 12 people ages 25 to 44 as they played Wii sports games and did Wii fitness programs.

A new, inexpensive screening method could help reduce the risk for sudden cardiac death among high school athletes, U.S. researchers report. Athletic trainers at 10 high schools in Houston used a laptop system to perform electrocardiograms (EKGs) on 2,057 student athletes.

Playing high-impact sports might help boost bone mineral density in mature athletes. The finding stemmed from a study of male and female athletes, aged 50 to 93, who took part in the 2005 National Senior Games in Pittsburgh, including 560 who competed in high-impact sports such as basketball, road racing, track and field, triathlon and volleyball.

Inappropriate clothing can limit or prevent young children's outdoor physical activity, a U.S. study has found. Researchers looked at 53 child-care providers from 34 child-care centers in Cincinnati to determine why children's physical activity levels may vary across centers.

Baby boomers in the United States may enter their 60s with far more physical disabilities than previous generations, which could spell trouble for an already overburdened health-care system. That's the finding of University of California, Los Angeles researchers who analyzed data from the 1988 and 1999 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys to identify changes in disability trends among older adults.

Not a big fan of dieting? Join the club. But new research in rats hints at why weight loss is so tough -- perhaps as tough as kicking drug addiction. In the study, rats weaned off a high-calorie diet showed the same effects on the brain as withdrawing from drugs and alcohol.

When it comes to teaching healthy behaviors, boys' high school team sports might be doing more harm than thought. New research suggests that for teenage boys, participation in team sports may encourage unruly behavior such as fighting and binge drinking.

To get down to a healthy weight, obese and overweight people often struggle to cut their daily caloric intake by a necessary 15 percent to 40 percent. But new research suggests that a twist on alternate-day fasting may make dieting easier to tolerate and boost heart health to boot.

Eating a Westernized diet with lots of sugar and carbohydrates caused almost instantaneous changes in the gut flora of mice -- changes that caused the mice to become obese, researchers have found. These shifts in the microbial environment, reported in the Nov.

Highlighting the importance of staying fit in old age, a French study has found that seniors who walk slowly are three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than are fast walkers. The researchers measured the walking speed of the participants -- 3,208 men and women, ages 65 to 85 -- and collected medical and demographic information on them at the start of the study.

While there are plenty of good reasons to avoid obesity in your teens, a new study now suggests that extra weight in adolescence may increase your risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) later. Reporting in the Nov. 10 issue of Neurology, Harvard researchers found that being obese at age 18 more than doubles a woman's risk of developing MS later in life compared to her slimmer peers.

Obesity is a major risk factor for left atrial enlargement, which increases the risk of atrial fibrillation, stroke and death, a new study shows. Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of arrhythmia (an irregular heart rhythm or heartbeat). Researchers analyzed data on 1,212 men and women, aged 25 to 74, in Germany who were followed for 10 years.

Both a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet such as the popular Atkins program and a low-fat, high-carb diet appear to help people lose pounds over the course of a year. But as for mood? Only the low-fat diets will result in long-term improvement in mood, according to a study in the Nov.

Simple measures such as starting a walking group or creating pedestrian-friendly routes can encourage people to walk more, a new study has found. At a multicultural housing site in Seattle, researchers implemented and evaluated several interventions meant to increase residents' walking, including sponsoring walking groups, improving walking routes, offering information about walking options and advocating for pedestrian safety.

New research sheds light on the possible link between the genes you inherit and the size of your belly. Participants in a French study doubled their risk of having fat around the abdomen if they had a certain genetic trait, and the more of these traits one had, the greater the risk for a pot belly.

If you want to lose weight, exercise and diet are crucial. But a new study says other factors appear to play a role, too -- including the number of TVs in your house and the presence of exercise equipment. "The home environment really came out as a stronger factor than we would have anticipated," Suzanne Phelan, assistant professor of kinesiology at California Polytechnic State University and lead author of the new study, said in a news release.