Good sleep patterns can help men live longer – but women will only benefit if they also have a diverse diet, a new study shows.The Monash University-led collaborative study found that women who ate a varied diet that included sources rich in vitamin B6 could still live long lives despite poor sleep habits.

Title: Health Tip: Eating a Vegetarian Diet
Category: Health News
Created: 2/4/2014 7:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 2/4/2014 12:00:00 AM

In a strange turn of life imitating art–the art in this case being the 2000 movie Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks–a fisherman who went missing just over a year ago turned up on the shores of the Marshall Islands. His identity hasn’t been confirmed yet, but authorities in the Marshall Islands believe Jose Salvador Alvarenga was adrift at sea for 13 months after setting off from the Mexican village of Chiapas in late 2012. He left in a 24-foot fishing boat in search of sharks with the teenaged son of a friend. According to Alvarenga, the boy couldn’t stomach the diet of birds and turtles that Alvarenga had to eat, and died of starvation. As officials try to verify Alvarenga’s identity and his story, medical experts are also struggling to make sense of what is either a remarkable story of survival and fortitude, or a strange tale of a madman.

New research recently published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that individuals who consume high amounts of added sugar in their diet may be at increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease.According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the average American consumes around 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day – the equivalent to an extra 350 calories.

Around half of Britons don’t recognise the importance of diet in protecting against cancer, demonstrating that many of the myths about the disease are still widely believed.The YouGov poll commissioned by World Cancer Research Fund for World Cancer Day found that 49 per cent do not know that diet affects people’s risk of getting cancer.

Researchers found the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) is able to detect 79 percent of colorectal cancers without making people change their diets or stop taking their medications, as some other screening tests require. “It’s more user friendly for the patient,” Dr. Jeffrey Lee told Reuters Health. Lee, from the University of California, San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, led the analysis. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Most U.S. adults are eating too much sugar and that’s linked to an increased risk of dying from heart disease, according to a new government study. What’s more, participants who got more than the recommended amount of calories from added sugar were more likely to die of heart disease, compared to those who typically got less added sugar. “We know cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S.,” Quanhe Yang told Reuters Health. “There are a lot of risk factors for cardiovascular disease.