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In fact, the number one reason people call the ASPCA’s Poison Control Center is due to pets consuming their owner’s meds. The biggest medicine mishaps include giving human meds to a pet, dropping pills on the floor, or leaving pills unguarded within paws’ reach. More from Prevention: How To Choose The Right Vet “Just like with children, always store your medication where your pets cannot reach it because unlike children, dogs will chew right through those bottles and eat whatever is inside,” warns Tina Wismer, DVM, medical director at the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center....

Scientists at the Ecology Center bought the 36 most popular cell phones and smartphones dating back to 2007, and tested them for a variety of hazardous materials, such as lead, mercury, cadmium, heavy metals, and chlorine. The verdict? There wasn’t a single phone that was 100% free of hazardous materials, says Jeff Gearhart, research director at the Ecology Center. “These are very chemical-intensive products,” he says. “Overall, the industry seems to be improving,” he adds, but “there’s still a lot we need to do to reduce the overall lifecycle impacts....

Do you hear other people who continually have a “woe is me” attitude? Do they feel old? My 8-year-old granddaughter and I had a discussion of what it means to be old, and I realized we were two worlds apart. To her, it meant someone who looks worn out. I told her two things. First, some people are old at 20. Second, oldness happens when a person loses sight of dreams, regardless of the number of years they have lived....

Consider a milk carton. No matter what you do to change its shape—switch the spout to the other side, round the corners, cut off the top—you know that what’s inside is milk. Not apple juice, not vegetable soup, but milk. But somehow we don’t know that changing how we look on the outside—shedding pounds or cinching in our waists a few inches—doesn’t change what we are, either. We mistakenly believe that altering our bodies will fix everything....

The cause of your animal allergies may seem simple, but it’s probably a bit more complicated than you think. “The hair is what people see, so that’s what they expect to be allergic to,” says Robert M. Zuckerman, MD, an allergist and immunologist and associate professor of medicine at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University in Hershey. In reality, a protein secreted by the sebaceous (oil- producing) glands and released with the dog’s dander (dead skin cells) and saliva is the culprit....

[sidebar]Your doctor might advise to buy one of the over-the-counter products that is taken before eating dairy that aids in digestion. Or she might suggest that you cut dairy out of your diet. Either way, you might just start feeling better. But don’t forget: If you start eliminating dairy, you must find other ways of satisfying your body’s need for calcium. Drink milk made expressly for people with lactose intolerance, or try yogurt....

[sidebar]The music and chocolate left most people’s moods unchanged; alcohol and TV gave a slight lift (1%), but the winner by a long shot was viewing pictures, which made people feel 11% better. To keep your spirits high, why not… Enjoy a slide show: Upload your favorite shots to your computer and set them as a rotating screen saver. Try an iFrame: For a more decorative display, splurge on a frame that will display your digital pictures, such as the PhotoShare 7-Inch Digital Photo Album ($100; www....

[sidebar]People whose diets were highest in salt had twice the risk of developing subcapsular cataracts, the most serious kind of cataract, compared to those who ate low-sodium diets. Earlier studies have suggested the same sodium/cataracts link. To protect your vision, take the time to shop for chips and other foods marked “low-sodium,” “reduced sodium,” and “no salt added.” More from Prevention: 5 Delicious Low-Salt Dinners

A man crippled by ALS is able to walk unaided again. A woman speeding toward blindness gets a chance to recover her sight. Decades after stem cells were first hyped as the fix for all our ailments, trials in people are finally showing promise. But it’s the results in animals that herald the exciting things to come. The human goal: End blindnessThe animal milestone: Pigs get new retinas.Transplanted stem cells successfully merged with pigs’ retinal cells, suggesting that we someday may succeed in curing blindness caused by damaged retinas....

You’ve put on some pounds. It happens. And it’s okay. So often we’re bombarded with things we must start to do to lose weight stat. But what about all the things you’re already doing that may be adding to the problem? As much as I hate to come from a place of “don’ts”, here’s a list of things it’s a good idea not to do when you’ve gained weight....

Larysa’s answer: Ah, the desired round and lifted derriere…songwriters have been writing about it for just as long as women have been working for it. Unfortunately, as we get older, the perfect butt gets tougher to have and hold onto. As we age, fat naturally atrophies and the skin can become loose, making the butt appear as if it’s sagging. As skin and fat change, cellulite becomes more apparent. Plus, we lose an average of 5% of muscle mass every 10 years after the age of 35, which also affects the shape of your rear....

Look for the Leaping Bunny label. It means that the product you’re buying wasn’t tested on animals. Note: you’ll still have to refer to the label to learn whether or not the product in question is vegan or vegetarian. Check the company out online before you buy. Most lines that make vegetarian or vegan products are pretty proud of the fact and make a point of it on their websites....

It’s easy to feel like you don’t have control over your breakouts. In fact, you do in most cases, says Mandy Epley, a master clinical facialist at Jillian Wright Clinical Skin Spa in New York, who specializes in converting challenging skin into glowing complexions. Acne is a “tremendously embarrassing and burdensome problem” for about half of the women who book time in her treatment room. “Many attribute their acne to oily skin, food allergies, or say it’s hereditary....

Keeping blood sugar steady is an important tool for preventing insulin spikes, which can lock fat into your cells and prevent it from being used for energy. The substance in our diet that’s most responsible for these blood sugar surges is starch. But the good news is you can blunt the blood sugar-raising effects by taking advantage of natural substances in foods—like fiber in fruits and veggies—that slow carbohydrate digestion and entry into the bloodstream....

The study team conducted brain scans of roughly 600 older adults, 141 of whom had the types of mild memory or thinking problems commonly associated with the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Among those who’d suffered a concussion severe enough to cause loss of memory or consciousness and who also showed signs of cognitive decline, levels of a type of brain plaque called “amyloid” were 18% higher than among people who’d never suffered a concussion....

For the uninitiated, here’s what happens when women visit the gynecologist: their legs go up in stirrups and the doctor looks at the genitals before inserting a speculum into the vagina to examine the cervix. (If a woman is getting a Pap smear, cervical cells are gently scraped off with a Q-tip-like tool.) Then, the doctor places one hand inside the vagina and the other on the abdomen and feels for anything that isn’t right on the ovaries and uterus....

To test whether fake laughs are distinguishable from the real thing, UCLA researchers recorded spontaneous laughs between friends, as well as fake laughs. It turns out that you’re probably only convincing people with a fake laugh one-third of the time. When people let out a disingenuous chuckle, differences in speed and breathing make it more obvious that they’re faking it. MORE: The Depressing Thing That Makes Divorce More Likely “Quite a few fake laughs sound pretty good, but listeners seem to pay attention to certain acoustic features that are really hard to fake,” said study author Greg Bryant, an associate professor of communication studies at UCLA in a statement....

Knee pain caused by osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common cause of chronic disability among older adults. But only half of OA sufferers who take medication report even modest levels of pain relief, and they don’t always experience improved knee function or mobility. A team of researchers from Wake Forest University took on the challenge to find out whether lifestyle changes might produce better results—and they did. After a group of OA sufferers exercised three days a week while eating a balanced diet designed for weight loss for 18 months, pain levels fell by roughly 45% among the study participants....