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TIME: 2 hours 10 minutes SERVINGS: 6 2½ lb sweet potatoes, scrubbed ¾ c chopped pecans 3 Tbsp brown sugar¼ tsp ground cinnamon PREHEAT oven to 375°F.2. PLACE potatoes on rimmed baking sheet. Bake 1 to 1½ hours, depending on size, until soft when squeezed with a gloved hand. Let cool slightly and then halve. Scoop insides into medium bowl (discard skin). Mash with potato masher until smooth. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, if desired....

Stuff your stocking with tangerines Load latkes with sweet potatoes to beat heart disease Grace your buffet with collard greens

This year the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases (NFID) is out ahead of the flu season. Yesterday’s conference in Washington D.C. was all about vaccination. There are now more options than ever before, with a vaccine that is four times more potent for the elderly, an additional flu strain covered in a quadrivalent vaccine, and even a cell-based vaccine for egg allergy sufferers. With 135 million doses already available, the key is compliance, according to NFID....

Book an appointment to open wide and say ahh now, because visiting the dentist might help more than just your pearly whites. People who have their teeth cleaned at least once a year have a lower risk of heart attck and stroke, according to a study from Taiwan. For seven years, the study followed about 100,000 people with no previous history of heart attacks or strokes. Those who regularly had their teeth scraped and cleaned by a dentist or dental hygienist were found to have a 24% lower risk of heart attack and 13% lower risk of stroke compared to those who never visited the dentist for a cleaning....

If matcha really is the “hot new cult” of the food world, why not add it to brownies? These treats are slightly more bitter than sweet, so if you are a dark chocolate person, this dessert is totally for you. Matcha adds an intriguing, unexpected bite that I really like. If you’ve cooked with the green tea powder before and you love the taste, then go ahead and add two tablespoons, but if you are hesitant, then just add one....

Here’s what the fuss was about: Grapefruit juice, whether commercially processed or fresh squeezed, is digested with the same enzyme that helps break down certain medications in the liver. Medical experts believed that if those enzymes are too busy digesting grapefruit juice, they wouldn’t have enough time to break down the drugs and could result in too much medication in your system. But after reviewing a collection of research spanning 24 years, David Greenblatt, MD, and his coauthors realized the theory was creating unnecessary worry....

Don’t make these medical mistakes Ignore your prescription labels? Skip a dose here and there? This kind of behavior could be costing you your health, finds new Michigan State University research. The good news: We called in to experts to see what you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to taking meds. Natural depression fixes We know depression isn’t a quick fix, but have you really tried everything you can to feel better?...

A better way to fight that cold The jig’s up, vitamin D supplements. We know you don’t cure the common cold, thanks to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. While there is no cure-all for the sniffly season, here are natural ways to stave off cold and flu. Click this, raise hope In honor of breast cancer awareness month, the non-profit METAvivor, which raises money for metastatic breast cancer (MBC) research, and pharmaceutical company Eisai, Inc....

For the past three decades, dietary conventional wisdom has been to eat a low-fat (high-carbohydrate) diet in order to best manage your weight, lower your cholesterol, reduce your blood pressure, and improve overall health. However, surprising results coming out of modern-day research labs are challenging many of these long-held beliefs regarding what constitutes a healthy diet. It’s beginning to look like we’ve been careening down the wrong path all this time, and what you think you know about dietary fat and diabetes, in particular, may be quite a bit off the mark....

Because of all these varied issues that both enhance and complicate the practice of eating, you can at times feel at risk of diet derailment. When restaurant portions are huge, party fare is high-calorie, and you’re constantly surrounded by temptations to abandon your efforts, you can sometimes feel like you must make a choice between being lean and healthy or having a social life. You’re not alone with this dilemma: socializing has been estimated to be one of the top reasons people eventually fail on a diet....

Lemon Torte with Raspberry Sorbet Recipe by Marie Simmons Work Time: 35 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes + freezing time Servings: 12 3 lg eggs, separated 3 egg whites 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 c + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar 1/4 c canola oil 2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest 1/2 tsp lemon extract 2 tsp vanilla extract, divided 2 Tbsp cornstarch 1/4 c + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour 3 Tbsp raspberry 100% fruit spread, warmed 2 pt raspberry sorbet, softened 1 pt reduced-fat sour cream 1/3 c confectioners’ sugar 2 Tbsp sliced natural almonds 1/2 pt raspberries Preheat oven to 350°F....

So how can you be sure get the best protection? Eat more fatty fish. But if you’re not ready for that, we’ve found a great new product that lets you eat omega-3s in yummy desserts, breakfast smoothies, and other treats. No kidding. Flaxseed or Fish Burps Up to now, if you didn’t like fish, you had two primary ways to get omega-3s. You could eat plant foods such as flaxseed, canola oil, and walnuts, which are rich in a form of omega-3 fat called alpha-linolenic acid....

Surprised? Not exactly. The last thing you’d deduce from this imaginary experiment is that ibuprofen doesn’t help with headaches. But that’s basically what researchers suggested about needle and laser acupuncture’s effect on chronic knee pain in a new JAMA study. In the clinical trial, 282 adults age 50 and older with chronic knee pain were randomly assigned to needle or laser acupuncture treatments or a sham laser acupuncture treatment. After 12 weeks, participants who received the acupuncture reported modest improvements in pain....

THYME How’s this for herbal power? Researchers from Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK found that topical applications of thyme are more effective for treating acne than standard creams containing benzoyl peroxide—without the irritating side effects. These mighty little leaves were shown to begin killing pore-clogging bacteria in just five minutes. Reap thyme’s anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial benefits by whipping up this Banana Thyme Mask from Jasmina Aganovic, creator of the anti-aging skincare line Stages of Beauty....

[sidebar]If your lips are naked while your eyes and cheeks are made up, you will look like you forgot you had a mouth when applying your makeup. For the sake of balance, remember lipstick. Types of Lipstick There are vast differences among lipsticks. Lipstick colors and textures can vary even within the same cosmetics line. Some lipsticks are creamy; others are dry, greasy, shiny, or flat. Some melt easily; others go on stickily, smearily, evenly, thickly, thinly, and all combinations thereof....

Here are 15 ways to raise your HDL or lower your LDL (the bad cholesterol) today. The best part: Doing so will literally cost you peanuts—or even less. Eat more nuts In an analysis of 25 different studies on walnuts, pecans, almonds, peanuts, pistachios, and macadamia nuts, researchers at Loma Linda University found that eating 67 grams of nuts per day—that’s a little more than two ounces—increased the ratio of HDL to LDL in the blood by 8....

“Once a tick crawls on you, it is looking for a safe, warm place to attach,” explains Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, an entomologist at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Some will attach immediately. Once that happens, the transfer of disease organisms can begin. While some diseases take a few hours to a day to transfer, Powassan virus, which is somewhat rare but deadly, can be transmitted within minutes.” Still, Lyme disease—which is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi that spreads to humans through a bite from an infected blacklegged tick—accounted for 82 percent of reported tick-borne diseases between 2004 and 2016, per the CDC....

Get acclimated. Don’t shock your body by trying to do too much too soon when the temperature’s hot—your body needs time to adjust to the heat. Start out with a certain distance and pace, and increase as you go. Plan your workouts. Plan your walks for early morning or evening and not during peak sunshine hours when temperatures are the hottest. Stay cool in your clothes. Wear light moisture-wicking clothes—and not cotton—so your clothes repel moisture and don’t stick to you....