Boost Your Mood with Frankincense

Feeling a little blue or anxious? Try burning frankincense to give yourself a lift.

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have found that a compound in frankincense resin, called incensole acetate, activates the production of a protein--specifically, TRPV3--that affects the brain and works to lower anxiety and alleviate depression.

While inhaling the smoke offers the most immediate effect, you can also try putting a few drops of frankincense essential oil in almond oil or another carrier oil and dabbing it on your wrist.

The recent study appears online in The FASEB Journal.

Exercising an Hour a Day is Key to Weight Loss

If you want to lose 10 percent of your body weight and keep it off, then you need to exercise almost an hour a day, five days a week, claims a University of Pittsburgh study.

Confirming that exercise is essential for weight loss, the research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that a 55-minute workout was the minimum required to maintain a 10 percent drop in weight.

Researchers observed 200 overweight and obese women over a four-year period and told them to eat between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day. They were randomly assigned one of four different exercise programs, which varied in intensity and physical activity.

After six months, all of the study participants lost up to 10% of their body weight--however, only those who exercised about 275 minutes a week were able to successfully keep it off. The rest couldn't maintain the weight reduction.

Photo Credit: Mike Baird (Wikimedia Commons)

Strengthen Brittle Nails with Biotin

If strong, long nails seem like an impossible dream because yours peel and split before they have a chance to really sprout, increasing your biotin intake may be your ticket to beautiful hands.

This B vitamin helps with the production of a strong protein called keratin, which is a major component of nails.

While the recommended daily allowance for biotin is only 30 mcg a day, Natural Solutions reported this month that most studies linking biotin to increased nail strength used considerably more. The magazine cited two studies where one found that participants taking 2,500 mcg of biotin a day had a 25 percent increase in thickness. The other study found that 63 percent of people taking the same dose of biotin showed improvement after six months.

The magazine reported that biotin has not been found to be toxic at high doses because the body eliminates any it doesn't use.

Of course, simply adding biotin-rich foods to your diet may also do the trick. The best sources are egg yolks, soy, avocado and peanuts.

Final word: Have patience. It may take six months to see a difference.

Whole-Wheat Bread Not Really a Healthier Option

So you thought that eating whole-wheat bread was a healthier option than white, right? Well, a new study totally blows away the belief that the "browner" the bread, the better it is for you.

Researchers at Canada's University of Guelph compared how people responded to eating certain breads for breakfast. Specifically, they looked at: white, whole wheat, whole wheat with barley and sourdough white breads.

"One of the surprising things in our work is that whole-wheat products turned out to have the least healthy responses of all, and this is not what we expected," said Prof. Terry Graham in an article reported by The Canadian Press.

Graham and his research team specifically looked at the effects of the bread on study participants' blood sugar levels. They tested subjects after eating bread for breakfast and again after eating a regular lunch.

Sourdough had the most favorable impact on blood sugar levels, keeping them lower and not spiking insulin levels.

Most surprisingly, the whole wheat fared worse on blood sugar levels than regular white bread--even the whole wheat with barley wasn't better.

Graham credits sourdough's benefits to the fermentation process it goes through, which changes the nature of the starches in the bread.

The study did not include whole-grain bread, which is a healthy option. It can be confusing trying to select a loaf of whole-grain bread over whole wheat so make sure your bread label reads "100% whole grain" or pick up a loaf to make sure it's heavy and dense. Whole-wheat bread, like white bread, tends to be light and fluffy.