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Varicose veins are painful, unsightly, and sometimes require surgical intervention. They are most common in women and frequently brought on by pregnancy, however genetics and lifestyle factors are also relevant.

Veins pump blood back to the heart, which means that leg veins are tasked with pumping blood upward, against gravity. Veins have natural leaflet valves to keep the blood moving in the right direction; in varicose veins, however, problems with the leaflets allow some of the blood to flow backwards, resulting in discomfort.

Let’s take a look at some of the lifestyle changes you can make to prevent varicose veins:

Sit and stand with care. To promote better circulation, maintain good posture and avoid crossing your legs when seated. Your circulation suffers when you sit or stand for a long time, so take frequent breaks to stretch your legs.

Invest in compression hose. Compression hose and socks are available both over-the-counter and by a doctor’s prescription. They apply pressure to the lower legs to help your veins pump blood upward toward the heart.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle. Easier said than done, we know, but keeping your weight down and activity level up have been shown to decrease your risk of developing varicose veins. Doctors recommend low-impact exercises like swimming, cycling, and walking.

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WebMD has an interesting slideshow up about foods with high sodium contents, plus advice on how to make these foods healthier. We’ve summarized some of the most helpful tips below.

Canned Veggies: Canned vegetables are intermingled with sodium-rich preservatives, so WebMD recommends rinsing before serving, or just buying fresh.

Cereal: Even otherwise healthy cereals like raisin bran and corn flakes are often loaded with sodium, whereas puffed rice and wheat cereals never have any sodium. If you don’t like the taste, try combining puffed cereal and regular cereal in a one-to-one ratio.

Chips: Potato chips and other bagged snacks usually contain high amounts of sodium. Plus, baked chips, although healthy for other reasons, often feature unhealthy sodium concentrations.

Marinades/Flavorings: Teriyaki and soy sauce are two of the most notoriously high-sodium flavorings available – even their low-sodium versions are still pretty high. For an alternative, try lemon juice or vinegar, or pineapple or orange juice for your marinating needs.

All that being said, sodium isn’t all bad! In fact, it helps the body balance its fluids, allowing the nerves and muscles to operate at full capacity.

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Although sometimes treated as synonyms, cold and flu symptoms are very different. For one thing, cold symptoms tend to last only a couple of days, while flu symptoms can stick around for weeks. The flu can also lead to more serious conditions, including pneumonia. A cold can be caused by any of hundreds of viruses, but the seasonal flu is always the result of Influenza A or B.

Cold symptoms: sore throat, runny nose, congestion, cough, fever (unlikely).

Flu symptoms: sore throat, headache, fever, muscle aches, cough, congestion. (The Swine flu may also cause vomiting and diarrhea.)

There’s obviously some overlap here, but if you have a fever or are sick for more than a few days, it’s usually the flu.

For more help, take this quick quiz on WebMD.

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When’s the last time you ate a pomegranate? Although less common than apples and oranges, these seedy fruits are loaded with health benefits. Check it out:

Antioxidants. Pomegranate juice offers almost three times the antioxidants in red wine or green tea. These can protect against cell damage, which is associated with a number of diseases including cancer. Antioxidants from pomegranates can also lower bad cholesterol.

Heart health. Pomegranate juice has been shown to fight the hardening of the arteries (linked to heart attacks and strokes, among other problems) and increase blood flow to the heart.

Combat osteoarthritis. Research suggests that pomegranate extract can prevent the degradation of cartilage, in addition to supporting healthy joints.

Fight prostate cancer. A study found that men with prostate cancer who drank a glass of pomegranate juice a day had fewer complications from the disease. In fact, none of the juice-drinkers’ cancer spread to other areas of the body.

Nutrition. A single pomegranate contains 40 percent of the vitamin C an adult needs every day, as well as significant amounts of fiber, folic acid, niacin, potassium, and vitamins A and E.

Inhibit breast cancer. Research in Israel discovered that pomegranate seed oil kills breast cancer cells while leaving normal cells intact.

Picture via globetrotter1937‘s Flickr.

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Cheers! According to WebMD, a study that followed over 19,000 women for about 13 years found that those who consumed one or two drinks a day were 30 percent less likely to gain weight. This statistic held up even when scientists considered other weight-gain factors like smoking and exercise.

At the beginning of the study, the women were all 39 or older, and none of them were overweight.

Another project by Texas Tech University in 2005 found that moderate drinkers of both genders were less likely to become obese. However, consuming more than four drinks a day and binge drinking were linked to becoming overweight or obese.

Of course, correlation does not imply causation. Scientists don’t know whether alcohol has certain biological implications to prevent weight gain, or whether moderate drinkers simply tend to follow healthier lifestyles.

In other words, you shouldn’t start drinking because of this study, but if you already consume one or two drinks a day, keep up the good work!

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Although many women rely on birth control pills on a daily basis, many do not know what to do if they miss one or more pills. For the most effective birth control, you should take your pill every day and at about the same time. Still, it’s easy to forget a pill every once in a while, and you should know what to do should that occur.

If you miss one pill: Take your birth control as soon as you realize you missed it. It’s okay to take two bills in one day if you don’t remember until the next day.

If you miss two pills: Take the first missed pill as soon as you remember, but don’t take the second missed pill until the next day.

If you miss more than two pills: Consult the doctor or practitioner who wrote your prescription.

If you miss a placebo pill: Throw out the missing pill. You don’t have to worry about getting pregnant, since the pills you take at the end of your cycle do not contain any active ingredients.

No matter how many active pills you miss, doctors recommend relying on backup birth control until you start a new pack.

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Although antidepressants have helped thousands of people manage their depression, finding the right drug (or drug combination) for you can be a challenging task.

Many cases of depression are thought to be caused by deficiencies in any of three chemicals in the brain: serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Some patients might only require medication addressing one of these chemicals, while others need to manage two of them, or even all three.

Psychiatrists almost always begin by prescribing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) including Prozac, Paxil, Lexapro, and Zoloft. These pills block the reuptake of serotonin, thus allowing the brain to benefit from the chemical for longer amounts of time without actually increasing the quantity of serotonin produced. SSRIs are generally mild in terms of side effects, although sexual side effects (loss of libido) are a problem for some patients.

If you try several SSRIs and still feel depressed, your doctor might start you on a different class of drugs called serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), which work like SSRIs, except that they target both serotonin and norepinephrine. These include Cymbalta, Effexor, and Ixel.

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Soda drinkers are very passionate people. Coke vs. Pepsi. Brown vs. Clear. Sugar vs. Diet.

In the latter category, pro-diet drinkers maintain that diet soda is just (or nearly) as delectable and caffeinated as its sugary brethren, however it’s calorie free, which can add up to hundreds of saved cals each day.

Anti-diet people, however, claim that diet soda is either tasteless or – worse – harmful to your health. We can’t account for taste, but we did take a look at the reported danger of diet soda. Read on for the potential risks.

It could make you… gain weight? Amazingly, diet soda might accomplish an effect opposite of what its name implies. Scientists report that faux-sugar drinks might increase some people’s cravings for sugar overall, which can make that willpower harder to rein in.

It could actually be dangerous. Maybe. The FDA disagrees, but some scientists have connected the consumption of the sweetener aspartame (used in diet soda) to lymphoma and brain tumors in rodents.

It’s definitely not your healthiest option. Even if diet soda isn’t actively sabotaging your diet (or body), it lacks the nutritional and/or cleansing abilities of water, tea, and low-calorie juice.

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Hey fitness fans! If you’re looking for luscious rock hard abs, or just to reduce back pain with a stronger core, it doesn’t get any better (or faster) than 8 Minute Abs. You can watch this classic video right on YouTube (or even here on Healthize). So go ahead and get crunchin’!

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There are plenty of reasons to have sex, but improving your health usually isn’t one of them. But scientists have found that getting it on can benefit your body in a number of ways.

So, what can sex do for you?

• Sex reduces stress. Sex actually decreases your blood pressure, particularly in stressful situations like public speaking.
• Sex improves immunity. People who have sex at least once a week have higher levels of the antibody immunoglobulin A, which helps prevents colds and other types of infection.
• Sex works you out. Every 30 minutes you spend having sex adds up to at least 85 calories burned. And it’s more fun than the elliptical machine.
• Sex boosts heart health. Men who have sex at least twice a week are half as likely to suffer a fatal heart attack than those other unfortunate souls.
• Sex raises self esteem. Sex doesn’t just make you feel better; it makes you feel better about yourself.

That’s all for today — check out part two of this list tomorrow!

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