The Major Benefit of a Vegetarian Diet

Chock this up to one of the many reasons you should make an effort to eat more veggies: A vegetarian (or even flexitarian) diet may help lower your blood pressure, according to a new meta-analysis of more than a century’s worth of clinical trials and observational studies.

Researchers from various universities and medical facilities in Japan and the U.S. teamed up to pore over the vast amount of existing data on the relationship between a vegetarian diet and its effects on blood pressure. In addition to dietary info, researchers looked at study participants’ systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings—i.e., the ratio-like stat your doctor gives you at checkups, measured in millimeters of mercury. (A healthy BP is 120/80.)

Party-Proof Your Diet

By Jan Sheehan

The holidays are a scary time for dieters, but you can stick to your diet though Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here's how to regain control after common seasonal slip-ups -- so you might even lose weight this year.

You drank too much eggnog at the office party. Undo the damage. You can blame your wicked hangover and pounding headache on dehydration and the toxins your body had to release to metabolize all that booze. "Alcohol also increases the secretion of acid in the stomach and irritates the stomach lining," says Robert Swift, MD, PhD, associate director of the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies in Providence. Relieve your misery by eating a piece of toast with honey. Greasy foods, like fried eggs and sausages, will only overtax your irritated digestive system and make it pump out more acid, Dr. Swift says. Honey is an excellent source of fructose, a sugar that research shows may help your body get rid of alcohol's toxins more quickly. Rehydrate with plenty of water and pop an ibuprofen, which was found to relieve aches faster and better than acetaminophen in a study in the journal Headache.

Does the Honey Diet Really Work?

By K. Aleisha Fetters, Women's Health

Forget soothing sore throats. Drinking hot water with lemon and honey can help women lose three pounds a week--at least, according to the aptly named "honey diet."

5 Surprising Sleep Myths & the Truths You Need to Know

It's as much a part of your daily existence as your diet and exercise routine, and yet, even those who prioritize movement and nutrition are a bit misled when it comes to sleep. Much of this in-the-dark behavior stems from a misunderstanding of some of the most important factors affecting your sleep (which, by the way, affects your waistline as well as your performance at work and in the gym). To set the record straight, we asked Equinox advisory board member and sleep expert James B. Maas, Ph.D., author of Sleep for Success!, to dispel five of the most common falsehoods.

New Study Says it Costs Less Than You Think to Eat Healthy

That's the average amount of money a healthy diet costs over an unhealthy one, according to a new study published in the medical journal BMJ Open. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health studied healthy and unhealthy diet patterns in ten wealthy countries and found that across the board, diets rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts, cost more than those heavy in processed foods and refined grains. On average, the healthiest diets came in at $1.50 more per day.