Are you addicted to food? It's not about willpower, read to find out.

Have you ever heard a friend exclaim that a certain dessert – flourless chocolate cake, say – is “totally addictive”? For some people, this is just a breezy exaggeration. They mean that they liked the cake very much and perhaps ate more than they meant to. But for other people, chocolate cake is addictive in a more literal sense. Perhaps you can relate to feeling out of control around certain...

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E-Cigarettes: Are they safe and effective? Whats the real story?

E-Cigarettes: Are they safe and effective? Scientific studies showing that electronic cigarettes actually help people to stop smoking are few and far between. But that isn't stopping many smokers, as well as a few experts, from giving e-cigarettes the benefit of the doubt. A new controversial opinion piece goes so far as to suggest that e-cigarettes could bring about the "demise" of traditional...

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Gene Wilder's Death: How Do People Die from Alzheimer's?

Legendary comedic actor Gene Wilder has died at age 83 from complications of Alzheimer's disease, his family announced today. But what exactly does it mean to die from Alzheimer's? Although Alzheimer's disease shortens people's life spans, it is usually not the direct cause of a person's death, according to the Alzheimer's Society, a charity in the United Kingdom for people with dementia. Rather...

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7 Ways Mentally Strong People Bounce Back From Failure

For some people, failure serves as a permanent roadblock that stands in between them and success. For the mentally strong, however, setbacks serve as an opportunity to sharpen their skills and become better. Whether they get passed up for a promotion, or their side hustle costs more money than it earns, mentally strong people don't let failure define them. Here's how mentally strong people turn...

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A Simple Exercise to Boost Optimism And Improve Health

Is our optimism level fixed or can we change it? Personality psychologists describe optimism as a generalized expectation that good things will happen. They see it as a core piece of a person’s disposition. Seen this way, optimism is relatively stable over time periods of days or weeks. Yet, studies have shown that over longer periods, a person’s optimism changes meaningfully. In one study that...

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Diabetes-related vision loss growing worldwide

The worldwide burden of diabetes-related vision loss is growing alarmingly. Over 2 decades from 1990-2010, the number of people worldwide with diabetes-related blindness or visual impairment rose by an alarming 27 percent and 64 percent, respectively. In 2010, 1 in every 52 people had vision loss and 1 in every 39 people were blind due to diabetic retinopathy - where the retina is damaged by...

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Diet and Weight Loss: The Best Ways to Eat

Low carb, or low fat? Should you go Atkins, Zone or Paleo? Or does it even matter which diet you choose when you want to lose weight? Most weight loss experts say that shedding pounds comes down to a simple formula: calories in versus calories out. In other words, if you burn more calories than you take in, you'll lose weight. However, the question of exactly how to cut calories — in a healthy,...

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Are You Easily Conned?

Machiavellians are temperamentally predisposed to scheme and cheat (as explained here). However, they can’t have their way without trusting or foolish victims who ignore the warning signs. Every con artist needs a rube capable of being gulled. I’ve written many articles about what makes master manipulators tick, but what about people who fall victim to Machiavellian schemes because they are too...

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