Walter Willett for Newsweek, February 5, 2010
Until last year, the residents of Albert Lea, Minn., were no healthier than any other Americans. Then the city became the first American town to sign on to the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project—the brainchild of writer Dan Buettner, whose 2008 book, The Blue Zones, detailed the health habits of the world’s longest-lived people. His goal was to bring the same benefits to middle America—not by forcing people to diet and exercise, but by changing their everyday environments in ways that encourage a healthier lifestyle.
What …

Rob Stein, Washington Post, January 22, 2010

One out of every five U.S. teenagers has a cholesterol level that increases the risk of heart disease, federal health officials reported Thursday, providing striking new evidence that obesity is making more children prone to illnesses once primarily limited to adults.

A nationally representative survey of blood test results in American teenagers found that more than 20 percent of those ages 12 to 19 had at least one abnormal level of fat. The rate jumped to 43 percent among those adolescents who were obese.
Previous studies had …

The New York Times
Pam Belluck – October 15 2009
Bans on smoking in places like restaurants, offices and public buildings reduce cases of heart attacks and heart disease, according to a report released Thursday by a federally commissioned panel of scientists.
The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increased the risk of a heart attackamong both smokers and nonsmokers. The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels …

Some research has suggested that consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, used as a sweetener in a wide variety of foods, may increase the risk of obesity and heart disease. Now, a controlled and randomized study has found that drinks sweetened with fructose led to higher blood levels of L.D.L, or “bad” cholesterol, and triglycerides in overweight test subjects, while drinks sweetened with another sugar, glucose, did not. Both L.D.L. and triglycerides have been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
The study was published online on Monday in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Researchers at the …

A large new study has provided added evidence that larger waist size alone, even in people of normal weight, significantly raises the risk for heart disease.
Researchers used data on 80,360 Swedish men and women ages 45 to 83 who were enrolled in two long-term health studies over a seven-year period ending in 2004. During those years, 1,100 of them were either hospitalized for heart disease or died from it.
The researchers measured waist size, waist-to-hip ratio, waist-to-height ratio, and B.M.I., or body mass index, a weight-to-height ratio. All four measures were …