Exercise

You've heard about the "Wheat Belly" diet, right? Well, technically, it doesn't exist. Dr. William Davis points out that the word "diet" does not appear on either the cover of his bestselling "Wheat Belly" book published in 2011 or on the follow-up, "Wheat Belly Cookbook," which was published last month and already tops bestseller lists. And that omission is intentional, Davis said. "Wheat Belly" is about stripping your plate of a substance that contributes to heart disease, causes joint pain, inflammation, foggy thinking, bloating and much more, Davis said.

As more people get their health information from TV and the Internet, it becomes crucial to have experts on the small screen who can provide accurate information. That's where Travis Stork, co-host of the TV show "The Doctors," comes in. Stork, an emergency room physician, is passionate about educating the public on how to prevent the illnesses that bring so many people in to see him in a crisis. Here, Stork, a onetime contestant on "The Bachelor," talks about getting outdoors, redefining fast food and using television as a positive influence.

Plantar fasciitis. If you haven't had to deal with it personally, just ask around. Chances are you know lots of people who can describe it in great detail: stabbing heel pain and agonizing steps followed by a frustratingly slow recovery. Plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar facsia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the arch from the heel to the toes - has become so ubiquitous that podiatrists can practically make the diagnosis before a patient even sets foot in their office.

BEIJING - North Korea fired three short-range missiles off its east coast Saturday, following through on months of threats to conduct a missile launch. The South Korean Defense Ministry reported that it detected two launches in the morning and another in the afternoon. Its initial assessment was that the missiles were short-range surface-to-ship or surface-to-surface missiles capable of traveling up to 72 miles, rather than the new medium-range Musudan missile that analysts fear could threaten U.S. troops in Guam or Okinawa, Japan.

"The Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan is usually focused on rehabbing canines -- but he's now revealing some work he had to do on himself following a suicide attempt in 2010. In February of that year, he lost his top dog, Daddy, to cancer after 16 years as a team. A month later, Millan's wife told him she wanted a divorce after 16 years of marriage. The combined blow knocked him for a loop, he shares in "Cesar Millan: The Real Story," a documentary on Nat Geo Wild. In May 2010, he attempted suicide via drug overdose, winding up unconscious and hospitalized, he said.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the supplement nitric oxide? Richard Sunland Nitric oxide is a gas naturally found in the body; its function is conveying information between cells. One of its main jobs is increasing blood flow by dilating blood vessels, and that's why it's sometimes given in supplement form to heart patients, orally and intravenously. In at least one study it's been shown to be effective for lowering blood pressure.

Vertigo. For most people, the word summons images of Jimmy Stewart dangling from high places in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller by the same name. It means something else, however, to hundreds of thousands of people who experience the strange, dizzying affliction. The most common cause of vertigo, known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, usually can be treated with one visit to the doctor.

Until recently, very few people had ever heard of raspberry ketones, the aromatic compounds that give the berries their distinctive smell. Today, health food stores have trouble keeping the capsules or drops of the stuff on their shelves. Almost overnight, an obscure plant compound became the next big thing in weight loss - and all it took was a few words from Dr. Oz. In a February episode of "The Dr. Oz Show," Mehmet Oz told viewers that raspberry ketones were "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. " Once Oz calls something a "miracle," it doesn't remain obscure for long.

Gloria Hale rose at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, as usual, to swim laps before work. Active though she is, however, the 55-year-old Orange County woman was a bit stunned to learn the latest advice from researchers regarding exercise -- that women should work out 60 minutes a day, seven days a week, to maintain a normal weight over their lifetime. "Most people are going to say, 'No way. I don't have time for that,' " said Hale, a trim 5-foot-5 and 138 pounds. The 60-minute-a-day recommendation, released online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Two years ago, Robert Beals of San Clemente realized that it was time to get serious about his health. Since then, he has quit smoking, developed a regular exercise habit and started using supplemental oxygen. "They gave me a choice," he says. "I could extend and improve the quality of my life, or I could just keep going the way I was. "So it really wasn't hard to choose." Beals, 74, has had lung problems since he was a child.

For Dr. Antronette K. Yancey, a UCLA public health professor, exercise could be fun and done in short bursts in the workplace, schools and even places of worship. Her campaign to urge people to incorporate physical activity into their daily lives led to a 2010 book about the topic - "Instant Recess: Building a Fit Nation 10 Minutes at a Time. " Long before First Lady Michelle Obama launched a national conversation on physical fitness, Yancey was talking about the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle and the benefits of exercise, colleagues said.

Diners confronted with the sweat equivalents of food offerings on a restaurant menu get a good, hard look at what they are in for -- and order a lower-calorie meal -- than do those who see actual calorie counts or no nutritional data at all, new research says. At Texas Christian University, researchers recruited 300 young adults and offered them each a menu with much of the usual casual dining fare: hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries, salads, desserts, sodas and water. A third of the participants got a menu that had no calorie counts, and another third got a menu with the calorie counts of individual food items prominently listed.

Think of the adage that if you want something done, get the busy person to do it. People who change their diet and start exercising at the same time - as opposed to doing them one at a time - were more successful, researchers at Stanford School of Medicine found. Few studies have looked at dietary change and exercise together, and the few studies that look at how to introduce more than one healthy change into people's lives are conflicting, the researchers said in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

The Starchild outfit Paul Stanley wears as frontman for KISS is a revealing one. That's why I chose it for Halloween a couple of years back. I wanted to showcase the efforts of my diet and exercise regimen. I got the hair wrong. And at 61 years of age, Stanley can't let himself go and still rock out to arenas full of screaming fans. As one of the hardest working bands in rock 'n' roll, he has a reputation to maintain -- one he won't let age tarnish. I've seen how lively KISS performances are up close and understand his dedication to fitness to keep the fans on their feet for the band's Monster world tour.

Running or swimming could help slow some of the damage done to the brain by alcohol, researchers found. Aerobic exercise was associated with less damage to specific parts of the brain's white matter, though the researchers could not say how much exercise would balance a night on the town. They reported their findings in an online preview of publication in September's journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. No surprise here, but the researchers also found the flip side to be the case: Heavy drinking combined with a sedentary life posed risks to brain health.

If you want your legs to look good from all angles, try this challenging lower-body sculptor. Called the triangle butt lift, it's a great way to tone your legs and abdominals at the same time, says fitness instructor Cassey Ho of the popular Blogilates YouTube channel and "Pop Pilates Total Body Workout" DVD. What it does This sweeping exercise tones your glutes as well as your inner and outer thighs while engaging your transverse abdominals...

As a nation, we are obviously getting fatter and fatter. Not only are we ever more confused about how to lose weight, we're particularly fuzzy on the question of how big a role exercise plays and whether we just have to count calories. So, here's the deal. Yes, you can count calories or weigh yourself every day. If your weight is up today compared with yesterday, you ate more calories than you burned. If it's less, you burned more than you ate -- provided you didn't drink gallons of liquid the day before, which could throw the scale off. It comes down to simple arithmetic, and you've heard it before: Calories in, calories out. You will absolutely, inevitably, sadly, this-could-not-be-clearer gain weight if you eat more calories than you expend in basic metabolism -- breathing, digesting, sleeping, etc. -- plus whatever else you do, such as chasing the kids, walking, vacuuming or going to the gym. But most of us can't, or won't, do the math, probably because it's so depressing.

The skater gliding gracefully on one leg has it. So do the grandfather splitting wood, the schoolgirl hopping on a pogo stick and the yogi performing a headstand. Good balance is both a gift of genetics and an athletic skill that can be improved through training. "Many people think you either have good balance or you don't, but that's not true," says Peter Kormann, head coach of the 1996 U.S. Olympic men's gymnastics team. "With training and practice, nearly anyone can improve their balance."

The patient in his 50s was mildly overweight, had high cholesterol and was headed down the road to diabetes. Common problems, and his doctor made the usual recommendation: medications. But the patient, Michael Mosley - a British author, journalist, TV personality and doctor himself - decided to go a different route. He traveled around his own country and ours, interviewing leading researchers, then tested some of their latest findings. The result? "The Fast Diet," a bestselling book in Britain (it has nothing to do with fast food, how fast you eat or even how fast you lose weight)

WASHINGTON - The nonprofit advocacy group that was formed to back President Obama's agenda, which was sharply criticized as a potential conduit for wealthy interests to influence the White House, has been financed overwhelmingly by thousands of small donors since its launch in late January. Organizing for Action took in just three six-figure donations through the end of March. The biggest, $250,000, came from a son of Warren Buffett's longtime business partner. Only about two dozen of the 770 fundraisers who collected major donations for Obama's reelection gave to the organization, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.