Joan Raymond

A weekly look at the nutritional value, or lack thereof, of some of our favorite foods.

A weekly look at the nutritional value, or lack thereof, of some of our favorite foods.

Jill O'Nan used to eat just one meal a day. But, as the joke goes, that meal began in the morning and didn't end until she went to sleep at night. As a freelance writer, O'Nan had no set meal schedule. "If McDonald's delivered, I probably wouldn't have left my house," says O'Nan, 45, who has battled the bulge since she was a child.With her supersize appetite, O'Nan's weight spiraled to 360 pounds.

A weekly look at the nutritional value, or lack thereof, of some of our favorite foods.

A weekly look at the nutritional value, or lack thereof, of some of our favorite foods.

Hank Furman prides himself on wringing the last cent out of a dollar. But when it comes to good health, "no amount of money is too much," says Furman, a 73-year-old retired machinist from Euclid, Ohio.

A weekly look at the nutritional value, or lack thereof, of some of our favorite foods.

If your credit-card bills are putting a damper on your new year, it may be time to transfer your balances to one of the low-rate offers in your mailbox. But keep in mind that balance transfers can hurt your credit.

You don't have to ditch leather or sell your car to help the environment. We've gathered 10 simple tips for living greener in 2007. Hey, it's a lot easier than losing those 15 pounds.1 Feed The Bees Pesticides, pollution and habitat destruction are taking a toll on the birds and insects that pollinate about 80 percent of the world's food supply (or about one out of every three bites of food we eat), says Rose Getch of the National Gardening Association.

This month, Tracy Oerter begins her annual battle with hay fever. Since she's allergic to trees, grass and weeds, there's no escape. Her throat tickles, her nose trickles.

Come Dec. 31, Americans will resolve to lose 20 pounds, quit smoking and save the environment--only to slip back into old habits before the snow melts. To forestall resolution failure, tip sheet asked experts in various fields for simple advice on New Year's resolutions that you might actually keep.

James Bond usually gets a laugh when people hear his name. But the 56-year-old accountant from Shaker Heights, Ohio, figured it might be a good sign that he was assigned the patient number of 007 when he entered an experimental-drug trial at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Travel: X Marks The Fun Spots By Sandy L. EdryIf your idea of a fun vacation is a pleasant stroll down cobblestone streets or even something as daring as a trip through the Serengeti inside a comfortable air-conditioned four-wheeler, then you can put this magazine down now.

For years, athletes have been told to gulp lots of water to avoid dehydration. But a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that some long-distance runners are overdoing it.

April is the cruelest month. Especially if you're one of the 35 million Americans dealing with the drippy nose and itchy eyes of seasonal allergic rhinitis, a.k.a.

As if you don't have enough to worry about when you're going under the knife, hospitals are getting a failing grade in infection control. According to a new study in the Archives of Surgery, nearly 44 percent of some 34,000 surgical patients across the country did not receive antibiotics within 60 minutes of surgery.

In medicine, early detection rules. That's why the nation's top endocrinology associations last week urged doctors to screen for type 2 diabetes as early as age 30 for people at risk.

Of all the medical orthodoxies of recent years, few were as ironclad as the prohibition against sunbathing. In a triumph of public education, the notion of a "healthy tan" was turned on its head, as conditions ranging from wrinkles to cataracts, immune-system problems and skin cancers, including deadly malignant melanoma, were linked to ultraviolet exposure.

If you want to lose weight, eat more. In a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association this month, Penn State researchers found that adding a large, low-cal salad before your entree actually reduces overall calorie intake.

Chickenpox is one rite of passage your kids may never know. Since 1995 about three quarters of children in the United States have received the varicella vaccine to avoid symptoms like red, itchy bumps, headaches and fevers.

Liposuction can slim your waistline. But according to a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine, the procedure doesn't provide any of the health benefits associated with diet and exercise.

For a guy who knows the software guts of a Tomahawk missile, programming a hand-held should be a no-brainer. But Don Patterson, a 30-year-old former Navy lieutenant and a Ph.D.

Mark Anderson, a 40-year-old bank senior vice president in Los Angeles, feared that a merger would eliminate his job. So, last year, he started to troll his Rolodex.

For years Don Otto, a tough 66-year-old warehouse supervisor, lived in fear of one thing: a fat, white envelope from the IRS. "I hated getting mail," says Otto, who owed $650,000 in taxes and penalties dating to the mid-'80s, when he owned a small foundry. "I would get this horrible stomachache every time I got a letter from them." Now, as this year's tax-filing deadline approaches, he's pain-free.