Got milk? Who cares? A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that poeple who don’t eat dairy foods had bones that were just as strong as the bones of those who do. The research, reported in the Boston Globe, compared 18 average […]

The Moving Crew, the Washington Post’s health and fitness consultants, persuaded Donnie Shaw, director of aquatics at the National Capital Y, to answer questions from aquatic-minded readers. Want to know what to do about ear infections? Whether you sweat when you swim? Jump in.

Time to play tennis, and time to reconsider last year’s tennis shoes. Here, to help you compare last year’s shoes to this year’s shoes, is a short piece by Roy Wallack that ran in the L.A. Times. Remember: treat your feet well, and they will return the favor.

In San Francisco, the best bike trail runs along the north edge of Golden Gate park, starting at the eastern end and rolling downhill to Ocean Beach. In Seattle, what may be the sweetest urban cycling route in the country is just getting off the drawing board. In New York, […]

Three weeks away from the 109th running of the Boston Marathon, it’s a bit late to start training, but for those who have qualified for the historic 26 mile, 385 yard contest, there are still some tweaks that can knock a few minutes off your time. Tapering, or reducing one’s […]

With just about every newspaper reporting on the recent poll that found most Americans chronically underslept, one paper is offering some advice. The Wall Street Journal suggests that those who suffer from insomnia, not just a lack of sleep, try a few non-pharmaceutical remedies before resorting to chemicals. One often-successful […]

While high cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease, it also appears to be associated with better performance on tests of mental skills like memory, concentration, abstract reasoning and organization.  That news, reported in the New York Times, comes from researchers working on famous Framingham heart study, an 18-year-research project […]

In New England, where I play soccer on the fabulous Wayland Spirit team (the Spirit is willing, but the flesh it is weak), spring is known as the season of the pulled hamstring. In this helpful (if hopeful) piece, Los Angeles Times writer Jeannine Stein says it doesn’t have to […]

In this success worshipful culture, the fourth great lie may be “I never sleep more than four or five hours a night.” Yet, as this story in the New York Times reveals, many who make that claim take cat naps in the afternoon and sleep away their weekends. More importantly, […]

Paul Schnieder, author of "The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket," is best known for writing about the coast of New England, but here, in this wonderfully descriptive piece, he walks us through the other end of the topographic spectrum: the desert trails of the […]