Although it may seem glaringly obvious to us, the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital published a study recently regarding lifestyle and decisions made by women that directly affect how long we live and how well we live.

Five activities and decisions can have a direct effect on our lives.

They are

Smoking
Drinking
Exercise
Diet
Disease History

The extensive study began in 1980 with 80,000 women and lasted 24 years.

A recent report from the National Cancer Institute suggests that older women who are over weight increase their risk for breast cancer. The study looked at the health histories from nearly 100,000 postmenopausal women and examined their change in weight, or body mass index (BMI), over their adult lifetime.

Women who were not obese or overweight at age 18 but were at ages 35 to 50 had almost double the risk of developing breast cancer compared with women who maintained a normal weight, according to a Science Daily report on the study.

In a perfect world, we'd all eat fresh fruit and veggies, low fat, high protein foods and fast foods would be non-existent.

But since we all live in the real world, fast food is a reality for nearly all of us.
Simply stated - Americans love fast food.

To answer the question of how much is too much, many nutritionists would say any amount is too much. Fast food is an overly processed collection of salty, saturated fats that offer little in terms of nutrition. And for the most part, the nutritionists are right.

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By Ed Edelson
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- Heavy drinking, heavy smoking and high cholesterol levels in midlife are associated with the onset of Alzheimer's disease in later years, news research shows.

The apparent link between behavior in the 40s and the development of dementia decades later come from two reports presented Wednesday at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, in Chicago.

A few months ago, one of our participants in my marathon/half marathon training program was having a lot of trouble breathing during a long run and nearly passed out. We had all been concerned about how thin she is and how she always seemed to have trouble running. She ended up having heart surgery to remove a blockage and, astonishingly, returned to finish the program and still plans to run the upcoming marathon with us.