Health - Fitness latest news

Like the United States, China is grappling with a serious obesity epidemic, with more than 25 percent of its adults considered overweight or obese and the rate of overweight adults in the country growing remarkably fast, reports a new study in the journal health Affairs.

If you're a heavy person, you probably dread medical visits that seem to center on weight, regardless of whether you come in for an unrelated complaint or a routine screening. Even so, don't let that stop you from getting the health care you deserve. Larger patients can take control of their health care experience through communication, planning, assertiveness and even a bit of attitude.

With unprecedented levels of obesity across the Western world, and incidence of associated heart disease, cancer and diabetes rising, there is a major drive to find new treatments. Scientists from Germany have recently discovered that extracts of a traditional herbal remedy derived from Tabebuia impetiginosa can act to delay the absorption of dietary fat in animal models.

If you've ever spent an entire day walking around, say on vacation, you've probably woken up with tight, achy calves or, worse, the dreaded calf cramp which can leave you...

US researchers working on a study comparing approaches to weight loss, found that keeping a food diary can double weight loss as part of a managed programme; they said that the more food records they kept, the more weight the participants lost. The study was carried out by investigators from Kaiser Permanente's Center for health Research, and is to be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive medicine.

Dara Torres jokes that she had trouble reading the scoreboard after winning the first of two events at the Olympic swimming trials.